Boatlift: An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience

Date

26.09.26

On September 11, 2001, ordinary boat captains answered an extraordinary call, helping evacuate nearly 500,000 people from Manhattan. In this Forged in Film reflection on Boatlift: An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience, we look at courage, sacrifice, and what the Good Samaritan can teach us about stepping forward when someone needs help.

Boatlift, An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience (2011) Unrated

Directed by Eddie Rosenstein and Rick Velleu Production Company: EyePop Productions
Starring Tom Hanks (narrator)

The untold story of the maritime evacuation of Lower Manhattan during the events of 9/11.

Opening Thoughts

Where were you during 9/11? It’s the question everyone always remembers the answer to, like an earlier generation would have for the assassination of President Kennedy.

Twenty-five years ago, I was at work, I was working in the recreation department at a nursing home, and had just started on the Alzheimer’s unit recently. I had been training a new employee who had started the week before and we were walking around delivering newspapers to residents. When we passed the first floor TV room, we noticed a big special bulletin on the TV. One of the Trade Towers was engulfed in smoke, it was just pouring out of the top of the building. I remember saying to Carol, my co-worker, “Either someone’s loaded out of their mind, or that’s on purpose. I mean, the WTC’s pretty big…hard to miss…how do you fly your plane into it?” She agreed, and we watched for a minute more, and then went on about our business. As we headed back to our office, we again passed the same TV, and stopped for another minute to watch the news, with the video of the North Tower all smoky. Then, suddenly, as we were watching, we saw the second plane hit the second tower. To my dying day I will never forget, as the TV announcer started exclaiming that the second tower had been hit, a woman’s screaming in the background. She must have been someone in the newsroom, some TV crew or something, but I could hear her in the background screaming, “Oh my GOD! Oh my GOOOOOOOOD!” in a long, shrieking, hysterical scream. It was bone-chilling. Carol and I headed back down to the office soberly, her saying, “That looked pretty deliberate.”

We found our co-workers huddled around the radio in our office, listening to the news feed. We tried to get our coffee stuff together to get ready to go on the floors, but the mood was low. We were all talking about who could be responsible, how many people were hurt. Then on the radio came the broadcast that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. We all fell silent, and at that point, I honestly began to freak out and really panic in a way I rarely do. Working in a nursing home, I had learned to stay calm in emergency situations, and I’ve always tried to keep a level head when stuff like that happens, because losing it does not help yourself or others. But the news that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon, which seemed to me to be one of the most secure buildings in the free world, made me begin to seriously go to pieces in a way I never had before. I started to shake, and while I wasn’t crying yet, there were tears in my voice when I said, “Oh my God, oh my God! Is this World War Three? Are they going to hit us next??” I really thought that if anywhere on the East Coast would be hit next, it would be Boston. I couldn’t stop thinking about our symbolism and history as a city, “The Cradle of Liberty,” “The Freedom Trail.” And then we had to go up on our floors. We had to. We had to give some normalcy to the residents, and ourselves too.

We weren’t really supposed to have the TVs on, but I had the sound off on my floor and faced the residents away from the TV. I served coffee with shaky hands and had to keep stopping to take deep breaths. I kept delivering news reports to the nurses and aides at the nurses station in the hallway. I came out and told them when each of the towers fell. One nurse kept desperately trying to get in touch with her husband who was an MBTA bus driver. She finally got a hold of him at some point. I never did do any real activity that morning besides serving coffee. But looking back, I was able to stay calm, keep my residents calm and occupied, and do my job to the best of my ability at that point.

Maybe I wasn’t saving any lives, but I did what I could do with what I had. Boatlift tells the story of other, ordinary Americans who did the same thing, just with some higher stakes. Read on for what God showed me in Boatlift!

