Hurricane Floyd

he first presented it in public that november at a show in the east village accompanied by a video he had captured of the smoke rising from the towers the sound of loss of music being swallowed by noise became indelibly associated with the events of that morning For some months in 1999, the artist Stephen Vitiello had a studio on the 91st floor of the North Tower where he'd installed contact microphones on the windows to pick up sound outside.

Recording on the day after the remnants of Hurricane Floyd passed through the area that September, he caught the creaking sound of the building swaying in the high winds.

Exhibited at the 2002 Whitney Biennial, Vitiello's audio, which suggested both massiveness and fragility, had a profound effect.

In the same spirit, people became fascinated with the aerialist Philippe Petit's extraordinary 1974 tightrope walk between the towers, a guerrilla stunt that would now never be repeated.

I probably think about this experience about once a week.

September 16, 1999, Hurricane Floyd hit southeastern North Carolina.

We had a German client scheduled to visit right during that time.

And so I'd already been to Germany twice recruiting this company.

I mean, seriously, the water's soaked halfway up to my thighs.

I get back into my car, turn off the CD player, turn on the radio, and find out that school's been canceled for my whole state because Hurricane Floyd is gonna hit, like, within the hour.

This has gotta be one of the most '90s stories that I have.

Also, the other lesson I took from that day was I stopped listening to my music on the way to school.

His last sermon went, dear body, dear mother, I tried to sleep in the summer and failed.

Hurricane Floyd conjured your mother from swept-up dust, no ghost abandoned, the egg-white sky of Youngsville.

Because of you, I'm addicted to learning every Whitney song.

Oh, lady of the river, thank you.

You have to be licensed there, or else they will take your vehicles, they will take your tools.

In fact, when Hurricane Floyd hit, the out-of-state electrical workers couldn't come in and make repairs because they weren't licensed.

Now, Pennsylvania has a home improvement contractor program.

But the problem with that is, first off, when you pay your bill, it comes up Department of Education.

So that was cool.

I can remember back when I was, I think I was only four years old for Hurricane Floyd that came through, Tropical Storm Floyd.

Yeah.

Did a lot of flooding in Danbury.

There's a whole lot to remember.

I mean, of course, you know, in my book, I always talk about the Hurricane Floyd and, you know, the victories over Miami and the victories over all the now power four teams that we – We had during that time period.

And of course, you know, you got the same conversation now as you had back then.

How do we make it to the next level? Well, that's what we were talking about in 1991.