The 9/11 boatlift is not exactly breaking news. The 2016 book American Dunkirk: The Waterborne Evacuation of Manhattan on 9/11 documented the event for historical purposes (reviewed here by Rick Spilman for gCaptain). Yet it comes as news to me, via our friend Jean Yarbrough of Bowdoin College. Professor Yarbrough draws my attention to the moving 10-minute documentary “Boatlift” (video below). The film dates back to the tenth anniversary of 9/11 in 2011. It’s an inspirational story.
This 2014 American Waterways Operators press release described the boatlift as “the largest water evacuation in American history – in which 500,000 people were transported to safety by hundreds of vessels which answered a call from the U.S. Coast Guard to converge on New York Harbor to aid in the evacuation.”
Indomitable New York voices leap out of the documentary. Watching the film, I thought, New York came back from 9/11. I wondered, can it come back from the damage wrought by current Democratic misrule?
I give Professor Yarbrough the last word: “I understand playing down such acts in the Obama years but why during the Trump years? This deserves to be celebrated. I am filled with a deep sense of dread for the future.”
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