Tim Townsend Vs. Eyewitnesses to the Disaster

Joe Schmoe

Tim Townsend Vs. Eyewitnesses To The Disaster

The accounts of Tim Townsend in The First Hours and five various eyewitnesses as profiled by The Christian Century in Eyewitness to Disaster obviously contain several differences as well as surprisingly similar aspects involving the tragedy that transpired on September 11, 2001. Townsend depicts the occurrences of the tragedy in a traumatic manner emphasizing the injuries and desperation of people in his immediate area. The accounts of five various individuals by The Christian Century are evidently biased and aim their accounts toward the influence of God and prayer in times of drastic decision making. Although the chronicles of Townsend and The Christian Century vary heavily they do collectively emphasize the unity of all individuals on the actual day of September 11, 2001. Different emotions resulted from those who were immediately affected by the horrific terrorist attacks, but essentially in most times of desperations all people display comparable morals.

The trauma experienced in The First Hours goes into great detail while escalating in severity. The introduction paragraph gives a broad synopsis and sets the tone for the rest of the article as it depicts burnt luggage transitioning to, "…and that's when I started seeing body parts" (Townsend 51). As the second paragraph begins to break down the events chronologically; the magnitude of the descriptions become more and more gruesome especially when Townsend speaks about bodies falling from the North Tower (Townsend 51). Already facing the burden of evading the aftermath of the unstable North Tower, Townsend introduces a more catastrophic development, "The South Tower of the Trade Center seemed to suck the plane into itself" (Townsend 52). The crash of the South Tower doubled the adversity survivors of September 11, 2001 had to conquer (Townsend 52). Even though catastrophic damage had already been imposed on both buildings, those who survived the strike now have to escape being engulfed in debris from the now collapsing building. Not even a large dumpster Townsend attempts to take shelter behind will hold off the impenetrable cloud of thick smoke. "We looked behind us to see the remaining tower collapse" (Townsend 53). Now that Townsend has dodged the first cloud of ash he faces a tougher task as the second building's ashes span all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge, forcing it to be closed down (Townsend 53). Finally, once Townsend becomes situated in his apartment after being severely distressed, he reflects on his dead friend and family his friend leaves behind. The experience of Tim Townsend portrays progressively worse occurrences and gruesome details throughout his experience on September 11, 2001.

John Allen, Jon Walton, Rowan Williams, Stephen Bouman, and Linda Bloom were