September 8th, 2010, Eyepop Productions, Boatlift, An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience,
11:57 minutes
Tom Hanks narrates the epic story of the 9/11 boatlift that evacuated half a million people from the stricken piers and seawalls of Lower Manhattan. Produced and directed by Eddie Rosenstein. Eyepop Productions, Inc.
BOATLIFT was executive produced by Stephen Flynn and Sean Burke and premiered on September 8th at the 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Summit: Remembrance/Renewal/Resilience in Washington. The Summit kicked off a national movement to foster community and national resilience in the face of future crises. See www.road2resilience.org to become a part of the campaign to build a more resilient world. The film was made with the generous support by philanthropist Adrienne Arsht, Chairman Emerita, TotalBank (www.arsht.com)
September 9, 2011, Reuters, Boatlifters: The unknown story of 9/11, by Katharine Herrup,
The opinions expressed are her own.
Much has been written and said about September 11, 2001, on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, but one story much less known is the one about the band of boats that came together to rescue nearly 500,000 New Yorkers from the World Trade Center site on the day the towers collapsed.
It was the largest boatlift ever to have happened – greater than the one at Dunkirk during World War II. Yet somehow a story of such large scale became lost in all the rubble. But a new 10-minute documentary calledBoatlift by Eddie Rosenstein captures the boat evacuations that happened on 9/11. The film is part of four new short documentaries that were created for the 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Summit in Washington, D.C.
“Boats, usually an afterthought in most New Yorkers minds, were, for the first time in over a century, the only way in or out of lower Manhattan,” says Tom Hanks, the narrator of the film.
New Yorkers don’t really think of Manhattan as an island since everything from the basics to beyond your wildest imagination is so accessible — not typically a feature associated with island life. But on September 11, 2001, those trapped below the World Trade Center site who could not escape without swimming or being rescued by a boat were acutely reminded of that fact.
“People were actually jumping into the river and swimming out of Manhattan. Boats were very nearly running them over,” says NY Waterway Captain Rick Thornton in the film.
The captains and crew of the fleet of boats who rescued so many on 9/11 came together with no idea what they would be getting into and no idea whether Manhattan would be attacked again let alone their very own boats. All they knew were that desperate people were in need of help and they couldn’t turn their backs on them, even if that meant putting their own lives at risk.
“If it floated, and it could get there, it got there,” engineer of the Mary Gellatly Robin Jones recalls.
“I never want to say the word ‘I should have’,” says Vincent Ardolino, captain of the Amberjack V. “I tell my children the same thing, never go through life saying you should have. If you want to do something, you do it.”
The New York Waterway, the Coast Guard, ferries, tug boats, private boats, party boats, small professional diving boats, and more ferried hundreds of thousands of people to Staten Island, Brooklyn, upper Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens in less than nine hours. Their crews are typical (in every best sense of the word) New Yorkers and ordinary civilians who came together after a distress call came in from the U.S. Coast Guard in New York.
“I’ve never seen so many tug boats all at once,” captain of the Staten Island Ferry James Parese says. “I worked on the water for 28 years, I’ve never seen that many boats come together at one time that fast. One radio call and they just all came together,” Jones said.
Perhaps one of the most amazing aspects of this mass-scale operation was that were no evacuation plans for such a rescue. “You couldn’t have planned nothing to happen that fast that quick,” Jones said.
It was the ethic code of the seas that made the boat rescues such a success. If a boat needed refueling, another one would pull up alongside it and give it 10,000 gallons of fuel with no questions asked or no one asking for payment. If a woman in a wheelchair needed to be lifted over the fence on the water’s edge to get into one of the boats, there were more than enough hands to help lift her. If people were stranded on a ledge by the water, they would get picked up by a boat. No one was left behind.
One of the arresting images in the film was of a massive throng of people pressed up against and even hanging over the rails along the water waving their hands, hoping someone would come to their rescue. They were at land’s end in downtown Manhattan, no easy place to conduct any sort of boat rescue since there aren’t many docking places or spots to put a boat ramp.
