Manhattan Mid-Afternoon

[Jim Windle]

I have been out trying to give blood.  At this point all hospitals and blood donation centers have been inundated with volunteers and are only taking Types O+ and O- which are the universal donor types.  Anyone in the area with those types should try to donate today.  They are asking the rest of us to come back tomorrow or later in the week as they expect the need for blood to be protracted.  

All the subways were closed but are now running again as are the city buses, the bridges and tunnels are still closed to non-pedestrian traffic I hear.  Most businesses have closed for the day and sent people home who are all walking on the street.  Banks, drugstores and grocery stores are still open, and busy.  Passing the &th regiment armory on Park Ave, the national guard are reporting apparently to help in cordoning off and cleaning up the WTC area.  I also stopped at the grocery store on my way home, it was crowded, a bit more than the last blizzard, but there are still items on the shelves.  There is a small amount of non-official traffic, but a number of streets are closed off.  I did however see a couple of lage cranes headed downtown.  Some street with power sub-station or telephone switching facilityes are closed off and barracaded with NYC garbage trucks or Dept. of Transportation concrete mixer trucks.  There are a handful of F-15's circling over Manhattan, the r!
est of the normal overhead air traffic is nonexistent at the moment.  Police and police auxilary are out directing traffic at major intersections, manning barricades and walking about answering questions.  I have not been south of mid-town so I can't speak of lower Manhattan where the attack was but here there has been no "panic".  The sidewalks are very crowded, people are somber and tense but don't seem to anticipate anything else here in the city and ae quite willing to help if possible.  The lines at both the Manhattan Blood center and at Lennox Hill Hospital were around the block with people waiting to donate blood.

The plume of smoke is still rising and plainly visible from any rooftop and at ground level looking down the avenues.  So far the infrastructure of the City seems to be handling things.  The broadcast tower at the WTC is gone so some broadcast TV and radio are out, but other local stations are still on the air and the cable feed appears unaffected.  The subways are not running but were apparently shut down for fear of a terrorist act.  The subway line does not run through the WTC anyway.  The PATH train to NJ does however.  It is apparently out but how badly or if at all the tunnels were damaged I cannot say.  All the financial markets are closed, it is not clear when the stock exchange will reopen, I have heard a rumor it may close for the week.  It is not close enough I think to have been damaged but it seems that all downtown is shut off and will be for some time until the the fire is under control and the area has been cleaned up, that could be a while.  Phone and intern!
et service is still up though the network is burdened, earlier today I had some difficulty getting a dial tone but not now.  Obviously the City has been the target of a major terrorist attack, but except for a few people fleeing immediately after the attack I have heard of no one leaving. The official response seems to have been very efficient in terms of deploying to protect other potential target, particularly the city's infrastructure.  I cannot speak of the response at the WTC not having been there but it seems they have called in everyone and everything that can possibly be of use in the situation though with an attack of this magnitude that still may not be enough.

Jim


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