The “Dust Lady”: Aftermath of the 9/11 Attacks

Twenty years after the chilling attack on the World Trade Center Twin Towers that cost thousands of lives, photographs from the event still haunt survivors and viewers alike today. 

 

On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, a group of 19 terrorists from the extremist group al-Queda hijacked four airplanes and executed a suicide attack that would shock the whole world. They had two targets: the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon. In the attack on the Pentagon, the crash from the Boeing 757 killed a total of 189 military personnel and civilians. At 8:45 AM, the American Airline Boeing 767 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, instantly killing hundreds of people in the building. The resulting explosion caused pieces of debris to fall onto the street. In less than 15 minutes after the initial crash, the South Tower collapsed due to the intense heat generated from the burning jet fuel of the Boeing 767. As a result, almost three thousand were killed in the 9/11 attacks. The severity of the event sent the entire country into distress and mourning, and many still feel the repercussions today. 

 

One picture that many may recognize is the “Dust Lady”, a picture taken by the photographer on-site, Stan Honda. The picture illustrates a woman who is dressed in business attire, “completely covered in gray dust,” Honda described. 

 

The woman’s name is Marcy Borders. She had just started a new job at Bank of America in the World Trade Center at the age of 28 prior to the attacks. She had narrowly escaped from the North Tower before its collapse, and her face of disbelief and shock along with her dust and ash-covered body were captured in the infamous photo. 

 

Borders was just one of many victims in the 9/11 attacks, but her story exemplifies the extent of the harm done, even after everything had ended. She later suffered from severe depression and cocaine usage in the aftermath of 9/11. After many years of battling mental illness and drug abuse, Borders was diagnosed with stomach cancer in August of 2014. Following the cancer-induced deaths of three former firefighters who had worked during the horrific event, some speculate that Border’s cancer was also caused by the same exposures: excessive inhalation of carcinogenic dust from the explosion. 

 

After suffering for nearly 14 years, Borders passed away at the age of 42 in 2015 from stomach cancer. 

 

In addition to the three thousand lives that were taken on the day of the attack, many people that survived still suffer and are at dire health risk from the terrorist attacks. 

 

Today, the public can pay homage to those whose lives were lost that day from the attack at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum located at the reconstructed World Trade Center in New York City, New York. 

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Sources

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Freedom du Lac, J. (2020, June 23). The photo of the doomed 9/11 'Dust lady' still haunts us after all these years. The Washington Post. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/09/11/the-photo-of-the-doomed-9-11-dust-lady-still-haunts-us-after-all-these-years/.  

History.com Editors. (2010, February 17). September 11 attacks. History.com. Retrieved October 3, 2021, from https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/9-11-attacks.