Hoboken

Category: Story

Upon exiting the ferry, we were shuffled out in a weird way--we walked through an area I never knew existed, a passageway alongside the train tracks. There was a triage center set up, with lots of people in surgical gowns. Some of them were working on people, but it was hard to see what was going on. I remember also not wanting to gawk.

There was also a place where they were detaining those who had WTC dust on themselves. They kept making announcements when we got off the ferry, that those who were in close proximity to the towers should stand aside and they'd be taken to a decontamination center. I was close by, but I had no dust on me, since I got out of the areas before the collapse.

I didn't want to let on that I had been nearby. De-contamination struck me funny and creeped me out--it also made me wonder if my earlier instinct had been correct--that there had been contaminated air or gas at the site. I kept my mouth shut, but sometimes wish that I had signed on, if only to report back on what had happened.