1~7单元课文原文
It came as if from nowhere.
There were about two dozen of us by the bank of elevators on the 35th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center. We were firefighters, mostly, and we were in various stages of exhaustion. Some guys were sweating like pigs. Some had their turnout coats off, or tied around their waists. Quite a few were breathing heavily. Others were raring to go. All of us were taking a beat to catch our breaths, and our bearings, figure out what the hell was going on. We'd been at this thing, hard, for almost an hour, some a little bit less, and we were nowhere close to done. Of course, we had no idea what there was left to do, but we hadn't made a dent.
And then the noise started, and the building began to tremble, and we all froze. Dead solid still. Whatever there had been left to do would now have to wait. For what, the big one." Or, "We'll all meet at the big one." I never knew how it started, or when I'd picked up on it myself, but it was part of our shorthand.Meaning, no matter how big this fire is, there'll be another one bigger, somewhere down the road. We'll make it through this one, and we'll make it through that one, too. I always said it, at big fires, and I always heard it back, and here I was, thinking I would never say or hear these words again, because there would never be another fire as big as this. This was the big one we had all talked about, all our lives, and if I hadn't known this before – just before these chilling moments – this sick, black noise now confirmed it.
I fumbled for some fix on the situation, thinking maybe if I understood what was happening I could steel myself against it. All of these thoughts were landing in my brain in a kind of flashpoint, one on top of the other and all at once, but there they we had no idea, but it would wait. Or, it wouldn't, but that wasn't the point. The point was that no one was moving. To a man, no one moved, except to lift his eyes to the ceiling, to see where the racket was coming from. As if we could see clear through the ceiling tiles for an easy answer. No one spoke. There wasn't time to turn thought into words, even though there was time to think. For me anyway, there was time to think, too much time to think, and my thoughts were all over the place. Every possible worst-case scenario, and a few more besides. The building was shaking like in an earthquake, like an amusement park thrill ride gone berserk, but it was the rumble that struck me still with fear. The sheer volume of it. The way it coursed right through me. I couldn't think what the hell would make a noise like that. Like a thousand runaway trains speeding towards me. Like a herd of wild beasts. Like the thunder of a rockslide. Hard to put it into words, but whatever the hell it was it was gaining speed, and gathering force, and getting closer, and I was stuck in the middle, unable to get out of its path.
It's amazing, the kind of thing you think about when there should be no time to think. I thought about my wife and my kids, but only fleetingly and not in any kind of life-flashing-before-my-eyes sort of way. I thought about the job, how close I was to making deputy. I thought about the bagels I had left on the kitchen counter back at the firehouse. I thought how we firemen were always saying to each other, "I'll see you at
were. And each thought landed fully formed, as if there might be time to act on each, when in truth there was no time at all.
Richard Picciotto (also known as Pitch) was in the north tower of the World Trade Center when it collapsed in the
aftermath of the massive terrorist attack on 11 September 2001. A battalion commander for the New York Fire Department, he was on the scene of the disaster within minutes of the attack, to lead seven companies of firefighters into the tower to help people trapped and to extinguish fires blazing everywhere.
The north tower was the first of the twin towers to be hit. It was followed 17 minutes later by the south tower. The south tower, however, was the first to collapse, at 9:59 am. At that moment, Picciotto was in the north tower, racing upwards by the stairs because the elevators were out of action. He then gave the order to evacuate. On the 12th story he came across 50 people amid the debris, too badly hurt or frightened to move. Picciotto and his men helped them down. When he reached the seventh floor, the tower fell, and he was buried beneath thousands of tons of rubble. He eventually came round four hours later, leading his men to safety.
Picciotto was the highest ranking firefighter to survive the attack. The chief of the department, the first deputy and the chief of rescue operations had all been killed. Altogether the death toll included 343 firefighters and more than 3,000 civilians.