I think it can both bring the public to better understand first response and disaster response better as well as serve as a great film for other first responders to better understand what happened and how that day was handled.
Investigation after large-scale national tragedy is often contaminated with the many factors that surround that event. Since the attack on the World Trade Center was so deeply rooted in politics, culture, international relations and emotional connections, the investigation following the attacks failed to result in a dispassionate, scientific verdict. Instead, it became muddled in the many conflicting and intertwining interests that came with the attack.
The central narrative of the film is the many complications, setbacks, and incrediable challenges that the first responders of 9/11 faced when attempting to medically aid the many victims of the disaster.
It has been cited 5 times, in three papers (The World Trade Center Analyses: Case Study of Ethics, Public Policy and the Engineering Profession; Engineering Risk and Disaster: Disaster-STS and the American History of technology; Making Sense of Disaster) and two books (Expanding the Criminological Imagination: Critical Readings in Crimonology; The Martians Have Landed!: A history of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes).
Not much, to be honest. I was disappointed they didn't mention fire fighters much in it though.
Scott Gabriel Knowles is the head of the Department of History at the University of Drexel College of Arts and Sciences. His work focuses on risk and disaster, with particular interest in modern cities, technology and public policy. He is a research fellow at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, and has been a member of the Fukishima Forum collaborative research community since its inception in 2011. His work on public policy in relation to disaster-preparedness is focused on his home city of Philidelphia, and has written extensively on how to better prepare the city and preserve its legacy.
This article covers the investigation procedure following a tragedy, and how the outcomes of these investigations tend to be muddled due to factors outside of logic and reason. These influencing factors make it difficult to draw conclusions as to what contributing factors were most significant in the damage sustained during the tragedy, and how to best avoid them in the future. For this reason, it addresses how difficult it is to improve disaster-response when so little useful information can be gleaned from the modern investigatory procedure.
The personal stories of the event, especially of the one paramedic whose name I didn't catch (Hispanic, Female). The emotional tellings of the events were incrediably visceral. I cannot conceive a scenario worse than what they had to deal with.
The number of emergency workers lost during 9/11:
343 Fire Fighters - http://nyfd.com/9_11_wtc.html
60 Police Officers
8 EMTs and Paramedics - http://www.world-memorial.org/Tribute/EMS/medics.html
EMS Lesson's Learned from 9/11
http://www.jems.com/articles/2006/08/lessons-learned-911.html
Changes were made to the mutual aid system. Resources that had, in the event, run out or were needed sooner than they were used are now better stocked and available. Some new trainings were implemented.
More stories from 9/11 by EMS
http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/pdf/mck_report/ems_response.pdf
This report was produce by compiling historical events and vignettes of the investigation process following several prolific tragedies. They are compared, and conclusions are drawn about similar aspects that muddle investigation following one of these tragedies.