I am shocked by what I see. Filling the screen is live footage of a passenger plane crashing into the north tower of the World Trade Centre at 8:46 am, leaving a huge hole with heavy smoke and fire pouring from the building. I feel sick to my stomach.
Then I watched as the second plane hit the south tower about fifteen minutes later. I remained transfixed when another plane hit the Pentagon, and less than an hour after the initial hit, the collapse of the south tower followed by the north tower at 10:28 am.
Within a day, the call went out for assistance from firefighters across North America, and my department began sending members within the first few days. I flew from Vancouver to New York City in early October 2001 and joined another 10,000 firefighters who had come to help. I found myself walking down a dust-filled street towards what looked like a gigantic termite mound with steel building frames sticking out of the top. Incredibly bright emergency lights continuously lit the still smoldering site. A peculiar burning smell cut into my nostrils.
After walking several blocks, we arrived at Firehouse 10, and a captain from FDNY whacked me on the shoulder as he went by saying, “Thanks for coming boys. This is war!” motioning with his thumb to the collapsed north tower that was still burning. My buddies and I stood watching as FDNY members dug out their brothers on hands and knees. They carried a mummified brother right by us. We had only been on the ground a couple of hours and stood there in shock. Then one of my buddies saluted, so I brought my shaking hand up to my head and did the same. We were standing on the gigantic mound of dirt (or what I thought was dirt) just staring and a FDNY firefighter walked up and introduced himself. We exchanged pleasantries and then he asked what I was seeing in that moment. As if it was a trick question, I asked him to repeat it. I still had no idea where he was going with this. I was in total shock after watching it all on TV and now I was standing at the base of the still burning one hundred and ten story tower that was fully collapsed in front of me, looking into a smoky sky saying, “What the fuck is happening?” He snapped me out of it by saying, “Steve, there is no fucking dirt in uptown, brother. That is not dirt — the building completely pulverized.”
He said it so absolutely, like he was an engineer. “Look around, try and find one piece of glass or concrete — you won’t brother, because it’s all dust.”
He was right. Every day when we entered the secured area and walked the several blocks to the pile, the dust was knee-high in some places. We went to the pile and walked right by the three storefronts converted to a morgue — and every day the two piles grew higher with the flattened air packs and bottles the firefighters carried on their backs, and the turn-out gear they were wearing. Every day, FDNY brothers dug another brother from the rubble. When they got close to a buried body, they dug with their hands so as not to cause more damage.
As Canadian firefighters, we were not allowed to work at the pile although thousands of firefighters were there that week wanting to do something — anything to help. Ground zero was a crime scene controlled by the FBI. We were allowed to come every night, as if coming to a shrine to pay our respects and go into Firehouse 10 and chat with crews and other firefighters. Some of the guys rode trucks who had lost firefighters in the attacks and asked us to please attend as many of the daily funeral services as we could.
Most evenings after attending funeral services, we ended up walking around Times Square with thousands of other firefighters from all over North America. One night after attending that day’s funerals, my buds and I went to a bar called the Slaughtered Lamb in Greenwich Village. It was about 10 pm and we quietly sat and talked as the small bar started to fill with a group of locals. By 11 pm, the place was packed, and sure enough, the wave of drinks came. I asked the bartender to point out who had sent the last round. I headed over to a couple in the corner to say thank you. I spent the whole night talking with them. I mentioned how guilty I felt about random people buying us drinks and one of the fellows responded by telling me what had happened to him.
He said he was on the seventieth floor of the north tower when the plane hit. He and thousands of people jammed the stairwells heading down because the elevators were unusable, filled with aviation fuel and fire. It took forever to get down the stairwell and he thought he was going to die for sure. He said he saw the faces of the amazing firefighters climbing the stairs in the other direction, heading into the fire and the chaos, all of which he believed never made it back out. When he got close to the lobby, he was panicking, just wanting to be out of the building, but the crowd heading down the stairs stopped moving. They were on a skybridge that joined the two towers, and he could see down into the ground floor courtyard between the two towers. One firefighter was standing there alone looking up. Then he heard a loud roar and a rumble, and the whole lobby area started shaking. He said the entire crowd was watching that firefighter who was now running when a massive piece of debris crashed to the ground exactly where the firefighter had stood. The entire crowd started to scream and got moving again. When he finally made it outside, there was a huge crowd standing there looking up. He remembers a woman holding a baby, just watching, and said he will never forget the number of spectators. He ran for over twenty blocks until he could not run anymore — then he turned around and just watched. Once the south tower fell, he walked home and ever since has never looked in that direction of the city. Finally, he said, “If I want to buy you a drink because it makes me feel better, you better let me.” I just said okay, but before I left, I wanted to give this man something. I had my full-dress uniform on and asked him if I could give him my uniform shirt and he said no. So I ripped the flashing off my shoulder, gave it to him, and went to shake his hand but he stood up and gave me a hug.
A total of 343 firefighters lost their lives doing their job on 9/11. Even though we firefighters say we are prepared to do our job no matter what the cost, we don’t ever go to work thinking it is going to be our last day on the planet. When 9/11 happened, every firefighter felt instantly humbled and most of us wanted to help in any way we could with so many people buried underground. In the end, authorities were only able to find and match DNA from 60% of the victims, leaving 1109 people unidentified.
I will never forget it.
0 Comments