Night and Day Tragedies of the Titanic and the Towers

Witnesses remembered a calm April night at sea, the water like glass, a century ago. A decade ago, the September morning sky was a gorgeous, cloudless, cerulean blue, anyone there can tell you.

Sept. 11, 2001, and April 15, 1912: The dates are dark cousins. Looking back at a magnificent sinking ship, we're no strangers to the grief and disbelief. They are kin to the tragedy of our times, the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Titanic, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were meta-messages of plush grandeur, commercial might, world power and sheer size.

The "unsinkable" Titanic raced across the Atlantic bound for New York in record time. What befell the vessel on its maiden voyage, a massive iceberg, was unthinkable. So were three hijacked planes bursting out of the blue to hit New York's shiny steel towers and ram the Pentagon; while a fourth crashed 125 miles from the Capitol. And our hearts broke.

Fifteen hundred people perished at sea; 3,000 died in the burning buildings. Seeing the towers crumble shattered a sanguine sense of all's well, the peace and prosperity of the '90s. The Clinton "high cotton" age vanished in flames. We plunged into two unwinnable wars in a bit of a daze.

The aura of invincibility made victims more vulnerable. Preparedness was poor; so many more people died than warranted in these desperate events. The Titanic did not have enough lifeboats, yet they weren't filled to capacity. The South Tower unfortunately was not evacuated — people were told to return to their offices after the North Tower was hit. Precious moments and steps were lost before the Second Tower was hit and fell first.

Clearly, the Pentagon was just as defenseless.

The cause was a crafty plan that caught us unawares, a harder reason to accept than a force of nature — but not by much.

History was riding high in 1912, too.

Before a world war cost England dearly, optimism about progress brimmed on both sides of the ocean. The automobile was four years old. Wireless radio excited everyone much like the Internet — sadly, ships shut off Morse code traffic late at night, while the Titanic was tilting, sending distress signals. It was all over before sunrise.

On our side, fireproof schools were the civic pride of cities like Cleveland. In the wake of ebullient Teddy Roosevelt's presidency, America was in better spirits and shape than ever. Women and blacks were still in society's steerage, but organizing to fight for their rights.

As James Cameron, director of the movie "Titanic," told National Geographic, "Everything seemed so wondrous, on an endless upward spiral."

The Titanic and the Towers held the high and mighty down to the poorest Irish villagers and other immigrants seeking a new world. In falling from place, each felt like the loss of a world.

For next time, note authority isn't your best friend. As the 9/11 commission report advises: "One clear lesson of Sept. 11 is that individual civilians need to take responsibility for maximizing the probability they will survive, should disaster strike."

United 93 passengers had the gift of more time to think. Forewarned of their fate, they revolted against the four hijackers and brought the last plane down in a far-off Pennsylvania field that's forever September 11th. Their parting gift was sparing us one more unbearable loss. Without a cloud, you could see the Capitol in the air from country miles away. All told, the drama took 102 minutes: from the time the North Tower was hit at 8:46 a.m. until the time it collapsed in ashes and dust at 10:28 a.m. Nobody was planning to die that April night, that September day, that way.

Salvaged from the ruins: A calamity takes time to face, even if you're in it.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM