I’m not exactly sure
what I expected when Ioanna and I retraced the
path we took ten years ago to Ground Zero.
What we found was powerful, though.
Watch a web-only video preview presentation from this feature.
Ioanna Roumeliotis speaks with Canadian hotelier Hans Gerhardt ten years after losing his son, Ralph, in the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11. Watch online here.
You’ll sometimes see journalists,
myself included, write about being eyewitnesses to history, about having the
good fortune to be in that front row seat to an unprecedented event in time.
But there was nothing
good or fortunate about what happened in New York on September 11th, 2001.
It was horrific.
For me and a few
Toronto colleagues, the day began early, with an ugly road race against time
and security obstacles to New York. But
it was important a CBC crew get there fast, to have Canadian eyes and ears – that
Canadian perspective – on the ground for our viewers and listeners.
Correspondent Ioanna
Roumeliotis and I were part of the first CBC crew to get to Lower Manhattan by
that night, rubble at our feet, ash falling on our heads, the haunted eyes of
rescue crews searing our memories.
Thousands died on
that day at the site of the World Trade Center, but on 9/11 and in the two
weeks that followed, we were able to bring you the voices of the people who
lived – the husbands and wives, father and mothers, and the people who came to
help.
Their faces and their
stories stayed with us. For ten years.
And now, we have the
good fortune to be able to go back, to seek out some of those people we met a
decade ago – not just to find out where they are, but hear HOW they are. And tell you.
What unfolded became
a remarkable journey for us, and dare I say, a remarkable journey for those
people, too.
I had been back to
New York City since 9/11, but not in some years, and not with these eyes. From
the moment Ioanna and I drove over the George Washington Bridge, onto the FDR
into Manhattan, the flashbacks began. It
was the same route we took ten years ago, only back then, the roads were
deserted and the sky ink black, save for a glow and eerie cloud up ahead.
Later, criss-crossing
packed city streets in a yellow cab, there was Union Square engaged in the busy
bustle of a normal day – only in my mind, all I could see were the flowers, the
candles, and the tears of a vigil a decade ago.
Walking by the
Salvation Army, the Armory, Pier 94, even a bakery on Tribeca’s Duane Street
sent me reeling back in time, to a city cloaked in fear, sorrow and patriotism.
I could still see the
young Canadian woman, her hair wrapped in an American flag bandana, nimbly
icing American flag cookies. I could see
the dazed merchant pacing the length of an ash-covered jeans store. The volunteer firefighter who could barely
stand, his body aching with fatigue, his consciousness only beginning to
comprehend what had happened. And the
office worker taking what I would soon find out was one of her final glances
ever down a street leading to a heaping, crumbling mass of what was once the
Twin Towers.
Today, new mom Sarah
Bunker, originally from Chatham, Ontario, can’t get enough of the images from
ten years ago. She devours every article
written, every report broadcast about 9/11.
Bunker saw people die that day, but deals with the horror and a
lingering terror in her own, personal way “Catharsis,” Bunker calls it. “It’s like I need to remember how I was
feeling in that moment.”
Moshe Alfassi’s way
of coping with the death that swirled all around his Lower Manhattan denim shop
couldn’t be more opposite. He stays as
far away as possible from anything to do with 9/11. “If it comes on TV, I just switch the
channel,” he says. “It’s not something you want to see again and again. I saw
it live, so it’s hard.”
Still a volunteer
firefighter, Chris Gould pauses or sighs after every question Ioanna asks. 
It’s almost as if he’s thinking, why does she
want me to relive these moments? But at
the same time, needing to speak about what happened. He’s still processing, even after ten years.
“I did have a hard time. To this day, I
haven’t talked to a lot of people about it, even with my wife,” he shares.
“It’s something that is with me and will always be with me.”
And Iris Altreche
secretly hoped we wouldn’t show up for her interview. She vaguely remembers the Canadian reporter
and producer who spotted her praying silently on a
street corner ten years
ago. Altreche agreed to walk back with
us, to that very spot which once would’ve been in the shadow of the World Trade
Center. We had no idea how difficult a
journey a few blocks could be. Tears
never far from the surface, she tells us she just can’t forget. But she goes back with us. And that, in its self, is probably progress.
Healing in baby steps.
Bunker, Alfasi, Gould
and Altreche didn’t lose loved ones in the terror attacks, but they are still
grieving all the same. So, too, are the
people we met who did lose a husband, a wife, a son. And you will meet all of them when we
broadcast our journey back to Ground Zero on Sunday night’s The National.
Ten years ago these
people – and more – touched us, as surely they touched you. Their stories could have remained mere
snapshots of a horrific moment in time. Journalists
often drop in and out of people’s lives, share their stories, and move on. Not always, do we have the privilege of
checking in again. And when we do, the
expectation is sometimes of big changes, revised feelings, or a new perspective
with hindsight taken into consideration.
I’m not exactly sure
what I expected when Ioanna and I literally went down this road, retracing that
path we took ten years ago to Ground Zero.
What we found was powerful, though.
Life has changed for the people we met, in some cases dramatically. Some have moved cities, even countries.
There have been marriages, and lots of children, if possible, more
cherished than ever.
But while life has changed, I’m not sure
any of these people have moved on much emotionally, made peace with what
happened. Perhaps that’s not possible.
Scratch the scars inflicted on 9/11, and they still bleed. Today, tomorrow, and probably in another ten
years, as well.
Bruce Anderson grew up with a curiosity about what exactly makes people do what they do and eventually found himself in the market and opinion research business. After spending his early career on Parliament Hill working with a Liberal cabinet minister, he left to join Allan Gregg’s research firm, Harris/Decima, in 1983.
