En smakebit på søndag - The Only Plane in the Sky

Den här veckan är det bloggen Betraktninger som står värd för En smakebit på søndag. Poängen är att man ska bjuda på ett utdrag ur den bok man läser för tillfället.

Just nu läser jag The Only Plane in the Sky: the Oral History of 9/11 av Garett M. Graff. Med hjälp av dokument och utredningsmaterial, varav en del har varit hemligstämplat fram till nyligen, samt intervjuer med över 500 olika människor, berättar Graff om 9/11 så som dagen upplevdes av de som var där.

Det är ett tungt ämne (och en tung bok på nästan 500 sidor), men mycket intressant och faktiskt förhållandevis lättläst.


Constance Labetti, accountant, Aon Corporation, South Tower, 99th floor: Our boss, Ron Fazio, knew he had to get us out of there. He said, "Go to the staircase." I returned to my desk to grab my sneakers because I had 99 flights to descend. I started to climb down on the steps. I still had my heels on, and my sneakers in my hand. I remember hearing the PA announcer come on - the PA announcer said, "Do not evacuate. Stay where you are. We have no structural damage. There's structural damage to Tower One, which we're evacuating, but Tower Two go back to your workstations."

[...]

Judith Wein, senior vice president, Aon Corporation, South Tower, 103rd floor: It was a wide staircase, and we were going down two abreast. There was a little space in the middle. Every once in a while I saw somebody go up - come up. They would mumble, "Oh, I left such-and-such on my desk." I'm always wondering in retrospect: Did they ever come back down?