Can We Add Some Chlorine To The Gene Pool?

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Can We Add Some Chlorine To The Gene Pool?
by Linda A. Prussen-Razzano, Dallas Bureau Chief

September 11, 2003

"Candidly Yours"

Linda A. Prussen-Razzano Every now and again, I will see or hear a phrase so alarmingly ignorant, I find myself wondering how that person walks upright. I heard one several months ago that struck me as perhaps the dumbest in recent memory; and while it has since been replaced by snippets even more devoid of intelligence, I recalled it because it dealt with September 11, 2001.

In short, a person proclaimed that the economic downturn could not be blamed on September 11, 2001, because people die everyday, and the death of 3,000 people would not have any real impact on the economy. Now let me be clear here; he wasn’t suggesting that September 11, 2001 was solely to blame for the economic challenges…he was actually arguing that September 11, 2001, didn't have any impact whatsoever.

Frightening, isn’t it?

Perhaps more alarming is the realization that this person didn’t recognize just how much we lost that day. He minimized a horrendous loss to a tidy little sum and then summarily dismissed it as inconsequential. Having worked for almost a decade with a consulting firm that assisted insurance companies on electronic equipment claims, I had spent more than one afternoon traipsing through burned out businesses and attempting to identify melted globs of plastic.

I knew, based on my personal experience, that the losses to those businesses involved would be staggering.

I knew, as a wife and a working mother, what the loss would be to my family if I were to die suddenly. I carry more insurance than most everyone in my immediate acquaintance, because if I am suddenly removed from the equation, I want my family to retain their present lifestyle and my children’s future education to be secure.

I knew, based on the evidence of my own eyes, that the losses to our country in human lives would be incalculable.

So for those among us who question the impact of September 11, 2001, allow me to illuminate just how much we, as a country, lost.

For the record, we didn’t loose just 3,000 people, whose value to their families cannot ever be measured, we lost 3,000 providers and/or contributors.

Moreover, we didn’t just lose two buildings, we lost multiple buildings. Seven, in total, collapsed completely within 24 hours, and many of the buildings immediately surrounding the World Trade Center complex were damaged beyond use for months. Hundreds of businesses and hundreds of residents were displaced for weeks on end. Look around your office, or your home office, and start calculating how much you paid for everything, down to your paperclips. Then multiply that figure a few thousand times over, and perhaps you will come close.

We lost a great many vehicles, cars, taxis, fire engines, ambulances, etc. Take an average price of $15,000, multiply that by a couple of hundred, and add that to the figure above. If you haven’t reached an error code yet, you didn’t multiply it enough.

We lost invaluable information in the form of brain trusts, documents, databases, and work product.

We lost services and millions of dollars in funds as the agonizing clearing effort commenced.

We lost the productivity of hundreds of people who were fortunate enough to survive the collapses, but not fortunate enough to come away unscathed. Massive burns, severed limbs, broken bones, scarring, lung ailments, permanent disabilities, and acute trauma were all part of the destruction. Try paying those staggering medical bills when the company you worked for ceases to exist.

Mind you, all of this, and more, was found just at the World Trade Center. I haven’t even touched on the Pentagon, the brave heroes who downed the plane over Pennsylvania, or the loss of the planes, themselves.

Then we need to calculate the impact it had on the travel industry. The impact it had on the hospitality industry. The impact it had on the meeting and planning industry. The impact it had on the insurance industry. The impact it had on the industries that support those industries. When any of these experiences a massive reduction in revenue, as every one of them did, lay offs abound. Then, we have to measure the impact on those families who suddenly find themselves surviving on an unemployment check. They cut back, everyone cuts back, and who suffers? Those in the non-essential industries.

Yet, to hear some people tell it, September 11, 2001 was no big deal.

It was a big deal. It was the biggest deal this country has ever seen. There are some things no amount of money can replace, a few thousand people being among them.

We lost the hearts of hundreds of firefighters, law enforcement, medical personnel, iron workers, and laborers who all too quickly realized that their rescue effort had crushingly transformed into a search and recover…in far too many cases, with only parts of bodies being found. So many were forced to operate on auto-pilot during that nightmarish period, it’s a testament to their courage that they even went back. Only they can tell you if they have recovered.

We lost a part of our innocence when we were brutally acquainted with the dreadful boom that accompanies people throwing themselves out of a burning skyscraper, because the alternative is to die in a fiery inferno.

We lost a part of our ignorance when we once again had the courage to rage against those who would dare criticize us for feeling wounded, for feeling the primitive need for revenge.

We lost our sense of security, and with it, some of our freedom, because the horror was too great for those among us capable of empathy for another’s loss.

No impact?

Where’s the damn chlorine? ***

Photo of Linda Prussen-Razzano courtesy of staff files