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RDP Friday: fleet

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Written for RDP where Lou asks us
to get creative with the word “fleet”.

© Smithsonian Magazine

The flotilla of ferries and boats on September 11, 2001, was a spontaneous, makeshift armada that carried out the largest maritime evacuation in history, rescuing an estimated 500,000 people from Lower Manhattan in less than nine hours.

After the World Trade Center towers were struck, the U.S. Coast Guard broadcast a VHF radio call for “all available boats” to muster at Governors Island to help evacuate stranded civilians.

Hundreds of mariners answered. This makeshift fleet included commercial NY Waterway ferries, the Staten Island Ferry, tugboats, fireboats, private yachts, and fishing boats.

Boats pulled right up to the seawalls of Lower Manhattan. Crew members and captains pulled frightened, dust-covered people on board and transported them safely across the harbor to New Jersey and Brooklyn.

New York City is my hometown; I still live in New York. There’s a respectful quiet in my city today.

We will never forget

NAR©2026

This is “Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning” by Alan Jackson

The Ragtag Daily Prompt for September 11, 2026 is Fleet!

Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, except where otherwise indicated, and may not be used without permission. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.



20 thoughts on “RDP Friday: fleet”

  1. I was working for an American Bank’s operation centre here in the UK. The entire office came to a standstill as we crowded round the TV in the social room in total shock and disbelief.
    Teamwork stretched across the globe as all financial institutions answered the call, taking up the slack from the US in other operation centres, expertise in technology and communications dispatched with haste.
    Twenty five years ago, and it seems like only yesterday.

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    1. Same here, Jim. Living in New York, just 20 miles from lower manhattan, made for a surreal day. We were all in a state of disbelief and shock. I remember that night our church became a logical place for people to go and pray; an impromptu service was quickly pulled together and the church was packed. People needed that at in those first few hours and the days that followed.

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      1. I was on a job interview that day up in White Plains and the guy that was interviewing me apologized that another person needed to meet me, but he was in a meeting so he asked me if I didn’t mind going to a coffee shop and coming back in about 45 minutes. I was watching TV having a Danish and a cup of coffee when I saw the first plane hit the tower and I couldn’t believe what I saw and then the other tower got hit by another plane. I never went back for the interview, because all I could think about was getting back home where I would be safe. I watched the News for 3 days straight and a month later I got hired without another interview.

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          1. I took the NJ Turnpike South to make my way home and I could see all the smoke rising from NYC. I wanted to find out more about what was happening, but no radio stations had reception. I tried calling my wife on the way home, but my cell didn’t work either.

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              1. I had been out of work for 6 months and I was running out of unemployment benefits, but I took off because I knew something major was going on when this attack happened. My dad had died a year earlier on Se4ptember 14, 2000, and I was so happy when President Bush named September 14, a day of prayer, as I thought that was a great way to honor my father.

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