If you go back and watch the news clips from the aftermath at Ground Zero, look at the swarms of people stomping around the wreckage, trying to dig victims out -- you ever wonder who those people were? The city didn't have that many rescue personnel (no city does). The answer is, they're everybody -- regular people, from all over the country. While most of us sat glued to a television in a stunned silence that was interrupted only by the occasional, "Dude, can you believe this shit?" others drove or walked toward the scene of the horror. They showed up in droves to the mountains of still-burning rubble and breathed toxic smoke for days and weeks in hopes of doing some good.
You may even recognize some of the faces that showed up to work.
The one we spoke to -- Feal -- was just a young foreman with a private demolition company. He was on a job site about an hour upstate of New York City when his crew got the news that American Airlines Flight 11 had struck the North Tower. After reports came minutes later that the South Tower had also been hit, Feal and his fellow supervisors realized America was under attack and gave the order to their men to either head home to their loved ones or get a room at a nearby hotel. Feal, however, was heading to Ground Zero with whoever wanted to come along. There were surely survivors still under the rubble, and they needed to get out now, regardless of whether or not somebody makes a Nicolas Cage movie about it.
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