It’s the middle of September 2001 as I write this, at the end of the one of the worst weeks in American history. Like many Americans, indeed many in the world, I’ve been watching a lot of television and constantly checking news websites since I first got word of the attacks on New York and Washington. I’ve become a virtual prisoner of the media for these agonizing days, waiting for answers that are slow in coming.

It’s a common pattern in times of crisis, of course: Network news organizations take over the airwaves in an attempt to satisfy insatiable public curiosity and demonstrate unattainable acumen. They deliver news as quickly as possible, whether it’s newsworthy or not, accurate or not, and fill in the gaps with video footage, analysis, recap, hypotheses, speculation, interviews, and more recap. That has happened this time, as well.

Yet, this crisis is so different in so many ways. Most profoundly, we’ve watched a human catastrophe of unbridled proportion unfold, one that is simply beyond the bounds of rational thought. The sheer magnitude of the terrorist attacks has yielded many more details than usual at every level, whether physical, tactical, or emotional. And, like never before, so many of those different perspectives have been captured by timely camerapeople, both professional and amateur, and broadcast for everyone to see.

Indeed, this time we’ve been eyewitnesses to a violation of our civilization played out on television as if it were, at first, a Hollywood movie. Alas, it was not a movie. Special effects wizards did not create the explosions, nor did movie producers commission images of violence for personal gain. But just as celluloid scenes of destruction have recoiled into sheepish irrelevancy in light of real life and real tragedy, the wealth of video images that has emerged from Tuesday the 11th of September and in the days succeeding has reached out to the entire country and the world.

People have seen what happened, not just as fact but also as consequence, plainly visible in the mounting toll on individuals, families, New York City, and the nation. What has emerged in response to these intimate pictures is an empathetic, sympathetic, and patriotically-united public, mobilized to respond with unprecedented goodwill, donations of money and time, and a pooling of expertise to aid the victims and the relief effort.

With Video as Our Witness

For those who were watching live television in those early moments of the crisis, the first footage of airliners slamming into the Twin Towers and their subsequent collapse may not have immediately captured the magnitude of the moment. There were no Herb Morrison/Hindenberg-like descriptions of calamity to explicate the horror, at least none that I’m aware of. Indeed, most news anchors, as I understand it, were just as puzzled as their viewers. Together, we were left to make sense out of the senselessness, our only guide the couch-bound fog of a typical movie plot. But soon other cameras on the scene began to show what happened more clearly and fill in the blanks left by that initial bewilderment.

Within a remarkably short period of time, footage emerged of the second crash and then footage from street level of the first airplane hitting the North Tower. Through the attentive eyes of both news cameras and handheld camcorders, we were able to see several different angles of the planes as they tore through the twin mascots of capitalism. It is positively remarkable footage, in many senses of the word. You can see the jets entering the frame, crashing into the buildings, and becoming the bombs that would ultimately bring down the two towers. In some clips you can see the planes disappear into the buildings, leaving an evil, black silhouette of the fuselage and the wings before igniting the fatal blast.

People have said that video simply can’t capture the true devastation of an event such as this. The narrow frame is hopeless to convey the enormity of the wreckage that consumes some sixteen football fields worth of twisted metal piled stories high and stories deep. I’m sure that’s true. But I’ve also seen plenty of video that tells a very compelling story of what occurred. Furthermore, video has been critical in the attempt to show the country and the world what happened in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

While the news footage of the collapses showed the facts, amateur video has shown the reality of what it was like to be there. After Dr. Mark Heath heard the first airplane explosions, he ventured toward the site to offer assistance, camcorder in hand and recording. He was asking a bystander where medical assistance might be needed when a noise above tempted the camcorder upward. As an enormous cloud of gray dust and debris descended, all Dr. Heath and the people around him could do was run until the cloud engulfed their position. Heath, constantly narrating for what sounded as if it might be posterity, described how broad daylight had turned to complete darkness.

An apparent stranger pulled another amateur videographer, camera rolling, from the street into a shop. Her camcorder was at first fixed on the Trade Center building as it was collapsing and she did not seem to recognize the imminent danger. Within seconds of her safe arrival in the shop, the haze of rubble rolled past, first turning the sunshine to gray, then black. Simultaneously, her confusion on the audio track turned to unabashed thanks to the stranger for saving her life.

Perhaps the camera can’t capture the wreckage, but video can read the faces of the firefighters and rescue workers as they came in and out of the “hole.” Big bears of men, some with tears in their eyes, were visibly humbled by what they had seen and what they were there to do. Cameras, too, can capture the obvious selflessness not usually associated with New Yorkers.

Other video has shown thousands of people, pictures in hand, searching in the streets of New York for missing loved ones. Have you seen my brother, my aunt, my husband, my child? Many were interviewed, their stories similar and tragic. Occasionally, a probing, insensitive reporter pointed a camera toward an awkward scene, and that will happen with any crisis. But this story, and these thousands of personal stories, seemed to breed remarkable restraint from typical behavior, even within the media. Most of the stories have been riveting and, so, I have watched for days and the video and the stories keep coming.

An Unfolding Drama

I have also watched to understand who did this. And, for the first couple of days, news reporters and networks were often tripping over themselves trying to break the latest tidbits. Much of it was journalism at its finest, but in haste, errors were also made — sometimes recanted, but many times not, leaving viewers wondering what information was the latest and most accurate. In the tumult, computer graphics reached the absurd, with chicky disaster logos and local and network overlays fighting one another for the same lower-third space. This is where live video coverage can be at its worst.

Fortunately, by Friday morning law enforcement seemed to be limiting information to the media and the public at large. Sure, I want to know everything they know. I want to hear all the reports. I want vengeance. I want the hatred that caused this destruction to face the full wrath of the world community. But it is rarely appropriate to follow those emotions to fast action and in this case it is no different. On the evening of the 11th, news cameras showed us bombing in Afghanistan and that might have held some degree of satisfaction. But it wasn’t justice and, fortunately, it was not ours. I can wait for appropriate and smart action, taken against the right people at the right time by people who have a strategy and a method to serve justice.

Video of the disasters has given us, the public, our mission, and that is to come together. Images from around the world — the “Star-Spangled Banner” played outside Buckingham Palace in London, candlelight vigils in Berlin, moments of silence around Europe, and many more hopeful scenes — have shown we are not isolated, and pictures from across this country have shown we are united. In that, we have already begun to win.

Jeff Sauer is a Video Systems contributing editor.