It was a day that lots of local, ordinary people become heroes. It was a day that was supposed to tear America apart, but instead brought Americans together. It was a day that brought out the best in many people.
“We wanted to tell a story that reminds Americans that this is a country that bounces back from adversity,” the President of the Center for National Policy Stephen Flynn, who had been a U.S. Coast Guard officer, told me. “Our national DNA is resilience. The key for us is to move forward with some key lessons and one of the lessons missing is the strength of civil society and how it responded when 9/11 happened.”
September 1, 2011, Newser, Forgotten Story of 9/11: World's Biggest Boatlift
(Newser) – A 12-minute documentary tells a remarkable but overlooked story from 9/11—the evacuation by water of an estimated 500,000 New Yorkers, reports the Washington Post. The film, Boatlift, recounts how panicked residents made their way to the waterfront in Lower Manhattan and boarded a flotilla of ferryboats, Coast Guard vessels, and civilian boats that answered the call. The filmmakers say it's the largest such boatlift in history (topping even the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, during WWII) and is all the more amazing because it came about spontaneously.
“They were just steaming out of the buildings and the first mode of transportation they saw was a ferryboat, that’s when they know, this is how I’m getting out of here,” says one New York Waterway captain, according to the Road to Resilience site. “They didn’t even care where the boat was going.” The film, narrated by Tom Hanks, will be shown Sept. 8 at the Newseum in DC and also will be available that day at the Road to Resilience website.
September 1, 2011, Washington Post, New film recalls massive 9/11 sea evacuation, By Jason Ukman
It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine that there were major stories overlooked from the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
(Courtesy Herb Jones via Group SJR)
But a new, short documentaryappears to have turned up something close — the meagerly covered account of the sea evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from Lower Manhattan, spontaneously organized by a couple of Coast Guard hands and a makeshift armada of fishing vessels, ferries and party boats. The documentary says the evacuation was the largest boatlift ever, bigger even than rescue of Allied troops at Dunkirk during World War II, when more than 300,000 British and French were evacuated from the French coast.
For nine hours, businessmen, husbands and wives, and even pets scrambled aboard boats. And for nine hours, ship captains and their crews kept returning to the docks to pick them up.
“The greatest day that I’ve seen in all my boating, my life on the water,” Herb Jones, an engineer aboard the Mary Gettaly, recalls in the film, “Boatlift.”
What made the evacuation all the more remarkable was that it took place without any formal planning, military or otherwise. Most of the vessels responded to a call from a Coast Guard lieutenant in Manhattan, Michael Day, who broadcast his request to anyone who would listen.
Narrated by Tom Hanks and directed by Eddie Rosenstein of Eyepop Productions, “Boatlift” features interviews with Day and with others who came to the rescue of civilians, estimated to number more than 500,000.
Ten years after the attacks, many of the captains and crew members say they acted as they did because they felt they had to.
“I have one theory in life. I never want to say the word I should have,” Vincent Ardolino, captain of the Amberjack V, says at the end of the film. “If I do it and I fail, I tried. If I do it and I succeed, better for me. And I tell my children the same thing: Never go through life saying you should have. If you want to do something, you do it.”
“Boatlift,” which runs just 12 minutes, is being promoted by a couple of nonprofit groups — the Center for National Policy and Voices of September 11th — which are seeking to rekindle the sense of national unity that pervaded in the aftermath of the attacks.
Along with a handful of other short films, it will be shown Thursday, Sept. 8, at an event at the Newseumto commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the attacks. It will also be available that day here.
The Road to Resilience, Boatlift: A Story of Civic Heroism, by R2R Staff
(Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt of BOATLIFT, a documentary short form video produced by Eddie Rosenstein and Eyepop that will premiere at the 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Summit in Washington, D.C. on September 8, 2011. View the video online here.).
