GOD BLESS US ALL
GOD BLESS MY BROTHERS MAY THEY REST
IN ETERNAL PEACE
Oddly, I did not cry at all the first day. Through the attacks I remained calm, at ground zero I was calm or as calm as anyone could have been amid the horror and upon hearing the news of my friends deaths I remained calm. Late that night or rather early the next morning when I finally returned to the station I could not sleep so I woke up to watch the news. They did a quick memorial with images of the events of the day and I broke down and cried. I still find it hard to sleep at night. Images of planes slamming into towers and people jumping desperately out of burning buildings or running through the streets screaming play over and over in my head in the dark. Even when I'm awake, the American flags I see festooned everywhere -- on a balloon at a haird salon, rippling from car antennas, hung on poles in front yards or at half mast outside fire stations -- remind me constantly of the tragedy. I am writing this in hope that by putting my memories into words it will somehow ease what I am feeling. So I ask your patience as I tell this story:
9/11/01
It was a beautiful late summer day. I awoke early and went to vote for a mayoral candidate in New York City's primary election. After voting I met with a friend of mine for coffee before we both headed off to work. I had just settled in at my desk and was going over my schedule for the day when the first alarm sounded and we heard that a plane had crashed into the WTC and the first units headed out. When the call came in around 9:00 that a second plane had just hit, Pete popped his head into my doorway and told me that they were calling in squads from all over the city and that I should head out with our squad to assist in the victim triage area. I contacted dispatch to find out where the closest triage was being located and then I headed down to the squad. I had just reached the bay area when I realized that my cell phone was still sitting on my desk and I quickly turned back to get it as it would be needed to alert the area hospitals of the numbers being transported to their facility. Little did I know that the number would be so small but this one small action resulted in us arriving on the scene just after the first tower had fallen. I often think back on this action and a sense of guilt comes over me. It is questions such as this that are part of the survivor guilt that we all felt as we questioned, why them and not me?
En route the radio was busy spewing out the calls between the various units on the scene, those en route and dispatch. As we approached we could see black smoke billowing against the bright blue of the sky. When we neared the staging area, we were met by a sudden avalanche of building, white debris and dust coming down the street. It was coming right at us. We were immediately engulfed by the thick, white cloud of debris and dust. Then everything turned to black. My eyes were burning from particles getting into them thru the open windows of the squad. I closed my eyes, and covered my nose and mouth with my jacket. All I could hear was thousands of dust particles going past me, and people screaming in horror.
We could hear the repeated calls from dispatch as they tried to reach the command post. Then a voice came across with the unbelievable. North Tower had just collapsed and with it the command post had vanished along with those rescuers already on the scene at North Tower.
“Did it really collapse?" we asked each other. The dust cloud was as tall as the remaining tower. We held on to some hope that the tower was just obscured by the dust. That was not the case. As the dust cleared and settled we looked at each other stunned. There was no tower there. We quickly joined the EMT unit and other squad members and moved into place, prepared to help as best we could. We could hear the fire inside the remaining tower crackling. We could see people inside of the building looking out, waiting for help. There was glass all over the streets along with miscellaneous debris. There were a lot of empty parked police cars and fire engines.
I looked up at the tower and I saw a shirtless man jump out from one of the top floor windows. He fell to his death near where I was standing. I watched him fall all the way down (which seemed like forever and in slow motion) and I actually felt the thump of his body hitting the ground, and heard the thump echo down the surrounding alleys and streets. (Police shortly evacuated this area of all but essential personnel.) The sound of the people inside of the building yelling for help could be heard above the street noise and roar of the fire. I think that the knowledge that the other tower had collapsed had reached them One person had a white T-shirt out and was waving it out his window on one of the top floors signaling for help. I observed what I thought were pieces of the building falling down, but then when I took a closer look I noticed it was people jumping out. Every 5 to 10 seconds somebody would jump out. At one window I counted 10 people jumping out all at once. Most of the people who jumped out were shirtless and partially naked, thus making me believe that the heat was so unbearable inside the building that they probably decided to jump to their death rather than be burned alive. We could hear each body hit the ground. A helicopter flew nearby the tower, and all of the sudden you could see people’s heads sticking out of the windows screaming to be rescued, but the helicopter just flew by closely like it was going to land up on the roof, but then backed off and flew away. I later learned the air current caused by the heat of the fire had made it impossible for the copter to land.
One by one and spaced several seconds apart, more and more people began jumping and falling through the air from the parts of the building being ravaged by the fire. They were jumping from near the top of the building – probably from about the 90th floor. At this point, my attention was completely transfixed on this surreal scene. Although it was difficult to tell whether they were men or women, I believe that the people I saw falling were men. People began screaming upon observing this scene. Before the bodies started falling, people were transfixed on the fire, but were calm. After the bodies started falling, the tension began to rise. People were collapsing and crying. Much of this time is a slow motion blur. I remember a man screaming, "Fuck this, I've been to war for this country, not here." Everyone seemed frozen and in shock. What I will remember of that moment is an unexplainable feeling of fear and disbelief. I can only describe what I saw as evil personified. (While this was happening it seemed forever but in reality the time was probable no more than 30 to 40 minutes. So short a time span when I look back at it now.)
