Everyone huddled on the pier, seeking fresh air. For once, strangers were helping each other, sharing water and masks, caring for the elderly/injured.

Edited to add the following anecdote.

In 2011, a photo editor from NewYork Magazine emailed to ask me, "Can you confirm if the white spots in this image are dust or paper?"

I replied that it was a white cloud of debris that enveloped the entire downtown as the second tower came down. She then emailed back to ask "Was there paper in the debris?" to which I responded "I'm fairly sure there was . . . at what point does pulverized paper become dust? how do you tell the difference?"

I wondered why she was obsessed over the paper in the debris, and wondered if a lack of paper made it less useful or powerful.

Turns out, they published an article "Paper, Dispersal of" with the tag line "The odd sparkle of devastation." on Aug. 27, 2011. The thing is, the photo they used for the article didn't have any sparkles of paper. (They later edited the article and removed the tag line, but I managed to find the original on the internet).