NEW YORK — When fire and smoke filled the skies over New York City ten years ago, many lost their bearings and tens of thousands streamed to the lower Manhattan seeking away off the island. The actions of the spontaneous rescue flotilla of civilian, commercial and coast guard vessels that carried a half million people to safety is one of the great untold stories of that day.
In a new mini-documentary narrated by Tom Hanks and commissioned for the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the ferryboat captains, coast guardsmen and civilian boaters relate the terror and heroism of that day of infamy.
The nine-hour boatlift rescued over 500,000 terrified civilians from the piers and seawalls of Lower Manhattan as the towers burned and collapsed around them. It was the largest sea evacuation in history, larger even than the storied evacuation of 339,000 British and French troops off the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.
“Every mode of transportation out of Manhattan was shut down,” said Kirk Slater, a captain for the New York Waterway ferries that run across the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey. “All the subways were shut, the tunnels were all closed the bridges, they closed everything, immediately.”
As the gravity of the attacks became apparent, hundreds of thousands of residents and office workers from Lower Manhattan, their escape northward blocked by the flaming towers and police barricades, streamed toward the island’s southern tip. There, with the Statue of Liberty looking on, their attention focused on the one last way off Manhattan: the water.
At first, the response by local vessels was completely spontaneous. Ferries, tug boats, fishing boats and other vessels pulled up, filled with tired, dust-covered survivors, and made for the nearest shore – often Brooklyn, just across the East River, New Jersey across the Hudson, or Staten Island on the other side of New York Harbor.
“They were just streaming out of the buildings and the first mode of transportation they saw was a ferryboat,” said Rick Thornton, another New York Waterway captain. “They didn’t even care where the boat was going.”
The numbers involved threatened to overwhelm these efforts, however. “There wasn’t panic in New York, in the beginning – just volume,” said Capt. Slater, whose ferry made dozens of trips back and forth to New Jersey. “It wasn’t until the first building fell that there was panic.”
The collapse of the south tower of the World Trade Center at 9:59 am that morning – some 56 minutes after an airliner ignited an inferno in its upper floors – changed the picture for the vessels in the boatlift. Desperate survivors overloaded boats and a thick, toxic pall of smoke and debris engulfed the piers and seawalls where thousands prayed for deliverance.
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Michael Day, who had been helping coordinate the evacuation from a pilot boat in the harbor until that point, decided a new level of urgency was required.
“There was a small boat at the lower tip of Manhattan — I thought the boat was going to flip over because so many people were trying to get on,” said Day, now a commander. “And as I looked behind, they were just 10 deep. And that’s kind of what gave us the idea. So we decided to make the call on the radio, ‘All available boats, this is the United States Coast Guard aboard the pilot boat New York; anyone wanting to help with the evacuation of Lower Manhattan, reporter to Governor’s Island.“
Hundreds of boats heeded the call from Long Island Sound to the New Jersey shore – fishing boats, pleasure craft, ferries, barges and tugs. James Parese, captain of one of the largest, the huge, orange Staten Island Ferry, said the mood was somber.
“They didn’t know what was going on, they had seen the buildings hit with two planes,” he said of his passengers. “As far as they were concerned we were being bombed. I was wondering if they were going to come on the boat, if they had people with bombs.”
As the day wore on, though, all the captains noticed something amazing: people from all walks of life, hardened New Yorkers, suburban commuters, tourists and others, helping each other, consoling and calming those shaken by the attacks.
“Housewives, workers that do windows, we have executives,” said Vincent Ardolino, captain of the harbor cruiser Amberjack V. “And the thing that was the best, everyone helping everyone.”
”I saw four businessmen lifting up an old woman with a seeing-eye dog, a German Shepherd, and they lifted her up like a surf board and passed her over the handrails,” said Capt. Thornton of New York Waterway.
