Cause And Effect Essay On 9/11

On September 11th, 2001, The United States of America experienced the deadliest terrorist attack in its history to date. Members of the Islamic extremist group ‘Al-Qaeda’, led by Osama Bin Laden, managed to hijack four airplanes with the goal of crashing them into various places within the United States in a suicide mission. Two of the planes hit the World Trade Center, both of which crashed into the north and south towers of New York City. The third plane struck the Pentagon, the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania due to the passengers’ efforts to stop the hijackers and retake control of the plane. In total, approximately 3000 people were killed in the attack

At the World Trade Center, it is estimated that the attacks resulted in $33-36 billion worth of damages taking into account “earnings losses, property damage, and cleanup costs” (Bram, Orr, and Rapaport). Many businesses and industries also had to put a pause on their production due to the stagnation of economic activity. Within the first three months after the 9/11 attacks, “New York City’s economy alone lost 143,000 jobs a month (Figure D) and $2.8 billion wages in the first three months” with 60% of these jobs being in finance and air transportation (History.com editors). It is believed that due to the mass reduction in hours and jobs, between $3.6-6.4 billion in earnings were lost from the day of the attack to June 2002 (Bram, Orr, and Rapaport). One of the largest hits to be taken as a result of 9/11 were the U.S. stock markets. Many markets closed for several days, particularly the NYSE and Nasdaq, which had not remained closed for this amount of time since the Great Depression (Davis). The fact that the last time the stock markets were closed for this long was during the United States’ worst economic disaster further cements the negative impact the events of 9/11 had on the country. When NYSE finally opened up, the market experienced a cataclysmal 7.1% decline in value. To put this statistic into perspective, this was the record for the greatest

As a result of the attack, the citizens of America were left in shambles. The emotional toll due to the attacks was intense. Many citizens witnessed the tragedy firsthand, whether on TV or being in New York City at the time. This resulted in several ways individuals coped with the tragedy. “The City and the Pillars” by Adam Gopnik describes the calm and mundane nature of the city directly before the tragedy occurred. In his account, he describes how “for some schools, it was the first day” and described the morning setting as “cartoons waiting for their usual morning caption: Exasperated at 8 A.M.” (Gopnik 39). When describing the setting after the attack, Gopnik mentions seeing people “crowding under a lamppost on Madison” and people carrying on with their lives, as if “[rejecting] the image on the screen” (Gopnik 39). Based on Gopnik’s account, it is clear that the degree of seriousness did not yet hit the citizens of New York City, and were somewhat in a state of denial as to what was truly unfolding before them. Many, stricken with grief, paid visits to Ground Zero. Pictures were scattered everywhere, in an effort to find loved ones and survivors. However, it soon became clear that the “search for survivors was really a search for corpses” in which recovery efforts would “yield little” (Haulley 53). On top of