Then I heard a loud thunderous boom. It was the loudest darkest noise I have ever heard in my entire life. It seemed like 3 long seconds of thunder. It sounded like a bomb had exploded. It was so loud that nearby windows exploded. Glass all over. Everybody was running, screaming, "RUN! RUN! THE BUILDINGS COMING DOWN! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! GO! GO! GO!" We raced toward a nearby entranceway as a tidal wave of concrete dust, debris, and shattered glass, came flying all at once from behind, rolling over our backs for what seem like forever. You could hear people calling for each other "Is anyone near me? Please answer me” It was impossible to breathe because of the concrete dust and we still could not see very well. You could not make out faces, you could just see figures and hear voices. When the air cleared enough to see, we were in complete shock at what we saw…the streets were covered in soot and papers, the air was thick.
The entire area was permeated with a thick white powder. People were staggering, injured, bleeding, and covered in this white powder, some screaming and crying. I could barely breathe or see. I took off my jacket and held it about my face. Anyone who was in the area was covered in the white powder head to toe. For the first few minutes I stayed low, but then a guy came up to me, he was covered in white and was bleeding as well. He asked me if he was alive. He, like a lot of people who were there, had facial cuts from the glass. I gave him a soaked cloth to breathe through and wipe his face on. My shirt was covered in debris and blood. The air was getting worse so I told the guys that we had to move. We ran and made it to where the air was a little better but not by much. We, then, moved on to where a makeshift triage had been set up. No one looked badly wounded, just cuts from the glass, coughing, and trouble seeing. Paramedics handed out water and rinsed out eyes.
At this time it was confirmed that the initial command post had been buried under the collapse of the first tower. They told us that the Pentagon had been hit and something had happened in PA but no one was quite sure just what. No one knew for sure what the situation was in other cities. Was this an all out war? I worried about my parents back in Washington. Had other targets been hit? Who was behind this unbelievable horror? We stayed there for about 30 minutes as the air was still thick with the dust & smoke. A lot of people were coughing but there was order and calm. Someone would get on a PA every 5 minutes to tell us that the air outside was too hazardous but we finally covered up as best we could and left to join up with the rest of the squad at the newly formed command post.
At one point an incredibly loud airplane roared overhead and we all made a dive for cover. Crouching next to the trucks we saw that what we had just heard was an F-16 fighter jet. One of the guys looked at me and said, "This can’t be happening. This is dream. Right? It can still be a dream, can’t it?"
Every where we looked things were covered in gray ash. It was as if all the color had been drained out of the world.
The city was quiet and all you could hear were sirens from police cars and ambulance's. Out on the streets there were thousands of people (mostly business people in business attire) all walking away from buildings. All of them were surprisingly calm but all had a very confused look about them, and most of them were on their cell phones. People were now evacuating downtown. Everything seemed frozen in time with a perfect New York blue sky framing the backdrop to horror.
After the initial horror, the downtown area had been quickly cordoned off as hundreds of volunteers and medical workers converged on triage centers, offering services and blood. Paramedics waiting to be sent into the rubble were told that “once the smoke clears, it's going to be massive bodies,’’ We were told by the CP that “hundreds of police and firefighters are missing'' from the ranks of those sent in to respond to the initial crash. Three top fire department officials were among those who were lost and feared dead. It looked like what I imagined a war zone would look like with bodies lying in the street and blood and steel beams blocking roads. I lost count of all the dead people I saw. It was absolutely worse than you could ever imagine.
Volunteers with medical, military or nursing experience formed ad-hoc crews to accept blood donations and take care of minor injuries as truckloads of medical supplies flooded in. A nearby construction crew hauled two-by-fours and plywood to be used as makeshift stretchers. A volunteer commandeered a van and drove medical supplies to a triage center, then got on a phone to ask businesses to donate food, water, and orange juice for relief workers as we began the task of digging thru the still burning rubble to locate those missing. We had heard reports of cell phone calls from people who were trapped in the debris.
I learned at this time that among those missing was Moira. Later I was to learn that she had called an SOS from inside building 4 where she and several others were trapped. (I have since listened to the tape of that call and can hear the fear in her voice even as she follows all of the training guidelines. And then the dispatcher is no longer able to get a reply.)
Late in the day cranes and bulldozers were brought in to clear the streets. Rescue workers were armed with pickaxes and shovels. I must have come across body parts by the thousands. There was two feet of soot everywhere. The vehicles are running over bodies because they were all over the place and could not be seen. There were people running up to us who were totally burned, no hair, and no eyebrows. Cardinal Egan was there administering last rites to a dozen victims and we learned that Father Judge had been killed by a falling body as he administered last rites to a firefighter. Soot-covered and exhausted, we embraced each other as we met and recognized a “brother”. It was devastating. It hurt. A lot of good guys got killed.