A little over seven years later, many of these same captains and crews would be involved in another daring rescue when U.S. Airways Flight 1549 was forced to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River in January, 2009. The boats, many of them New York Waterway ferries, arrived within minutes of the aircraft’s landing. Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III had credited their quick thinking for the fact that none of his passengers were lost. A half million others second the emotion.
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Drawing on the policy lessons of the past decade and the momentum generated by our partners’ founding event, the 9/11 Tenth Anniversary Summit: Remembrance, Renewal, Resilience, held on Sept. 8, 2011 in Washington, D.C., Road2Resilience aims to advance the cause of national resilience by highlighting innovative ideas in emergency management, homeland security and crisis planning. With daily recommended readings, blog posts, Twitter and Facebook feeds, Road2Resilience tracks the policy debate at every level, from the international to the individual.
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Coast Guard Digest
Reviewed, authoritative content about the Coast Guard and its missions
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hPOJu_JQmjQJ:coastguarddigest.com/2011/09/08/boatlift-on-911-the-evacuation-from-lower-manhattan/+&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
BOATLIFT on 9/11: The evacuation from Lower Manhattan
September 8, 2011 by Coast Guard Digest
Filed under: 9/11, history, video
From the Road 2 Resilience website:
In a new mini-documentary narrated by Tom Hanks and commissioned for the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the ferryboat captains, coast guardsmen and civilian boaters relate the terror and heroism of that day of infamy.
The nine-hour boatlift rescued over 500,000 terrified civilians from the piers and seawalls of Lower Manhattan as the towers burned and collapsed around them. It was the largest sea evacuation in history, larger even than the storied evacuation of 339,000 British and French troops off the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Michael Day, who had been helping coordinate the evacuation from a pilot boat in the harbor until that point, recalls:
“There was a small boat at the lower tip of Manhattan — I thought the boat was going to flip over because so many people were trying to get on,” said Day, now a commander. “And as I looked behind, they were just 10 deep. And that’s kind of what gave us the idea. So we decided to make the call on the radio, ‘All available boats, this is the United States Coast Guard aboard the pilot boat New York; anyone wanting to help with the evacuation of Lower Manhattan, reporter to Governor’s Island.“
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Comments
12 Comments on BOATLIFT on 9/11: The evacuation from Lower Manhattan
Hattie Stevens on Sun, 11th Sep 2011 1:07 pm
Thank U for that documentery about The Boatlift on 9/11. I was not aware of this evacuation. It was so moving.I am proud to be an americian!! I say that again and again.Thank U for the great job that U do!!
Sarah Hendershot on Sun, 11th Sep 2011 11:14 pm
I loved this documentary about ordinary people doing the most extrordinary of tasks-selfless sacrifice in order to be able to save one human life. They were compelled to do SOMETHING and they did it! I know that this was not covered on the news because I stayed glued to my television for hours, then days, then weeks. Then, they stopped airing anything about it. Regardless, I am so very grateful to know that in the most dire of circumstances, the human soul rises above the ashes. I am inspired with stories such as these and fully intend to pass my inspiration to my son, born two years and four days after this tragedy. God bless America and God bless the human spirit!
Julia Guldan on Mon, 12th Sep 2011 9:53 am
This is an awesome testimony to the people of the New York area, the Coast Guard and the ability of everyone to come together to assist their neighbors in a crisis. Yeah, is sure does make me proud, once again, to be an American. Thank you Coast Guard for all your service.
Caroline fraser on Mon, 26th Sep 2011 9:13 pm
I had not heard this story before and it brought tears to my eyes. The American people are great. When we need to we all come together and do what needs to be done. Don’ t mess with us!
Sarah Bowman: What’s Up for October From Kids Off the Couch | Huffpo Life on Fri, 7th Oct 2011 6:32 pm
[...] More Thing: Check out this mini-documentary, narrated by Tom Hanks, about ferry boat captains, Coast Guardsmen and civilian boaters who rescued [...]
