Thinking About the Unthinkable

When I sat down to prepare this article last night I couldn't think of a single thing to write yet my mind was overflowing with thoughts. I ended up in front of the television again, a place where I've spent the better part of the last few days watching in disbelief with the rest of the world.

I'll share some of the thoughts I've had, disjointed though they may be, about the tragic and horrific events of Tuesday, September 11 in New York City.

I don't think I'll ever get over the chilling sight of the towers of the World Trade Center crashing to the ground, and then later as numerous videos surfaced, of airplanes flying into them. I doubt whether any of us around the world who have worked in office towers can escape a comparison of our own experiences.

As someone who has worked in pretty much all the downtown office towers in Canada's largest city over the last 20 years, I don't remember giving much thought to the possibility that those buildings could be sabotaged. Certainly the idea that someone might deliberately propel a jet at one of them never occurred to me. How could it occur to any of us? It's simply unthinkable.

I've been thinking too about the security protocols at large buildings whenever there is a fire alarm. At the last company I worked for in Canada's tallest office tower, I signed up to be a floor warden. We learned that unless there is an immediate and obvious threat we were to stand by and wait for instructions from the building.

Such protocols are designed to limit panic, to reassure, and to save lives. They are no doubt perfectly feasible for all imaginable calamities. But what about the unimaginable? Can there be any preparation?

I thought about all the people who may not have made it out of the World Trade Center towers because they took a few seconds to log off their computers in order to preserve the integrity of company data, or to lock confidential customer information in their desks. After all, everything would be back to normal tomorrow, right?

What about the brave souls who didn't make it out because they wanted to ensure everybody else was off the floor before they left?

I wondered about disabled workers who rely on the elevators to carry them to and from their floors. How many were stranded when the elevators went out of service? What chance did they have of escape?