Who named the site of the 9/11 attacks 'Ground zero?'

[Rosa Luxemburg]

Why didn't they start building anything there until 9 years after?

[mike r]

1. The media

Somebody borrowed "Ground zero" from the nuclear vocabulary, and it immediately caught on.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. If memory serves

it was used in the context of 'Ground Zero in the war on terror' in the complicit corporate media back during the run-up to invasion & occupation of Iraq.

[HuckleB]

3. Back in the day, there was a reporter named Samuel Zero.

Middle name was Ground.

As you would expect...

[rabs]

4. The media stole it from the Trinity site here in NM

I doubt that journalists (especially the TV talking heads) of today have any idea of where the "Ground Zero" label came from.

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Worlds first A-Bomb, prior to Trinity Event




Trinity Site is where the first atomic bomb was tested at 5:29:45 a.m. Mountain War Time on July 16, 1945. The 19 kiloton explosion not only led to a quick end to the war in the Pacific but also ushered the world into the atomic age. All life on Earth has been touched by the event which took place here.

The 51,500-acre area was declared a national historic landmark in 1975.

What You'll See
Included on the Trinity Site tour is Ground Zero where the atomic bomb was placed on a 100-foot steel tower. A small monument now marks the spot. Visitors also see the McDonald ranch house where the world's first plutonium core for a bomb was assembled. The missile range provides historical photographs and a Fat Man bomb casing for display. There are no ceremonies or speakers.


http://www.vivanewmexico.com/sw.trinity.html


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My father was a tower guard at a POW camp for Germans about 60 miles from the Trinity Site when the explosion took place. Remember him telling me when I was a child that the sky had lighted up in the dark, dawn hours as if it were noon.

Then it went dark again and it was only after the two bombs were dropped in Japan that he learned what had happened in the NM high desert.

[Mnemosyne]

5. I hope your father's health was not affected by the Trinity site bomb test.

60 miles seems rather close.

Nuclear madness...

[rabs]

7. Have often wondered about that.

The father was okay and lived into his 70s. But the mother died of uterine cancer at age 51, although as far as I know there was no history of cancer in her family.

There have been unconfirmed reports that there were a rash of cancer deaths in our county 15-20 years after Trinity, which was a "dirty bomb" back then.

We lived about 60 miles north-north east of the site and the prevailing winds carried the dust from the explosion over our area.

I often think of doing some research on cancer deaths before and post Trinity in our area, but really don't know where to begin.

Thanks for asking.


(edit to add path of radioactive dust)

[metapunditedgy]

6. It's ironic, because the only nation to use a nuclear weapon against another nation...

is the USA.

("Ground zero" being associated with nuclear weapons, normally.)

I'm pretty sure the WTC attacks don't really compare to nuclear weapons.