At about 5:30 Seven World Trade Center collapsed and again the air was heavy with debris and as I walked toward the CP, I heard my name shouted and turned to find Pete running across the rubble strewn street to engulf me in an embrace. This was the first we had seen or heard from each other since he had first popped his head through my doorway that morning. When he pulled back, I saw his face. There were tears and I realized that this was only the second time that I had ever seen him cry. He told me that I should not be here but should be back at the triage area. I told him that I needed to be here. There were plenty of people at triage to handle the injured. I needed to be with the team. He made some ethnic comment about my stubbornness and then said that if I was going to remain “at least get some shoes on!” And when I looked down it was to find that at some point during the day I had lost my shoes. I went back to the triage area and “borrowed” shoes from one of the medics there and caught up on the latest news reports. Paramedic, who were there, hoping to treat survivors found themselves instead treating the rescuers. We had two injuries in common - lacerated fingertips from digging with our bare hands and eye irritation from the lingering dust cloud.
At about 10:00 I started the walk back home. This was my neighborhood. My piece of the Island and it was forever changed. From TriBeCa to Chinatown, investigators had turned the five-square-mile area into a giant crime scene. On the streets of Manhattan, thousands of distraught families searched for the missing. Almost every sentence began the same: “Have you seen ...'' And nearly every plea ended the same: “If you know anything, please call ...'' People stood in line at the armory on 26th and Lexington, waiting to complete missing-persons reports. At St. Vincent's Hospital, where many of the victims from attacks were taken, relatives waited to find out if their loved ones had been admitted. Others stood on the street, trying to persuade reporters to print or broadcast the names and photographs of relatives they could not find. And on just about every street corner the world’s media was there getting the story from anyone who was willing to stop and talk to them. At times it seemed as if the media personnel outnumbered the emergency personnel.
At a corner store, an African-American woman held hands with the store's Arabic owner - perhaps in an effort to re-assure him that he was not to blame for the evil actions of his countrymen. When I entered my building, the night duty doorman came from behind the desk and pushed the elevator call button for me. Then without saying a word, he embraced me, released me and moved back to his desk as the elevator doors opened. Traveler was not in the apartment to greet me. I found a note from Jason (my walker) explaining that he had taken Traveler home with him for the night and would I please call him when I got in no matter how late. I placed the call to reassure him that I was home safe and then went to shower. I stood in the shower until the water ran cold then dressed and bundling up the clothes that I had been wearing I headed out the door. The clothes were heading for the incinerator chute and I was headed back to the unit as I knew that I could not stay there alone.
A shrine of flowers and candles had been placed on the ground outside the station early Wednesday morning, where someone also had neatly arranged a firefighter's jacket, gloves, flashlight and digging tool. Inside, everyone hovered around the television, hoping for news that more men had been found. None of us felt like sleeping but would make an attempt, only to wander back out to where the activity was going on. We needed to be with others a meal sat partial eaten on the table.
***
09/12/01 Wednesday
Thousands of New Yorkers came out to lend their hands, to donate tooth brushes, water, sandwiches and anything that we could need. At one school the students spent the morning making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to bring to the site.
Inside each sandwich bag is a little note: "Thank you for your bravery" and "God bless you."
Among the other supplies that arrived were large quantities of donated products: saline, inhalers, nebulizers, benadryl, medical tape, bandages, flashlights, food, water and Gatorade, as well as some important things that were notably absent at ground zero in the early stages of the rescue effort, like visine, contact lens wash, energy bars, ice and several kinds of over the counter medications. Scientologists were giving back rubs. No, I did not get one.
I spent most of the morning at the makeshift morgue, working with the grief counselors and setting up computers for entering the names of all those who were being reported as missing and unaccounted for as well as the grim list of those who had been found and identified as well as those who were still awaiting identification.
I thought that I had become immune to feeling after three years of dealing with this aspect of the job but I soon found that was not true. The embrace given to a family member was as much for me as for them.
Grief counseling is nothing more than common sense given a fancy name. What people need is somebody to listen and share the experience with them. Today I was really sharing the experience with them. Classic symptoms of numbness and denial gave way to grief, depression, and feelings of helplessness, anxiety, and anger. All were normal reactions and I felt them all once more. Some people say, “What can I say at a time like this?” It's more important to be there for people. The only bad thing people can do is say, “Get over it and go on with your life.'''
Later that afternoon as I made my way back toward the work area I saw someone was making a sign on the side of a ruined building. He was using duct tape to make letters. The first letter made was an "F". The second letter began with a straight line from top to bottom. He connected a shorter piece of tape to the bottom of the line and made an "L". Then placing a piece to the right changed the "L" into a "U". I thought he was writing, "fuck bin laden", a phrase that some people had written on their hard-hats. But the man added a smaller piece of tape to the top of the "U" and created the letter "O". The word was "FOOD".
I stood for awhile and watched as the man began to clear rubble and dust from the area beneath the sign. He was making a food station on his own accord. He saw something that needed to be done so he simply started. Within 2 minutes the place was filled with people silently cleaning. No words were shared. I watched boats bringing supplies and then I reached into my bag and pulled out a marker. I took off my hard-hat and wrote a single word on the back of it. That word was "Rise". I turned back towards the site, put on my gloves, grabbed a bucket and joined the others for a long night.
