September 11: We Will Never Forget

It is hard to believe that it’s been more than a occurred. For many of us, that day is etched in time, seared in our brains so much that we can remember exactly where we were and what we were doing at the time. For youngsters, it is a day they are learning about from history books, teachers and people in their lives. Either way, it will never be forgotten. Here are 10 interesting tidbits related to the day, and subsequent events that followed.

Local Connection

, contributed more than $8.4 million in disaster relief efforts in the aftermath of 9/11. More than 199,000 employees donated to the relief and Boeing matched each one. 

Boeing products protected the U.S. during Operation Noble Eagle and went to battle over Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom.

Boeing extended their military leave policy up to 60 months after 9/11 and said policy included differential pay and benefits for employees called to duty under 9/11-related orders. Normally coverage is only provided up to 90 calendar days.

FAA First
Sept. 11 was the first time in history that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) halted all flights at airports nationwide. 

Death Toll
Although the exact numbers vary, roughly 3,000 people were killed on 9/11. That figure includes victims at the World Trade Center (WTC), Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. It is speculated that victims came from more than 70 countries around the globe. It is also noted that 40 percent of those who died at the World Trade Center had no remains found at all.

United Airlines Flight 93
Vice President Joe Biden will dedicate the United Airlines Flight 93 National Memorial Saturday. President Barack Obama will give an address on Sunday. The permanent memorial is estimated to have cost $60 million and is a 400 acre bowl-shaped area located in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania. There are 1,800 acres set as a buffer area. The memorial itself is a circle with a break in the trees to symbolize the path the plane took as it crashed. Architect Paul Murdoch developed the concept.

658
The North Tower’s bond trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald, located on floors 101-105, suffered the single largest loss of life with 658 employees. The North Tower burned approximately 102 minutes before it finally collapsed.

Ground Zero
During the massive cleanup of Ground Zero, construction worker, Frank Silecchia, was brought to his knees when he looked up among all the carnage on the garage level to see two steel beams in the shape of a gigantic cross. That cross will now belong to the National 9/11 Museum, which is scheduled to open next year.

World Trade Center Building 7
A third skyscraper, World Trade Center Building 7, also fell on Sept. 11. The 47-story beast was 300 ft. from the closest Twin Tower. Its implosion ended at 5:20 p.m. EDT.

In November, 2008, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released its final report on the causes of the collapse of 7 World Trade Center. NIST determined that diesel fuel did not play an important role, nor did the structural damage from the collapse of the twin towers, nor did the transfer elements (trusses, girders, and cantilever overhangs). But the lack of water to fight the fire was an important factor. The fires burned out of control during the afternoon, causing floor beams to expand and push a key girder off its seat, triggering nine floors to fail, which triggered a trickle-effect causing the entire building above to fall downward as a single unit.

Still some believe that building was purposly blown up. According to an online paper by David R. Kimball published in 2005: "On 9/11 a THIRD Skyscraper Plunged to Earth: The Sudden Implosion of WTC Building 7," on Sept. 16, 2001, NASA flew an airplane over the World Trade Center site and recorded infrared radiation coming from the ground. The organization then created a thermal map, and the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed this data, and determined the actual temperature of the rubble. This map shows that five days after the collapse of Building 7,the surface temperature of asection of its rubble was 1,341º F, according to the e-paper, this high of a temperature is indicative of the use of explosives.

www.911digitalarchive.org
In September 2003, the Library of Congress accepted www.911digitalarchive.org into its collections to ensure long term preservation, thus marking the library’s first major digital acquisition. The website has more than 150,000 digital items, more than 40,000 emails, 15,000 first-hand stories and 15,000 digital images from 9/11.

Victims Compensation
According an email sent to the Sept. 11 Victims Compensation Fund, some victims’ families felt frustrated over what they believed to be “unjust consumption tables and inconsistent workforce statistics.” In many wrongful death suits, the future earnings are figured up to the eligibility of social security, according to a few emails addressed to the fund, but the computation set was said to be different for single 9/11 victims with no dependents.

Manpower
It took more than 600 workers to build the 9/11 memorial located where the Twin Towers sat. The memorial is entitled “Reflecting Absence” and was designed by Michael Arad. There are two memorial pools, north and south, which are 1-acre each and sit in the footprints of the Twin Towers. The largest man-made waterfalls in the country flow into the pools. The names of all victims, including six from the WTC attack in February of 1993, surround the pools in bronze. The names are not alphabetical but instead reflect the relationships that the victims had in life.