The purpose of this BLOG page is not to brag or boast but to try and solidify my own thoughts about what happened on that fateful day and during the months to follow. And in the grand scheme of things, even though I’m the only firefighter from my station to work at the site in any function, comparatively I did very little if you could see what my friends in FDNY and other ARC volunteers did.
If you read it, and it reminds you . . . Al the better. As the new fire service montra reads:
NEVER FORGET!!
PAPD - 37!∞
NYPD - 23!∞
FDNY - 343!∞
http://nyc.gov/html/fdny/gif/wtc_other/ground_zero/best_004.jpg∞
∞
This is a little of my memories about September 11th, 2001 and the time I spent in New York City in the aftermath of that tragic day:
Well hear it goes. I’ll try this time.
It was getting late when we left Yankee Stadium that Sunday evening. It wasn’t even two weeks since the towers came down. The stadium had been filled with thousands of firefighters from across the US there for the prayer services. My first stop was Squad 41. I had stopped by their station a little over five weeks ago but it seemed a lifetime ago, 343 lives ago. The trunk of my car was filled with cards from all over the State College Area School District for FDNY firefighters and I was the self appointed deliveryman.
It was now dark. Because of the fire department license plate on the front of my car, we entered the ‘forbidden zone’ (south of Canal Street) unmolested. There was still smoke and dust in the air and everything south of Canal street was dark. Everything except the generator powered glow of the ‘site’ (ground zero) a few blocks away.
Weaving through man-gates and past armed military, the glow of generator powered portable lights at the intersection check points cast a haunting glow over the wet street and under-lit the towering architecture of the financial district. We were driving west along what was once the iconic symbol of freedom and capitalism. Wall Street under marshal law. Even with the windows closed, the smell of the burning pile permeated my car.
After a few minutes, we stopped behind an FDNY Battalion Chief’s truck as it pulled up to the NYU Downtown Medical Center Hospital’s ER. He was delivering a firefighter to the ER for treatment of a respiratory infection. As the chief’s aid filled out paper work in the ER, (still in uniform ) I walked to the chief’s car. A once proud man sat staring at unfilled out paperwork that probably still isn’t done.
“Hello Chief”
He looks up with a half stair. As I hand him some of the cards from my trunk, “The kids of State College, Pennsylvania dropped these off at my fire house.”
“You came from central Pennsylvania?”
“Yes”
“How long are you in town?”
Pointing to the other firefighter in my car, “We came in for the prayer serves at Yankee stadium and then to drop off a trunk load of cards. Were going back tonight.”
Glad to see a visiting fire fighter from outside the mess, “That sounds like a pretty long day.”
“Not as long as some are having.”
“That’s fore sure.”
“Keep safe Brother..”
“Thanks, have a safe trip back tonight.”
We didn’t say much but the stair in his eyes was gone. Maybe for a few moments.
On October 29, 2001 . . . My birthday . . . I found myself in the Camden Plaza Office of the American Red Cross (ARC), Brooklyn Chapter. The chapter that was running all of their NYC Incident Response. My brother, as a NYC local, was helping run the office and sites on the weekends. He had been a ARC disaster quordinator in Elmira before and now lived in the NYC area. He called me and asked if I wonted to work…. HELL YES!!! I was there the next week end, 10-29-01.
A few weeks before, when Scott and I helped at the ERV, we were not officially working for the Red Cross yet. We just saw a need and helped. But this time I was getting signed in to be ‘official’. My intake person was a young lady who is a firefighter in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I, as always, had a fire department sweat shirt on and she mentioned her job and asked, “Are you professional or volunteer?”
I quickly corrected her little fopa.. “I’m a professional volunteer.” There is a little jousting in the US between the paid firefighter union and the ranks of volunteers. If you wont to be an Alpha, your going to be professional. Professionalism isn’t in pay but in training, performance and attitude. The volunteers call it career or volunteer.
She apologized and started telling me about her department (another fire service tradition, “My department is bigger than yours“). She thought she had me, “We run four stations each with an engine and a truck at one. We cover 40,000 people.”
“We (the volunteers of the Alpha Fire Company) have a small operation.” I crack a faint smile as I egg her on. She smiles and takes the bait. I can beet her on this one, “We have two stations. . . But we run five engines, two towers, a heave rescue, tanker, and cover about 100 square miles. Oh yah, with between 80,000 and 100,000 people in it..” Her eyes were wide at that statement. “ That includes Penn State University.”
Mistakenly, “Oh, but the university has its own department?”
“NO!” With a slight smile, “We cover it all.”
The jesting aside, I finished my paper work and then the half day safety training the was mandatory. I was then assigned to Resbit 3 in the New York Marriott Financial Center just south of the site.
You might remember that the Marriott World Trade was destroyed when the south tower collapsed. IT is the next block north of this building. Go to:
http://marriott.com/property/propertypage.mi?marshaCode=NYCWS∞ and click on “photo tour” and then choose “outside, 360” to gat a look at the hotel. You can pan and see the building next to it which was completely gutted and is still empty and next to that, the pile.
By the way, all three groups, FDNY, PAPD, NYPD despise the title “Ground Zero” because “Heroes don’t rest in Ground Zero”. All of the guys at SQ 41 called it at first, “The Pile” then as work progressed it became “The hole” but it could always be called “the site”. Everyone new what you meant when you said “the site”. There was no other site.