Taking part in the massive effort were thousands of firefighters from departments all over the New York area, members of NYPD, Teamsters, demolition contractors and search-and-rescue volunteers from all across the country. Fires still burned in the upper reaches of the rubble
Men swarmed across the wreckage, their faces and arms whitened by the ever present dust. They formed old-fashioned bucket brigades, scooping up a shovel-full of ash and debris and sending it in a bucket, hand-over-hand, to a dump pile down the line. Wind blew the soot and dust into a driving assault as workers continued to dig amid the eerily lit nightmare landscape.
An ambulance, twisted and covered in soot, sat surrounded by small mountains of steel beams and ash. The burned remains of two more ambulances sat with their doors open, just as they were when the buildings came crashing down. The bodies of 17 firefighters were pulled from under wreckage only yards from the broken shell of their fire truck. Workers went into what remained of the entrance to the building's underground parking garage and came up coughing, hoping to find life, but all they found was the smell of death and fire. Ultrasound had indicated there were up to 14 people on the other side of a wall of thick, tangled metal, dirt and ash. Torches got to work cutting metal, and a crane swung in to pull a beam away. Men working on the hole shouted over the din of machinery that they wanted to stay on the job after their shift ended. Rain began to fall shortly after midnight.
If hope and determination were all that mattered, the site would have been cleaned up and the remains of the dead would have already been delivered back to loved ones. But there was to be no immediate gratification in this awful chore. Many hours later, the path was cleared and the call went out for more black, zippered body bags. As the morning drew nearer, the rain came down harder sending many to seek temporary shelter and to grab something to eat or a drink to wash away the dust from the throat.
I heard screams and shouting and looked behind me. As had happened many times before in the hours I had been there, everyone was running from a building that was about to collapse. The workers jokingly called it a stampede. The building settled but it did not fall. After a few minutes we returned to the work, the light from the site making our silhouettes sharp and shadows long.
The last few floors that remained of the trade center's south tower had collapsed earlier in another cloud of thick smoke. There were problems with other “mini-collapses'' among some badly damaged buildings nearby. Volunteers were evacuated from a damaged office across the street from the WTC when the top ten stories appeared unsteady. Workers fled, sprinting down the street. No buildings fell. (A later inspection on Thursday found the buildings still standing were structurally sound.)
When we got the OK from the search and rescue coordinator supervising the crane and bulldozer-operators moving the chunks of metal, the workers would spring to their feet, adrenaline pumping, armed with crowbars, sledge hammers, chainsaws and hooked poles. They formed a human chain. The front-line climbed atop the rubble and using their bare hands grabbed debris and passed it back to others. Others contorted their bodies so they could squeeze into crevices looking for signs of life. Six, sometimes eight workers could be seen carrying 15-foot-long pieces of metal. They spent hours moving debris until the pieces of debris were too big to handle. And then the heavy machines took over.
We stood in two inches of ash near the place where the World Trade Center used to be. All that remained of New York's tallest structures was a twisted stump of metal, an abstract sculpture that used to be a tower, still smoking. Piles of rubble that men could scale in a few quick steps were all that was left of two of the world's most impressive skyscrapers. The streets near the spot where the World Trade Center used to be were deserted, but for the occasional dog-walker. The Burger King had been turned into the temporary NYPD head quarters. I am told to report over at the morgue again tonight. A Brooks Brothers clothing store became a temporary morgue, where workers brought any body parts they found.
Inside the Brooks Brothers, a group of eight or so professionals - medical examiner, Fire Department paramedic, Police Department chaplains - hunch on folding chairs awaiting the next arrival to the tent. Then the call goes up outside the tent: "Heads up. Body coming!" That a single rescue worker can carry the body bag gives some indication of what's inside. The worker lugs it onto a table made up of a sheet stretched over plywood. They crowd around. Will it be a cop? A fireman?
The paramedic unzips the black plastic bag. This is human? That is my first thought as her gloved hands sift the contents. But then I see. Within a mat of gray dust and paper fragments, a latticework of ribs. No blood or flesh, nothing that is not simply gray and woolly with ash. Only occasionally is there more than this. One bag reveals a severed human foot, the toenails painted a heartbreaking violet. And this is what shocks you, what sits you down with a nauseated, displaced feel of a world spinning awry. Not the gore or the lack of it, but the small details that point tellingly to fragile lives caught in the maelstrom.
Those details are what I'm here for. I'm one of five tagging and bagging anything that might be linked to one of the dead. It's far, far tougher than viewing human remains. A leather shoulder bag holds a textbook and a notebook. The textbook has a woman's name on the front in a graceful, feminine hand. The notebook has her weekly classes written into the scheduling grid. Little reminders are written beside the schedule: "Keep up with the reading!" You wonder: How could these things survive intact and their owners be so completely erased?
