This 60 Minutes Episode premiered on Oct 31, 2001. Dan Rather walked around the remains of the World Trade Center with an engineer who was in charge of the cleanup… I learned a few things I wasn’t aware of after watching this. I had never been to NYC (outside the airport) until 2002..

There were six floors underground. It was basically a city within a city, complete with a shopping mall and metro access.

The twin towers had a slurry wall which kept the water out… New York City has a high water table which makes a protect wall a necessity.

Near the end, Dan Rather asked the engineer what he would say to people who believed this was an impossible task…

He compared his job to what Great Britain experienced in WW2, sixty years prior to the destruction of the World Trade Center.. He quoted Winston Churchill by saying

“We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.”

This video was very interesting… but it’s a reminder of how fleeting life really is. It was strange to hear him reference WW2 as 60 years ago and the construction of the World Trade Center as 30 years ago…

Wow, time. We’ve yet to fully understand you..