This is a thought-provoking graphic from Fortune Magazine. It shows the tenants at the WTC, where they were located, how many employees they had there, and how many died in the terrorist attack. The other piece shows where the companies are located now, which it turns out is mainly in other buildings in the financial district or in midtown.
There are two things about the graphic which I thought were notable. One is exactly how few of the deaths of the employees in the buildings were below the impact zone. That is a testament to the workers orderly evacuation, they bravery of some civilians and fire and police personnel, and somewhat overlooked, the conservative nature of the buildings' structural design, and the numerous redundancies in structural members. The buildings were able to withstand the impact of a large jet crashing into each, and were able to last until the jet fuel-fed fire caused the steel to fail. The time gave most people who were below the flames the time to escape. There are a lot of people who owe their lives to that.
Secondarily, I didn't remember that Cantor Fitzgerald itself lost nearly double the number of people that the FDNY did. I remembered that they were nearly wiped out, but I didn't realize that one single company lost 25% of all of the victims in New York.
10 years later, most of the shock and despair I felt has faded away, but for the people in those buildings, and their loved ones, the shock and despair is eternal.
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