In the early hours of the grim task we would be interrupted by brief triumphs of life, when a fortunate victim was pulled alive from the wreckage of the steel-and-glass buildings. In all, five survivors, three of them police officers, were pulled from the wreckage. Cranes and heavy machinery were used, but gingerly, for fear of dislodging wreckage and harming any survivors. We searched with picks and axes working slowly. Sometimes when we opened pockets in the debris, fires flared. Each time a new area was exposed more dust would fill the air. Every now and then a whistle would blow twice and we would all stop what we were doing while someone listened for signs of a survivor but all too often the signal would come again to resume the search.
At this point the sense of urgency was starting to recede and shock was starting to replace it. I counted fire companies from at least twenty states, Canada, France and Germany, too. They were in the familiar gear and I felt somewhat comforted by their presence but I remember cursing and asking why over and over as I looked for some sign that we would survive this horrendous tragedy. One of these signs was a black and white picture of a statue of a mother and child and in it I saw every mother and infant who ever lived. In contrast to the nightmare surrounding us, this image represented innocence. I found it as I walked alone in the darkness through a graveyard of crushed police and rescue vehicles. It was just before midnight on the 12th and I was just wandering through the streets around ground zero for a couple of hours, praying and trying to take it all in.
Everywhere there were mementos, a rabbit figurine, a matchbook, a little basket,
a greeting card: "Hope you have the happiest Christmas ever." that reminded anyone walking through this city of rubble that people, not victims, had worked here. As I turned a corner, something caught my eye. It was the photo, completely untouched in a pile of ash and burnt papers and lit up by a beam of light from one of the huge lights set up over the disaster site. I picked it up and felt the presence of thousands of souls... and God.
***
09/13/01 Thursday
We continued to dig through the blood-stained rubble, piece by piece. We pulled out bodies, Well, not really bodies, pieces of bodies, legs, arms, torsos, feet, hands. We handed them down, hand 'em down, hand 'em down, a bucket brigade of human flesh. A picture that will never dissolve from our minds. Thank God I was spared seeing any children. Others have had to deal with that memory.
Everywhere lay the paperwork of corporate America; charred expense reports, torn memos, ledger sheets, along with floppy disks. The smell of natural gas and the sound of portable generators hung over the site. Grit consisting of pulverized concrete, insulation and paper made it hard to breathe. It covered the streets in a gray blanket a few inches thick. A line of idling dump trucks awaits the dirt, concrete, metal and rubbish. Men and women in white biohazard suits, worked through the night, walking from the piles of debris to makeshift morgues, carrying small bags of human remains.
Medics remained nearby and treated 30 rescue workers, mostly for eye injuries from the dirt. Nurses hung bags of saline solution from a broomstick and used it to rinse workers' eyes. Abandoned and damaged cars were towed away. Cars parked closest to the trade center were crushed. A few blocks away, corner markets still had fruit neatly stacked in pyramids out front. The produce was covered with soot. Firefighters hosed down the ruins of a 47-story part of the World Trade Center complex that collapsed hours after the twin 110-story towers crumbled. Other buildings around the center sustained varying degrees of damage. Some had only soot covering their windows. One building was completely caved in; only its corners and part of its outer walls remained. On one dusty window near the disaster site, there was a message written with a finger: ``God Bless the Dead.''
I attempted to use my cell phone to place a call to my parents. My first attempt at contact with them since the collapse but I was unable to get through. It was another 24 hours before I was able to get through to them.
Seven firefighters who were among those sent to search for survivors after the first plane crashed into the WTC were last seen on the 37th floor. These firefighters, all from one firehouse were still missing Thursday. I had friends among this group, members of the Irish Brigade. Engine 24 got out; all members were accounted for, but nothing had been heard from any of the members of Ladder 5.
Teams from the station went on four-hour shifts to the scene to search through the rubble. The worst part was giving up at the end of each shift. Sweaty and soot-covered, beaten down with exhaustion, pain and anger, they would sit resting their aching bodies against buildings like the homeless. "If any of you have already completed your shift, please go home and report back here at 0900 hours," a deputy chief would bark through a bullhorn. Firefighters would stand up, as if to leave, only to sit down again once the supervisor left. Some guys had been here since 9 a.m., and still they would not go home. Everyone wanted to continue digging until we had accounted for every missing person.
The smashed-up and ash-covered emergency vehicles nearby were an ever present reminder of the disaster. The windows of every vehicle were shattered. One debris-battered rescue truck that had been pushed aside had a foot-high accumulation of soot inside. An ambulance looked like a giant fist had punched it. That is what we stared at while they waited. I think we were in shock. We could not comprehend it. We would look at those buildings and still could not believe it had happened. We often ended a shift by simply sitting down somewhere or sprawling on makeshift beds. We could not go home. For what? We could not sleep. Sometime we would talk, even tell a joke about bin laden or reminisce about the missing but for the most part we sat silently, each of us with our own thoughts. We would start whenever a loud noise would be heard. And the loud crack would often just be a nearby crane winning a fight with a huge steel beam. When someone came or went there would be the quick clasp of a hand but no words.
