More 9/11 911 Phone Calls To Be Released

Tacky city government! Tacky!

Over this past weekend 24 families who lost kin in 9/11 received Priority Mail envelopes from the city regarding the last moments of their loved ones' lives. Because of a lawsuit in place the city this week is set to release a number of 911 phone transcripts that had previously not been seen by the public (actually, they are just releasing the operators' side of the converstations...). Because of this the city wanted to give the families in question some heads up on the matter so that they could get their bearings before facing the public.

Which is to say, the city really did have the best of intentions.

Except they really messed up. While they had intended to give 9/11 support groups an early warning about the letters so that families wouldn't be surprised a clerical error meant that no groups were ever called. The letters were a complete surprise to their recipients many of whom had no idea how to handle them. One woman fainted after she "opened [the letter] up in an elevator. She couldn't believe it, because she never heard from here husband that morning, but apparently he called 911."

While we're glad the city is releasing everything they can on 9/11, man do we wish they'd had a little more tact on this one.

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By Garth Johnston in News on March 27, 2006 10:12 AM

Comments [rss]

Larry

9/11 families STFU! Jesus H. Christ, people get news of all sorts of personal tragedies every day and you want a phone call telling you that you are going to get a package with a tape of an operator's voice???

garth

Yikes, that is worse than usual. What I get for writing posts from an unfamiliar computer, I guess. Anyway, should be fixed now. Thanks for the scolding.

wow

regardding = regarding

loved ones lives = loved ones' lives

the operators side = the operators' side

berrings =bearings

reciepents = recipients

many who had = many of whom had

one or two woulda been ok...i guess....but wow

Meg

Unfortunately, these families cannot expect to be treated with kid gloves forever. It takes a lot of resources to generate a mailing of this nature and I can't imagine the cost and logistics involved in CALLING everyone first. They would have complained about the phone calls!