Robin Poirier on Thu, 8th Dec 2011 12:44 pm
Are there any pictures of the boat rescue on 9/11. I would love to purchase one. Amazing story!!
Coast Guard Digest on Thu, 8th Dec 2011 9:32 pm
I published a series of Coast Guard images from that day in this post:http://coastguarddigest.com/2010/09/11/911-and-the-coast-guard/ There are two related to the boatlift. They are all government images and you may copy them from the site for free. .
Tom on Fri, 2nd Mar 2012 8:23 pm
I got to see it first hand on 9/11 and have been hoping someone would finally praise the people of the Harbor community for their efforts on that day.
Doris Walters on Mon, 5th Mar 2012 6:04 pm
I had the honor of knowing Adm Bennett S. Sparks, U.S. Coast Gurad retired. His first assignment in the Coast Guard was in New York. He served on active duty for 52 years serving in the ranks of E-1 through E-8 and O-1 through O-8. I so regret that he died before this documentary was made. He embodied all that this moving documentary so fittingly reveals. Thanks for listening.
Bill Lawrence on Sun, 11th Mar 2012 9:14 pm
Did this ever make it to the National Networks for viewing by the general public, and if not, why not. It is a great documentary
Coast Guard Digest on Sun, 11th Mar 2012 11:29 pm
I think it appeared briefly.
Ray on Thu, 15th Mar 2012 7:24 pm
Boat Captain’s are a special breed of people. They know when people are in need you are obligated to help them by doing what ever it takes. On the water when people are in need it often times can be a matter of life and death. It is apparent that instinct was there with Captain’s of small craft to large vessel’s. It’s who they are. They don’t do it to be hero’s they do it because it’s the right thing to do. No surprise to me that so many responded so quickly. I have never been in that situation but I know the Captain’s of boaters anywhere would of done the exact same thing.
I keep thinking about what I want to take away from this Sunday—and what I want to remember long after the day is over. Perhaps Robin Jones, the hardboiled engineer of the Mary Gellatly, best described what we should always keep in mind, in terms of all of our lives. "I believe everybody has a little hero in 'em," he says in the video. "You gotta look in there. It'll come out, if need be."
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hPOJu_JQmjQJ:coastguarddigest.com/2011/09/08/boatlift-on-911-the-evacuation-from-lower-manhattan/+&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
BOATLIFT on 9/11: The evacuation from Lower Manhattan
September 8, 2011 by Coast Guard Digest
Filed under: 9/11, history, video
From the Road 2 Resilience website:
In a new mini-documentary narrated by Tom Hanks and commissioned for the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the ferryboat captains, coast guardsmen and civilian boaters relate the terror and heroism of that day of infamy.
The nine-hour boatlift rescued over 500,000 terrified civilians from the piers and seawalls of Lower Manhattan as the towers burned and collapsed around them. It was the largest sea evacuation in history, larger even than the storied evacuation of 339,000 British and French troops off the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.
U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Michael Day, who had been helping coordinate the evacuation from a pilot boat in the harbor until that point, recalls:
“There was a small boat at the lower tip of Manhattan — I thought the boat was going to flip over because so many people were trying to get on,” said Day, now a commander. “And as I looked behind, they were just 10 deep. And that’s kind of what gave us the idea. So we decided to make the call on the radio, ‘All available boats, this is the United States Coast Guard aboard the pilot boat New York; anyone wanting to help with the evacuation of Lower Manhattan, reporter to Governor’s Island.“
Tags:
Comments
12 Comments on BOATLIFT on 9/11: The evacuation from Lower Manhattan
Hattie Stevens on Sun, 11th Sep 2011 1:07 pm
Thank U for that documentery about The Boatlift on 9/11. I was not aware of this evacuation. It was so moving.I am proud to be an americian!! I say that again and again.Thank U for the great job that U do!!
