The Boatlift

The maritime evacuation of Lower Manhattan remains one of the most remarkable and least remembered stories of September 11. It became known simply as the Boatlift.

No one gave the order. In the hours after the towers fell, Manhattan became an island again. Bridges and tunnels were closed, subway service was suspended, and hundreds of thousands of people walked south and west until the pavement ended at the water’s edge.

Then, through the smoke and confusion, the boats began to arrive.

Ferries, tugboats, fireboats, dinner cruisers, private yachts, fishing boats, and party boats—whatever could float converged on the seawalls and piers of Lower Manhattan. More than 150 vessels, crewed by approximately 600 sailors, carried frightened and exhausted people away from the city. In the days that followed, many of those same boats returned with firefighters, rescue workers, medical personnel, food, water, and essential supplies.

Coast Guard Commandant James Loy later compared the operation to the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940. In roughly nine hours, an estimated 500,000 people were transported to safety, more than were rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk in nine days.

It remains one of the largest maritime evacuations in history. Yet it was almost entirely spontaneous: an extraordinary act of courage, humanity, and cooperation carried out by ordinary people who saw a city in desperate need and answered without waiting to be asked.