The WTC death count falls closer to 3,000

December 2, 2001 2:58 PM

The WTC death count falls closer to 3,000 and the New York Times assesses the range of reactions. Some think the drop in the death toll makes a big difference; others consider it inconsequential.
posted by jjg (16 comments total)

I don't think we'll ever know the exact number. It still means thousands of people were killed. I guess there is some solace in knowing that fewer people died than we originally thought, but it's not like it's "only" 3,000.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:08 PM on December 2, 2001

"If there are 3,000 dead instead of 6,000 dead that does not make the tragedy half as bad."

Thousands and thousands of orphans, grieving parents, brothers and sisters. And millions of Americans afraid to travel and afraid to work in tall buildings.

"Our country was attacked, thousands of innocent Americans and citizens from other countries were killed and the terrorists have threatened to kill more"

We will never forget.
posted by Oxydude at 4:07 PM on December 2, 2001

Oh, phew. I thought it was a disaster. That's not half as bad. Where do I get my money back? I need it. There's a recession on, and my boy has his eye on an XBox. Anyway, there's no way so few people should share all those millions. I never liked New York City all that much in the first place, but everybody was sending in money, and I felt pride-like and all American and stuff when I saw Adam Sandler sitting there at the phone bank waiting to take my call, doing his part for God and country.

And those socks, the ones I gave for the rescue dogs? Are those still around? Can you just send them back? I think I have the receipt around here somewhere.
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:33 PM on December 2, 2001

I think the way they count is really skewed - officially, 34 Canadians died, but there are more than 34 missing just from among UWO alumni, and I doubt all of the Canadian victims were Western grads. Temporary agencies have been pretty quiet about the fact that they have no idea how many of their employees were lost, and there is no way to estimate how many people were in the building but might not show up on an official count - temp workers, couriers, consultants, outside contractors, food delivery and catering, tourists and others are not listed among the 'official' dead, and neither does anyone unlucky enough to just be in the way of the buildings when they collapsed.
posted by kristin at 4:36 PM on December 2, 2001

To be frank, I'd have to agree, number-crunching an abominable event like 9/11 borders on the obscene.
posted by jonmc at 4:40 PM on December 2, 2001

Although, putting names rather than numbers to the dead is important, evryone who was murdered that day deserves to have their suffering recognized-and avenged.
It would be nice to have the names of all the dead on the indictment if Osama ever stands trial, just to force him to see the innocent lives he's ended.
posted by jonmc at 4:44 PM on December 2, 2001

Oxydude: "Thousands and thousands of orphans, grieving parents, brothers and sisters."

From New York Times: Thousands of Orphans? An Urban Myth:

For weeks after the terrorist attacks, secretaries at the New York State Office of Children and Family Services and press officers at the city's Administration for Children's Services could hardly answer the telephone without hearing from people who had read news of the "many," "hundreds," even "thousands" of orphans left in need of a home by the Sept. 11 disaster.

The problem is, officials say, there are none. Not a single child who needs foster care or adoption by strangers. Not a single documented case of a child who lost both parents. Just a handful of verified cases in which children "lost their only parent" — and all have close relatives who have taken over their care.

posted by tamim at 5:11 PM on December 2, 2001

Thanks, tamim, for pointing that out. That statistic -- I heard something like 1,500 -- was hard to swallow from the beginning. To get there, you'd have to have hundreds of children with both parents working at the WTC, not impossible given the size of the place, but certainly unlikely. I'm glad someone bothered to check it out.
posted by nance at 5:28 PM on December 2, 2001

"If there are 3,000 dead instead of 6,000 dead that does not make the tragedy half as bad,"

I totally agree with this statement. However, there is more to it. 3000 people die in the WTC attack and we go to war. 17 sailors die as a result of the terrorist attack on the U.S.S. Cole, and we find that the "facts do not warrant any punitive action". Clearly, there is some calculus of human lives involved here; some trigger number that outrages people to a point where they want revenge. We cannot deny that the number of dead does affect us in some way, therefore it is important to keep track of rather than ignore the casualty totals, if only to remind ourselves that it shouldn't matter. Self-examination is never unnecessary.
posted by Hildago at 6:31 PM on December 2, 2001

Tamin, when I cut and posted a quote from the article, I somehow managed to change my post and I never re-read it before posting. The quote should have read "Still, there are thousands and thousands of orphans, grieving parents, brothers and sisters." This explains my incomplete sentence. I never intended to say that there are thousands and thousands of orphans. I would have stopped the sentence at orphans had I intended this. I wanted to say that there are thousands and thousands of relatives to the victims; that will be grieving for a long time. But........since you brought it up, YES there are orphans, according to the paradox of your quote: The problem is, officials say, there are none. Not a single child who needs foster care or adoption by strangers. "Not a single documented case of a child who lost both parents. Just a handful of verified cases in which children "lost their only parent" — and all have close relatives who have taken over their care. I take it by your term "close relative", this does not mean a parent.
posted by Oxydude at 6:39 PM on December 2, 2001

jonmc, in my opinion, what's more obscene is the media's exageration of the casualty figure. They have all been saying 5K+, 6K+, when it was a well known fact that there were duplicates left and right on the "official list" almost from the start. Few media organizations have communicated that stipulation when reporting the official toll and drawing analogies to various historical events.

I don't know about the rest of you, but knowing that three thousand fewer people actually died in this disaster makes me feel better. It doesn't make me feel great, it doesn't make me feel good--it just makes me fell a little better.

No one is discounting the enormity of this disaster when saying that it's a hell of a lot better to have 3 thousand casualties than 6 thousand casualties.
posted by Witold at 6:45 PM on December 2, 2001

Re: the 1,500 "orphans." I distinctly remember hearing that there were some 1,500 children who were left without a father; all were children of Cantor-Fitzgerald employees. I have never heard of "orphans" in any context related to WTC/9-11.
posted by davidmsc at 6:45 PM on December 2, 2001

i think having the death count come down makes it less of a tragedy, but only for the people who didn't know anyone who died.
posted by kliuless at 7:11 PM on December 2, 2001

Hildago: There is definitely a different calculus when military lives are taken. Sailors sign up to go to sea and they know there are risks - so do their families and friends. Don't get me wrong - a dead person is a dead person and it hurts just as much - but from a distanced perspective, at least those sailors signed their lives over.
posted by phoenix enflamed at 9:23 PM on December 2, 2001

I would like to cite the entire quote some of you have cited partially above (and thats okay...):

"If there are 3,000 dead instead of 6,000 dead that does not make the tragedy half as bad," Mr. Best said. "What people ought to see is the astonishing good fortune that we had in evacuating these buildings."

I'm going to focus on the positive; the fact that (also from the article) "the evacuation and rescue efforts were even more spectacularly successful than anyone imagined. The 400 rescuers who died helped save more people than anyone might have dreamed possible."

Thank God for that.
posted by msacheson at 11:11 PM on December 2, 2001

Number crunching is important because it offers an intelligent perspective, but doesn't alter the tragedy one way or the other. Remember, the occupancy of those two buildings on any given day was about 20,000 - Twenty Thousand. The fact the number of dead is a fraction of that is a tribute to the evacuation system of the building. It doesn't lessen the loss, but we as a nation should breathe a sigh of relief when we look back: it could have been a hell of a lot worse, and almost was.
posted by ZachsMind at 4:47 PM on December 4, 2001