Introduction
The United States of America will never be the same again since September 2001, exactly fourteen minutes to nine in the morning. On this day, four coordinated terrorist attacks planned by famous Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda hit America in New York City and Washington, Metropolitan area. These attacks left more than two thousand people dead, and caused damage to property worth more than ten billion US dollars. Four commercial airlines, two from United Airlines and two from American Airlines, were hijacked by the terrorists who intended to crash them on prominent United States buildings. Sadly, these terrorists succeeded in their act.
Communication within the government and with the public
The attackers coordinated their attack very vehemently and secretly that it was difficult to detect their plan. They used little or no electronic communication thus there was radio silence in their communication (Hendrie. 2011). There were several failures in communication at the federal government level. The most lethal failure was the Air threat conference call that was initiated by the National Military Command Control Centre (NMCC) after two planes crashed on the World Trade Center, but prior to the attack on Pentagon. The participants did not succeed in their quest to include the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic control command center, which was believed to have a huge chunk of information about the attack.
The destruction of the emergency operations center located in the World Trade Center caused little communication happening between New York Police department and the fire department. Amateur radio operators augmented emergency relief efforts both in the Lower Manhattan and the Pentagon. Cell phones and in-plane credit card phones became the major mode of communication amongst government arms as well as amongst the public. These calls saved the situation from causing more damage.
The victims made their last communication after each of the hijacked aircraft hit the World Trade Center. Other callers used the emergency after frantic petitions were made to have the calls released. Cell phones did not have photography or texting abilities thus the only way was to wait till verbal communication is enabled or restored. Television coverage was limited since the network was disrupted after the World Trade Center was attacked. The radio transmission continued to work on the AM frequency mode, and used the New York offices for the programs.
Rescue operations
Experts in rescue arrived seven minutes after the explosions and began the work of evacuating people from the buildings. There was however a problem in communication due to the breakdown of telephone line. This made the rescue staffs to go direct to the buildings without waiting for any commands from their service commanders (Snow, 2011). Emergency medical technicians operated together with system ambulances to try and save as many people as possible. The ambulances were operated by volunteer hospitals and corps. Local merchants helped donate food in the entire afternoon.
The afternoon saw the division of the medical rescue teams. One camp was dedicated to receiving survivors who were seriously injured, and the other one catered for the walking wounded. Some other make-shift cubicles were erected as well, with each having a physician, nurse and other health care and volunteers. These would cater for mass arrivals of casualties. The neighboring hospitals provided any equipment needed, and offered to help trauma cases that needed urgent attention.
Challenges faced by first responders
There was no communication going through hence the first responders could not organize themselves well. Phone calls could not go through making it impossible to group the teams that descended on the twin buildings to help save lives. Another major challenge experienced was experience to handle such situations. The few that had experience could not be relied upon to coordinate the rescue operations entirely. The heavy machines used in the rescue operations turned the debris completely making it impossible to salvage any property that had not been utterly destroyed.
The first responders to the attack did not have gloves to cover their hands. This posed great health risk to them since working on bare hands in such a circumstance is a health hazard on its own. Shock was another major challenge faced by the first respondents. They were too shocked to act swiftly to save the situation from causing further harm (Posner, 2005). The agencies that first arrived at the scene had the challenge of funding. This being an emergency, the funding for the rescue operations was unprecedented thus not set aside. A health hazard at the scene was a diesel fuel tank buried seven stories below, and approximately two thousand automobiles parked at the garage with each having at least five gallons of gasoline.
The swift response by the government agencies is an action that needs to be applauded. A span of seven minutes and most if not all of the strong rescue teams had already made their way to the scene ready for rescue. The swift rescue operation shows an act of care and courage on the side of the government. In the absence of proper communication, the achievements got thereof are worth a standing ovation on the side of the government.
However, there was need to have the communication restored almost immediately so as to have proper coordination of rescue operations. The fact that the World Trade Center was hit may not be enough proof to state that communication was cut short. There was some laxity on senior government officials who failed to act even on some hint that Al-Qaeda was planning a big attack on the United States.
Conclusion
The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were enough proof that no one is safe from terrorists. The U.S. being a super power was attacked in the broad daylight making it plain clear those terrorists are amongst us. The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Central Investigations Agency need to be on high alert since the death of Osama bin Laden did not mean the death of Al-Qaeda.
References
Hendrie. E. (2011). 9/11-Enemies Foreign and Domestic. New York. Great Mountain Publishing.
Posner, R. A. (2005). Preventing Surprise Attacks: Intelligence Reform in the Wake of 9/11. New York. Rowman & Littlefield
Snow, N. (2011). Information War: American Propaganda, Free Speech and Opinion Control Since 9-11. New York. Seven Stories Press.
