I'm listening to this story now, but wanted to make my comments while it's still fresh in my mind.
I had the advantage of reading this story first a couple of weeks ago when I bought a copy of Dark Faith, which is a collection of horror and dark fantasy stories exploring the nature of faith. This was the first story in the anthology, and when I read it, I wondered, how is this considered horror?
The extent of my 9/11 experience was living near O'hare Airport and having all the planes grounded. For me, the terror and fear of that day was looking the sky and seeing no planes at all. I remember fearing for my boss, who was traveling overseas. And I remember watching the planes hit the buildings and the towers fall, but through the remove of the TV screen.
In some ways, hearing this brings back those feelings, but putting it in a more meaningful context. While I was reading the story, I still felt a little removed because it's easy to skip over the passages that make you uncomfortable. Not so in audio form. I'm finding it very hard to listen to the story, even though I was fine reading it, even thinking arrogantly, "Well, that was a tame story." (and trust me, compared to some of the other stories in the anthology, it *did* feel quite time. Get Dark Faith if you like to get scared out of your wits. Brr.) There is something about the audio form of a story where you hear the emotion, and its all the more stronger. Two weeks after I read this story, I had a chance to do a reading with K. Tempest Bradford at Wiscon, who read a story of hers that also deals with 9/11. Although the setting isn't in New York, more of an Ethiopian setting, it was so strong and visceral it left me devastated. Devasted. And it was quite the powerful story.
So I'm not surprised that this story brought out a lot of strong emotion. Personally, I thought it was very well done. Oddly, in listening to it, I can't help but now think, "Man, why wasn't this put on Psuedopod?"