...At first, (click title to entry - thank you) the response by local vessels was completely spontaneous. Ferries, tug boats, fishing boats and other vessels pulled up, filled with tired, dust-covered survivors, and made for the nearest shore – often Brooklyn, just across the East River, New Jersey across the Hudson, or Staten Island on the other side of New York Harbor.
“They were just steaming out of the buildings and the first mode of transportation they saw was a ferryboat, that’s when they know, this is how I’m getting out of here,” said Rick Thornton, another New York Waterway captain. “They didn’t even care where the boat was going.”
The numbers involved threatened to overwhelm these efforts, however. “There wasn’t panic in New York, in the beginning – just volume,” said Capt. Slater, whose ferry made dozens of trips back and forth to New Jersey. “It wasn’t until the first building fell that there was panic.”...