Boatlift Summary

When two planes hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, everything descended into chaos. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, every mode of transportation in and out of Manhattan was shut down. No subways, no buses, and tunnels and bridges were closed. Since Manhattan is an island, boats became the only way in or out of Lower Manhattan. Thousands of people caught near the collapsing, burning buildings ran south, only to realize they were trapped at the seawall in the Battery Park area. Many began to throw themselves into the water, trying to swim across the channel to New Jersey. Very quickly, the Coast Guard realized something had to be done, so they put out the call over the radio: “All available boats, this is the United States Coast Guard aboard the pilot boat New York. Anyone willing to help with the evacuation of Lower Manhattan, report to Governor’s Island.” Within fifteen to twenty minutes, scores of boats over every size and type converged on the area, taking on people and bringing them to safety, then turning around and going back for more. The end result was: “The great Boatlift of 9/11 became the largest sea evacuation in history. Larger than the evacuation of Dunkirk in World War II, where 339,000 British and French soldiers were rescued over the course of nine days. On 9/11, nearly 500,000 civilians were rescued from Manhattan by boat. It took less than nine hours.”

So What Did God Show Me?

Ok, this documentary is only eleven minutes long, so I don’t have a huge amount of insights for it, it’s more about what I took away from it over all: people stepping up out of their comfort zone and putting themselves at risk to help others in need. In the twenty five years since 9/11, it’s easy to look back knowing the timeline of the day, what time the planes hit the towers, what time the towers fell. It’s easy to have the viewpoint that what the rescuers did wasn’t that big of a deal, the attacks were over, so they just scooted across the Hudson, picked some people up, brought them to Jersey, no big deal. But in that moment, it can’t be overstated enough that no one knew what was happening, or what would happen next. People didn’t know if more planes were going to crash elsewhere, if there were bombs planted, if more attacks of some type were going to happen. So these men and women who came to the aid of the people trapped were, to the best of their knowledge, putting their lives on the line, knowing that they could very easily become targets themselves. And even with no follow up attacks, there was still the dangers of having to navigate overloaded boats through dozens of other maritime craft, with low visibility due to smoke and ash in the air once the towers fell.

French novelist Romain Rolland said, “A hero is a man who does what he can.” Men like Vincent Ardolino, who took his yacht, the Amberjack V, to Manhattan, because he believed that if he could “save one person, just one person, that was one less person who’d suffer and die.” Vincent wasn’t a trained rescuer. He wasn’t military, fire, police or medical personnel. He was just an ordinary person who happened to own a boat he knew how to sail, and answered the Coast Guard’s call. Vincent was just one of many who sailed for Governor’s Island in ferries, tugboats, sightseeing boats, fireboats, yachts, party boats, catamarans, sailboats, dinner cruisers, and fishing boats, because people needed help, and he could meet that need with what he had. Without people like him, the death toll for 9/11 could have been much, much higher. Thank God for people like him, willing to follow the example of the Good Samaritan and help strangers because they had the ability to and decided to do so.

Closing Thoughts

When 9/11 happened, I was desperate, like many people, to do something, so I went a couple of weeks later with my brother to donate blood at a Red Cross blood drive. I had never donated blood before, while my brother had donated about five or six times. I was doing ok until I laid down on the table and was trying, as instructed by the nurse, to squeeze a ball to make my blood flow. I happened to look down at my arm where the needle was inserted and I just started freaking out. I began bawling my head off and the nurse hurried over to see if I was ok. I was about done so she sat me up and held me for a couple of minutes, telling me I was very brave, and my pint meant so much more than just anyone who donated and didn’t bother them. My brother came over with cookies for me and after a while drove me home. I was embarrassed, but thought, eh, well. At least I did it. And because I did, someone lived.

We live in a fallen world, in which trials and tribulations are always going to be happening to someone, somewhere. We have the option to stand by, sit it out, and stay safe. Or, we have the option to go forward and step in, which sometimes means at the least putting ourselves out of our comfort zone, and at worst, putting ourselves in harm’s way. Whatever we choose will affect someone else’s life in some way, big or small.

What kinds of opportunities are present in your life to step out and be a Samaritan?

Reading:

“But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him… He went to him and bandaged his wounds.” Luke 10:33-34

Challenge:
Get out of your comfort zone and answer a call. Donate blood, volunteer at a homeless shelter, nursing home, or soup kitchen. Explore ways you can make a difference in a stranger’s life.