Sarah Hendershot on Sun, 11th Sep 2011 11:14 pm
I loved this documentary about ordinary people doing the most extrordinary of tasks-selfless sacrifice in order to be able to save one human life. They were compelled to do SOMETHING and they did it! I know that this was not covered on the news because I stayed glued to my television for hours, then days, then weeks. Then, they stopped airing anything about it. Regardless, I am so very grateful to know that in the most dire of circumstances, the human soul rises above the ashes. I am inspired with stories such as these and fully intend to pass my inspiration to my son, born two years and four days after this tragedy. God bless America and God bless the human spirit!
Julia Guldan on Mon, 12th Sep 2011 9:53 am
This is an awesome testimony to the people of the New York area, the Coast Guard and the ability of everyone to come together to assist their neighbors in a crisis. Yeah, is sure does make me proud, once again, to be an American. Thank you Coast Guard for all your service.
Caroline fraser on Mon, 26th Sep 2011 9:13 pm
I had not heard this story before and it brought tears to my eyes. The American people are great. When we need to we all come together and do what needs to be done. Don’ t mess with us!
Sarah Bowman: What’s Up for October From Kids Off the Couch | Huffpo Life on Fri, 7th Oct 2011 6:32 pm
[...] More Thing: Check out this mini-documentary, narrated by Tom Hanks, about ferry boat captains, Coast Guardsmen and civilian boaters who rescued [...]
Robin Poirier on Thu, 8th Dec 2011 12:44 pm
Are there any pictures of the boat rescue on 9/11. I would love to purchase one. Amazing story!!
Coast Guard Digest on Thu, 8th Dec 2011 9:32 pm
I published a series of Coast Guard images from that day in this post:http://coastguarddigest.com/2010/09/11/911-and-the-coast-guard/ There are two related to the boatlift. They are all government images and you may copy them from the site for free. .
Tom on Fri, 2nd Mar 2012 8:23 pm
I got to see it first hand on 9/11 and have been hoping someone would finally praise the people of the Harbor community for their efforts on that day.
Doris Walters on Mon, 5th Mar 2012 6:04 pm
I had the honor of knowing Adm Bennett S. Sparks, U.S. Coast Gurad retired. His first assignment in the Coast Guard was in New York. He served on active duty for 52 years serving in the ranks of E-1 through E-8 and O-1 through O-8. I so regret that he died before this documentary was made. He embodied all that this moving documentary so fittingly reveals. Thanks for listening.
Bill Lawrence on Sun, 11th Mar 2012 9:14 pm
Did this ever make it to the National Networks for viewing by the general public, and if not, why not. It is a great documentary
Coast Guard Digest on Sun, 11th Mar 2012 11:29 pm
I think it appeared briefly.
Ray on Thu, 15th Mar 2012 7:24 pm
Boat Captain’s are a special breed of people. They know when people are in need you are obligated to help them by doing what ever it takes. On the water when people are in need it often times can be a matter of life and death. It is apparent that instinct was there with Captain’s of small craft to large vessel’s. It’s who they are. They don’t do it to be hero’s they do it because it’s the right thing to do. No surprise to me that so many responded so quickly. I have never been in that situation but I know the Captain’s of boaters anywhere would of done the exact same thing.
As children in school, we all were taught about the Holocaust. At night, in bed, I used to wonder what I would do in a situation like that: would I have the courage to stand up and do something? The question stays with me, especially as I age and realize how complicated moral lines can be when it comes to one's own survival.
One of the most astonishing and uplifting things to come out of the coverage of the 9/11 anniversary is the stories of the people who risked everything to save others—not just the fireman, police, and hospital workers, but ordinary people like the gentleman who carried a woman in a wheelchair down 68 flights to safety or the man in the red bandana.
The story I've never heard before is about the private boat captains who responded to the call by the Coast Guard for help with the stranded victims on the southern tip of Lower Manhattan. In this moving new video by The Road to Resilience organization, we watch as nearly 500,000 people are saved and carried across the waters of the Hudson—an act of bravery that turned out to be the largest sea evacuation in world history.
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