“Sell first, repent later.”

Abstract

This chapter examines how Chelsea Piers facilities, located directly up the Westside Highway from Lower Manhattan, had served a major role in disaster response from the earliest hours of the 9/11 attacks. The piers offered water stations for people fleeing from downtown and became a key debarkation point for the waterborne evacuation, delivering more than 10,000 people off the island from its docks. Then, the following day, more than 30,000 people arrived to volunteer their help and connect with other New Yorkers. In the days that followed, thousands of uniformed personnel were fed in an events center at Pier 60, hundreds of rescuers slept and showered in Chelsea Piers facilities, and truckloads of donations and supplies were assembled and processed for delivery to the trade center site. By Wednesday, the flood of private citizens' donations had been supplemented with massive corporate contributions arriving in bulk. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard was confronted with two opposing missions: protecting potential targets of a second-wave attack and continuing commerce in a port that regularly handled approximately 6,000 inbound and outbound containers daily, the closure of which created complications worldwide.