They added rain gear and towels to the standard issue for emergency workers Thursday night for what promised to be a miserable and dangerous few hours. Military helicopters patrolled the skies at dusk as the grim and desperate business of looking for survivors continued with numbing frustration. People had been known to last a week and better. There had to be room for just one miracle. We felt like we had to do everything possible to try to save those people.
A crane is hoisting a twisted girder free of the rubble when a chorus of despair goes up. I turn in time to catch a glimpse. It is a young woman, or rather the top-half of one, stuck to the top of the beam. Her arm flaps free once, a disembodied wave; then the torso falls free, disappearing back into the wreckage.
Some of the buildings still standing were doing so only precariously. Debris started raining down from one during the night, sending rescue workers fleeing. Everyone there was jittery about another possible building collapse. Late Thursday night the fear of another collapse forced the evacuation of the site near what used to be the North Tower. Reports coming over police band radios said that the area may no longer be safe, that one of the buildings still standing was beginning to buckle. There was no confirmation of the report, but the area was evacuated as officials were taking no chances.
Earlier Thursday two rescue workers were themselves buried beneath debris. They were soon freed. Workers were just grabbing piece by piece, paper by paper, looking, searching for them. The next thing you know, they asked the whole crowd to be quiet, they were listening for the firemen yelling, and once they resumed, about 10 minutes later they got one up, and everyone started chanting 'USA,' clapping, and then in the next 20 or 30 minutes they got the next one up. There has been so little to cheer about and so little time to mourn. We saw things we did not want to see. We heard things we did not want to hear. We smelled things we did not want to smell. We thought thoughts we did not want to think.
With each passing hour, we grew more frustrated as our hopes of finding survivors were dashed at every turn. The frustration was, we were there to save lives and what people would have to live with later was that they feel guilty because they did not pull anybody out. When searchers found personal items among the rubble, their hearts quickened with the possibility that a living person might be nearby. It gave a hint … like eyeglasses, pocketbooks, Palm Pilots…. of the reality of a person. If we found stuff, we would bring dogs in to sniff around. It was a letdown. The dogs did not pickup on anyone. One of the most refined search tools available is the shining black nose of a dog. They knew when it was death. They got upset They scampered across the twisted steel, concrete chunks and office remains that were strewn over the site. As water hoses doused the smoldering debris, the dogs stepped gingerly around still-hot steel and rubber. When they picked up a human scent, they would bark and go wild. When it was death, it was a dip of the nose As the days slipped by, more dogs' muzzles dipped down.
Later in the day the Los Angeles firemen who had special experience in earthquake rescues went underground with dogs through the subway station. They had a map that no doubt bore little resemblance to what the area looked like now. Today workers pulled out a huge section of one of the planes that crashed into the towers but there was still no sign of the voice and data recorders.
****
09/14/01 Friday
President Bush came to the trade center site to see the devastation and to speak words of encouragement, wearing a fire helmet on his head and putting his arm around a rescue worker. “Thank you for your hard work,'' he said through a megaphone, vowing to “answer these attacks.'' The site again echoed with chants of “USA! USA!'' The nation rallied to show its support in New York and beyond, with midday services to mourn the dead and, come evening, candlelight vigils flickered on street corners and at state capitols.
Hundreds of volunteers were turned away as there was all ready as many as space would allow. Still, some waited for hours at the rescue workers' staging area, hoping for a chance to help. There was a great need to do something, any thing.
The National Guard and New York police manned access points to the area immediately surrounding the complex. Tents had been erected, and supply areas for food, clothing and equipment had been organized. The rash of bomb threats in the city -- averaging around 100 a day, compared with seven on the day before the bombings -- brought an arrest Friday of a man who allegedly told police there was a bomb in a junior high school. A phony telemarketer was soliciting contributions for a nonexistent fund to help the families of victims. Both the best and the worst were being seen in the city.
Working 12-hour shifts, and sometimes double that, we found things turning worse in Friday afternoon's rain. Rain turned dust to muck and made footing treacherous. You were cold, your hands were numb, and the steel was slippery. I kept saying to myself, “Give us a miracle. Give us some sound”, but each time someone thought they heard a faint cry for help, it would turn to nothing. We had been digging through the massive ruins since Tuesday's terror attacks, but hopes of finding survivors were rapidly dwindling.
It had been more than 48 hours since any survivors had been pulled from the rubble. Still, the effort was called a search and rescue operation, although we knew that with each passing hour, the odds shrunk dramatically. The number of confirmed dead had reached 184, but the number of missing was still staggering.
And by this times the “nuts” were coming out of the woodworks. A woman came to a police station dressed in medical scrubs and hysterically insisted she had just gotten a phone call from her husband trapped in the wreckage. It was all fake. There was no husband. There was no phone call. Several people were arrested for using phony identification or pretending to be volunteers, then walking off with equipment and other items from the cordoned-off disaster zone. Security for the area was tightened and the number of volunteers bringing in supplies was reduced.
