In the early 1990s I served as a part-time statistical consultant and program evaluator for the Board of Education in the city of Newark, NJ. The busiest period was during the summer after the spring "post-test" data was available (students were tested at the beginning of the fall and end of the spring semesters). During the school year, I worked there on Fridays, working on ongoing projects, analyzing data from previous years and so on. I lived in NYC and would get to Newark by taking the PATH subway which connected Manhattan to cities in NJ. Usually, I took the PATH train from the World Trade Center (WTC) to the end of the line in Newark and then walked to the Board of Education offices.
On Friday, February 26, 1993, I did my usual routine but shortly after noon, the radio I was listening to said that something had happened at the WTC. "Great", was my annoyed reaction, "that'll mean I'll have to take the other PATH line into Manhattan and I'll get home later than expected." And then, as the news reports provided more details, I realized that this minor annoyance was to be the least of my worries. What happened was that a car bomb had been detonated in the parking structure under the WTC, killing several people, causing injuries to over a 1000 people, and revealing how unprepared the WTC and NYC was for a terrorist attack. At the time, we didn't appreciate the full implications of what had happened. The NY Times, which does a "This Day in History" type article, reminds us of what happened and what we thought the day after in their Saturday edition. One of the stories from that edition and the front page are available here: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0226.html#article Wikipedia has an entry that also has the benefit of additional information and hindsight as well as being able to put the event in the context of subsequent events; here is a link to the entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing A number of changes took place at the WTC as a result of the 1993 bombing, things like closing off the parking area where the bombing took place, reconfiguring the ground floors of the buildings to allow easier exit from the building, emergency and evacuation procedures, and so on. It was also decided that the doors to the roofs would be locked because it was felt that in the case of future attacks, helicopter rescues from the roof would be too dangerous and going to the roof was to be discouraged -- though this point had not been publicized or even known by people working in the WTC, which is why some people tried to get to the roofs on 9/11/01 and people watching on TV wondered why helicopters were not rescuing people from roofs because it was clear the floors on fire prevented them from going down in the building. Thought some lessons had been learned on Friday, February 26, 1993, not enough were learned nor had their implications been worked through. Just something to think about as we approach the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=9031 or send a blank email to leave-9031-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
