Boatlift

Here's a 9/11 story you may not be familiar with, or might have forgotten. Tens of thousands of people were pouring out of the World Trade Center and nearby buildings, and they were stuck in Manhattan. Businesses shut down. The bridges and subways were closed. That's when the boat operators on all sides of the city converged to get people away from the site. They took half a million people away from the disaster site in about nine hours. (via Nag on the Lake)