Through a night of rain and a day of swirling wind and dropping temperatures the search for life continued. The mayor said he wanted buses and subways to get back to something approaching normal. Hospitals were beginning to breath again, which was not altogether good news as we wished them busy caring for those we were able to rescue. There was a combination of anguish, anger and frustration that we could not get in and get our comrades out.
The Chaplain spent the day Friday on the pile with us searching and hoping. He would stop and talk and listen to the workers, asking, "'Well how much sleep did you get?" I had four hours sleep. Four hours sleep in 24 and often that sleeping was done tucked up against the side of a building or sprawled across the seat of a squad.
At one point Pete stopped by and ordered me to leave. I walked as far as Liberty and Church but my feet would not carry me any further. I slumped down along side a pile of rubble and was soon joined by others who had been ordered to leave. At one point I looked up at the faces, all covered in white dust except for the tracks made by tears. Not a man among them tried to hide this fact.
A volunteer approached, bringing water, Gatorade and sandwiches and left behind a radio with the continual updates being given by nameless voices who no longer seemed to possess that media detachment. No music played in those hours or if it did we heard only the echoes of the sirens and the thunder of collapse accompanied by the screams. We stood together looking at the ruins and, when the wind turned north, we could smell bodies burning. Into the silent, empty night sky someone shouted: "THOSE MOTHERFUCKERS”. A release that made us all feel somewhat better. There was a need to vent our frustration.
*****
9/15/01 Saturday
The usual smell of NYC, the incense, the smell of the stores and restaurants, air conditioning drifting into the street, ocean air and pavement all mixed was missing. Instead I smelled the smell of an abandoned building, old smoke, wet ash, synthetic things burning. For New Yorkers reality had become a delicate thing, like a thin sheet of ice over a quick flowing river. One draws back from placing a firm foot on it, but one must try. Three and a half days later people still could not help but stare. There was a hole in the city's sky now and at all hours people came to look and to take pictures of what was no longer there.
Yamel, a young EMT was laid to rest in what would be a long series of funerals.
A few of us left to attend the funeral for Father Judge and stood outside the church in our gear before heading back to the site. The Rev. Mychal Judge, known to all as Father Mike, was one of the first to arrive at the trade center after the planes slammed into the twin towers. He lived in a Franciscan friary opposite the firehouse, and responded with that unit after the first reports came in. Judge died while giving last rites to a firefighter When he removed his fire helmet to pray, he was struck in the head and killed. Deputy Commissioner Feehan and Chief Ganci were mourned at a separate services. Too many tears to be shed, too many friends to say farewell to, too many others to comfort and to seek comfort from over the next couple of months.
In the afternoon, residents lined up for a chance to return to their homes briefly and grab some essentials. National Guardsmen escorted them into the blocked-off area and quickly brought them back out. A friend said that they were told that they had five minutes to get what they needed.
****
9/16 Sunday
We started the day with a short prayer at the site and then it was back to work digging amid the rubble. 168 promotions were announced at a ceremony in the afternoon.
Some of the more poignant moments were the discovery of a pair of hands; bound together, found on a rooftop, and the body of a flight attendant, buckled into her seat with her hands bound together. Another was the torso of a Port Authority police officer, identified by the radio still hanging from his belt. Fourteen firefighters (at least a dozen in full gear) were among those found in the rubble of the WTC. The bodies, wearing coats and bunker pants, and those of two Port Authority civilian workers and another civilian were found under a stairway in the north tower ruins. The bodies were whole but badly smashed.
People began to drift toward the trade center site for a firsthand look at the devastation. Some arrived a few blocks from the site, with their children. Others aimed video cameras at the smoldering wreckage, or snapped pictures. Some left with bits of debris tucked under their arms, grim souvenirs I suppose of this piece of history. Strangers looked straight at each other and smiled a reassuring smile. That never used to happen in New York.
***
9/17 Monday
Two more funerals today as Daniel Brethel and Peter Carroll are laid to rest.
I was ordered back to my regular assignment during the day. My case load was light and those families who contacted me were calling to offer their support. Their own problems had been put aside as they sought to offer comfort to us. At time I would find myself startled to find that during the last week that time had not stood still for the rest of the world. Domestic abuse still happened. Young girls were still victims of sexual assault and people still died from other senseless acts. Still at the end of the day I found myself drawn back to Ground Zero as it was now being called.
As I moved through the day my mind still took note of the changes around me:
Canal Street, fifteen blocks away, had become a new boundary. Steel police barricades blocked off southbound streets to vehicles. Police turned away drivers without government ID. Someone had hung a bed sheet spray-painted with the message ``Rescue Workers, We Love You'' with a heart representing the word love. Paper flags plastered store windows like SALE signs. Missing posters pleaded for information.
Worth Street, the stench, reminiscent of burning rubber, was stronger here, just 10 blocks away now. Telephone company trucks were everywhere. Each one flew an American flag from its radio antenna. The glass doors of the Federal Building were barricaded, with a mobile police command center set up in an RV outside.
