Meaning from chaos

On 11 september 2001, as the Twin Towers smouldered, there was confusion everywhere. In his blog, written on the day of the attack in New York, Jeffrey Zeldman wrote, ‘The news is running loops of the impact, loops of the implosions. Like everyone else, I watch, hoping to see or hear something that makes sense. But all I learn is that thousands of New Yorkers can die in an instant.’ In her contemporary blog, Grace wrote, ‘I kept thinking, “This is just like Armageddon.” And I didn't even see that movie.’ Barbara Clark, in Florida, was one of many who, when she turned on the television, ‘couldn't believe what I saw. I thought at first that it was just a movie, but it wasn't.’ Adam Oestrich, who had got out of the World Trade Center from the twenty-fourth floor, wrote that as he was walking away, ‘we heard this sound that can only be described as a “thundering crack.” That is the best I can do. I then saw what I thought was just a chunk of the WTC but it was actually the whole tower. I said it wasn't … I couldn't believe it …’ At 11.39 that morning, Declan McCullagh in Washington sent an email in which he said ‘NSA and CIA – their complexes are miles outside of Washington DC proper – have been evacuated.