Still A Dreamer

The Great Boatlift of 9/11, sent to me by a friend yesterday, is a truly moving documentary about the boat evacuation on 9/11 and how everyday people became heroes in a largely unsung rescue. I don’t know how it is that I had never seen this before yesterday.

With the towers in flames and everyone running for their lives, it soon became clear that Manhattan was an island and that there weren’t many places to run. But that it’s an island also meant something else. There were boats. This is such an amazing film, made 10 years after 9/11 by Eddie Rosenstein and narrated by Tom Hanks. When the call went out for help, hundreds of  tugboats, ferries, fishing boats, coast guard cutters, party boats and others sped to Manhattan to take as many people as they could for as many trips as they could make. It was the largest boat evacuation in history; nearly 500,000 people were taken to safety by everyday heroes. It’s nearly 12 minutes long but worth every second.