Chambers Street, five blocks from the wreckage, police at barricades herded pedestrians eastward. Streets running toward the World Trade Center were shut down. Police were on every corner, some with small red, white and blue ribbons pinned over bulletproof vests.
In front of a barricaded City Hall, clean-cut men handed out leaflets containing a “Prayer for America.'' Vendors peddled red, white and blue ribbons pinned together with tiny American flags. A brown cloud hovered over the wasteland blocks away, glimpsed from between buildings. Police leaving City Hall strapped small gas masks to their belts. The slightest wind whipped up a cloud of choking dust. Police vans, full of half-giddy officers finishing up 15-hour shifts, idled outside a Starbucks open only to emergency workers. A flier advertised the Red Cross' telephone number. The first of hundreds of National Guardsmen watched over an intersection.
Broadway and Ann, as close as you could get to Ground Zero without a pass, where the twin towers should block the setting sun, a wide slice of clear blue sky appeared. Utility trucks and ambulances idled, double-parked, bumper-to-bumper. A steady flow of volunteers, firefighters, environmental consultants and construction workers navigated around blue wooden police barriers to the sidewalk just outside the restricted zone.
9/18 Tuesday
Two more funerals were held.
Andrew Brunn is laid to rest.
At ground zero, firefighters in heavily gloved hands continued to sift through sand-like grit and hauled away steel beams as hope faded that any more survivors would be found. The mood for the past several days had been grim. Workers would tell you that they were holding onto hope, but the fact was there was very little hope left to hold on to, but the urgency was no less Monday than it had been the week before. Searchers located a number of voids or gaps in the wreckage, making their way through some of the tunnels, but there were no signs of life. Somebody said it had been about a week, so we paused to think about it. Hard to believe that it had been a week and yet at times it seemed like a lifetime had passed.
There was concern over the fires smoldering near a stockpile of Freon stored beneath the towers, but EPA said no leaks had been detected. No hazardous substances had been found in the air except some dust with slightly elevated asbestos levels.
Yesterday, no intact bodies were recovered. More than 5,000 people were still unaccounted for, including more than 300 firefighters and 23 cops. Among the dead found were 18 city firefighters, three Port Authority police officers, two emergency medical technicians and a New Jersey firefighter. None of the missing police officers had been found so far.
Officials faced a crucial decision: When should they concede that rescue efforts were futile and move full-time into the grimmer task of recovering the dead? With only five survivors pulled from the smoking ruins, none since Wednesday, the day after the disaster, the decision, when it came, was more symbolic than real. But freed of the responsibility of moving gingerly so that lives might be saved, heavy equipment operators and bucket brigades were able to step up the pace of clearing the mountain of debris much to the frustration of rescue workers hoping to get a crack at digging out some possible survivors. It also meant that thousands of relatives and friends would have to move on, and accept that their loved ones were dead. Only 115 victims had been identified since yesterday One hundred and eighty have been confirmed dead.
The debris was being hauled by dump trucks to an area near the recently closed Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island. There it was spread out and sifted by FBI agents and detectives for airplane pieces and other evidence that could help explain what occurred aboard the jetliners and help build a criminal case. Aside from survivors and evidence, the feds were focused on finding 500 guns that were in WTC offices and were still unaccounted for. They continued the search to no avail yesterday.
Late Monday night, two more firefighters had been recovered. On Tuesday a police officer's body had been found. More bodies were recovered in the last 21/2 days than in the previous 10, now that major sections of rubble have been removed.
I caught a cab today around 42nd and Broadway and upon reaching my destination went to pay the driver who said something. At first I could not understand what he had said so he pointed to the ID tag pinned to my jacket and asked, “Do you work on the Trade Center?” I answered, “yes” and he said, “I do not want your money. Thank you, God bless America.”
***
9/19 Wednesday
Another funeral today….
I still found myself torn between the need for retaliation and the desire for healing.
***
9/20 Thursday
A new danger emerged, the potential collapse of the huge retaining wall around the fallen foundation. The Port Authority advised that there was no immediate threat that the so-called "bathtub" wall would give way but the order was given to shore it up with concrete before all the rubble was removed.
There was one sign of life that's endured around the ruins, volunteers putting their backs into emptying an 18 wheeler packed with donations. At Ground Zero, the supply chain was difficult, because of the bio-hazard effect. We had to throw out boots and clothing everyday. Everyone wore masks to keep the dust and asbestos at bay, but they were quickly caked with dirt, and coughs showed the effects of days on end spent in this grit.
***
9/21 Friday
New Yorkers lined Liberty Street around the clock to cheer. We dubbed it the "Liberty Walk." The people just wanted to touch you, to thank you. Sometimes they would try to show you a picture of a missing loved one, but mostly they were just there to give support. There were always rides waiting for the rescue groups as they came out, and plenty of hospitality from normally brusque New Yorkers. They offered food, drink, anything. They desperately wanted to talk, to somehow feel a part of the effort. When buses carrying rescue workers left the site drove by, they stopped so the workers could hear the cheers and read the signs. The workers needed to see people. The workers had been in hell and the crowds brought them back. The workers were thankful for the crowds.
