This is a phenomenal oral history of the events, learning of, and response to the events of 9/11.

If an emergency is a circumstance in which ongoing realities are emergent and aren't predictable based on previous experience or world-models, this is a phenomenal example of those dynamics.

Commander Anthony Barnes: That first hour was mass confusion because there was so much erroneous information. It was hard to tell what was fact and what wasn’t. We couldn’t confirm much of this stuff, so we had to take it on face value until proven otherwise.

I've long maintained that the first signs of a disaster tend to be:

- Information doesn't add up.

- Communications are completely severed.

- Old models of understanding don't apply.

- Old filters or sources of information don't apply, and information overload is experienced because it's not clear what to ignore or what to trust.

Our world models give us the means to process and parse information, but also, critically, let us discard extraneous information at little or no cost. When we're placed in unfamiliar or extraordinary circumstances, "foreign territory" as Col. Bob Maar put it, old models do not hold.

Very powerful reading.