Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning footage of ragin g fires, December 18, 2004
In this video, Steve Spak, an accomplished fire photographer, arrives on the scene of Ground Hero just after the towers collapsed. Steve probably would have been among those killed if he had been at work on 9/11, but he was home due to the birth of his daughter.
This DVD shows previously unseen footage of the FDNY's heroic efforts to fight the fire in 6WTC; it also shows the fire raging in 50+ stories of 7WTC. The 7WTC fire in and of itself might have been the largest fire in FDNY history! Throughout the video, you hear FDNY radio communications, and Steve provides narration at the appropriate moments, yet he allows the pictures of the stunning scene unfolding before you to do most of the talking.
I highly recommend the video, it's American History occuring live before your eyes on West Street, in New York City.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WTC 9/11/01 Day of Disaster, March 31, 2005
This video showed images that I saw through a firefighter's eyes as a fire lieutenant in the FDNY on 9/11. The video is gritty and captures the images and sounds of ground zero shortly after the collapse of the twin towers. If you want a feel of what it was like to be there as a first responder, this video is for you.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Important historical document, October 10, 2005
Steve Spak's Day of Disaster is one of the most important records of the events of 9/11 yet released. His film picks up where the Naudet brothers leave off.
The scenes are raw, unedited and for any documentarian or history buff, that's the beauty of this piece. Uninterrupted by interviews made up of the opinions of others, Steve Spak begins to record the carnage as he approaches the red zone, not long after the North tower collapsed. As he walks into the mysterious cloud, the true horror of the event unfolds, as fire radio communications and sounds of the moment serve as the narrative tool.
A long standing friend of the FDNY, a very familiar face at Queens' Rescue-4 and former NYC EMT, Spak's film offers a first hand account from the firefighters' and rescuers' point of view. He arrives at a point when emergency workers are regrouping, salvaging equipment from destroyed rigs, and trying desperately to make order out of chaos.
As Steve walks closer and closer toward the debris pile, he comes upon a firefighter, shocked and coughing up the product of the collapses. With him is a suited gentleman, thoroughly covered in the thick white paste, who reveals that he's a physician -- a department physician. In the next scene, two lone FDNY paramedics load their gurney with supplies, then disappear into the dust cloud.
At Building 6, the Customs House, Spak comes upon the remains of firefighting rigs, which shortly before had been part of the rescue effort. Twisted and contorted, many with their engines still operating, these unmanned rigs tell the most important story of the moment -- that many good men, New York's Bravest, are gone.
It is gems of imagery like this one that become the thread for Day of Disaster, and the reason why this film should be in every 9/11 collection. It's raw and gritty but never gruesome and someday, some network executive will finally understand that the most effective way to tell the story of those first hours is to permit the viewer to be part of those first arriving rescue teams unencumbered by a narrative track by someone who was never there.
Steve Spak was there. And history will remember him and Day of Disaster as the Pearl Harbor documentary of our generation.
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