Jake Johnson
10/26/2011
Professor Clark
English 101- C18
The terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 were attacks intended by the one executing them, to hit right to the heart of our country. They did this with an extreme physical loss of life, an emotional impact of loss, and realization of our country’s vulnerability. This day in history has changed daily American life as we know it all the way from the way we travel, to the way we see other citizens. Since this day Americans have started a “war on terrorism”, but the question comes forth, has terrorism started a war on Americans?
The attacks on September 11th were the most devastating terrorist attacks to ever take place on American soil. On this day two Boeings 767’s crashed into the World Trade Center towers. The north tower was the first to get hit at 8:46 am Eastern Time. After the impact people below the impact zone started to evacuate as fast as possible well the ones above the impact zone could not due to the plane taking out the stairwells at the point of impact. As evacuation was happening at about 9:03 am Eastern Time the south tower was hit by an identical plane. The same evacuation methods were used with the exception that one stairwell was left open causing people to head towards the roof for a rooftop evacuation. Almost one hour after the crash into the south tower at about 9:59 Eastern Time the tower collapsed in on itself followed by the collapse of the north tower at about 10:28 am eastern time. (Johnson)
Not only were the towers destroyed in this attack but there were many lives that were taken as well. As of February 2005 2,749 death certificates were filed due to the attacks on September 11th, 2001. Of that number 23 were New York City police officers, well approximately 343 were New York City Firefighters. Approximately 70 percent of these deaths were caused above the area the planes hit due to trapped victims (Johnson).
As well as the Twin Towers getting hit there was also a plane that went down in a field in Pennsylvania believe to be heading for the nation’s capital of Washington D.C., and another plane that crashed into the Pentagon building. The Pentagon was crashed into about 30 minutes from the time the planes had hit the World Trade Center Towers. This crash was not nearly as devastating and only penetrated the outermost region of the Pentagon building. There were 189 casualties resulting from this crash. (Roberts) Ever since this day there have been monumental changes in our country from air travel, new legal changes and governmental agencies, immigration rates, and the way we look at and treat people of Islamic decent and just middle easterners overall. After 9-11-2001 people will probably never see air travel the same as they saw it before that day. People have become more scared to travel and have developed a heightened sense of vulnerability in our country’s statistically most safe way to travel. Two months after the attacks on September 11th congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. This act created the agency called the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). This agency changed many things such as security at the airports were no longer outsourced to private security firms, stricter guidelines were put in place for luggage screening and what you can and cannot bring on the plane, and also added onto the cost of passengers tickets. (Villemez and Mortada) As well as making new governmental agencies like the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security, a very controversial legal change was known as the “USA Patriot Act”. This stood for “The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (USA PATRIOT Act).”(Jenks) This act was very controversial for many reasons, the main one being that many American citizens believed it infringed in our simple civil liberties and destroyed the sense of privacy that Americans thought