LON SLEPICKA
Firehouse.com News
Two programs at Firehouse Expo in Baltimore presented excellent narratives
of dramatic events during and following the terrorist's attack of the World
Trade Center in New York City.
FDNY Battalion Chief Rich Picciotto described the harrowing hours he and a
small group spent trapped after the collapse of the World Trade Center North
Tower. He faced a moment when he said, "Please God make it quick."
FDNY Battalion Chief John Norman, who took over the Special Operations
Division after the loss of Ray Downey at the World Trade Center, and Lt.
Fred Endrikat, Rescue 1, Philadelphia FD who was the task force leader for
the FEMA USAR teams sent to New York, spoke of the rescue and recovery
efforts following the terrorist’s attack. "We were not going to leave these
people. There was no way in hell we were not going in," Norman said.
Last Man Down
Chief Picciotto was asked to repeat his program as hundreds filled the room
to overflowing the previous day. He has written his story in the book "Last
Man Down",
Picciotto’s unimaginable day began when he took a company of firefighters
from Ladder 110 in Brooklyn up into the North Tower to help in rescue
operations. He had worked the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and felt he
had a good handle on how to work this incident.
It was around the 35th floor when a new reality set in. As he spoke,
Picciotto shook the podium he was speaking from. He described the a noise
above getting louder, "like a train coming into a station." Everyone was
frozen in their tracks. No one said anything as they stared up to the
ceiling. He said it felt like the noise went right through them as the South
Tower collapsed. Picciotto realized it was bad when all radio communication
disappeared. From where he was he ordered an immediate evacuation.
The evacuation was going well, he said until they found a room with perhaps
25 handicapped people with another 25 people helping them. They had stopped
to rest. Picciotto sent the helpers on down and had the firefighters take
care of moving out the handicapped.
Now with a group other firemen, a Port Authority Police Officer and an
elderly woman named Josephine, they worked their way down the stairway. On
the sixth floor they heard the noise from above again only multiplied by
100, Picciotto said. He knew what it meant. That is when he said his little
prayer.
It took eight seconds for the building to come down. "A lot time to think
but not a lot of time to do anything," Picciotto said. The wind hit and
stuff fell on him and the noise was intense. Then there was silence and
blackness. He thought he was dead.
It took a few minutes, Picciotto said, to realize he was alive and
relatively uninjured. He also became aware that he was not alone. The 14
people were saved from the collapse by the structure of the stairwell. With
a light pointer, Picciotto marked the spot in a photo of a mound of crushed
steel and concrete. "We were right about here."
It took hours to make contact with rescuers. As the dust cleared they could
see a ray of light above and worked their way toward it. It took hours for
rescuers to get to them.
Picciotto said he wrote the book because so many people wanted to know about
his experience and it was a way to help him release his emotions.
"God had a reason to keep me alive. I wish I knew what it was. Tragedy
sometimes brings out the best. I don’t think the brotherhood in the fire
department could get any stronger," Picciotto said.
Rescue and Recovery Efforts at the World Trade Center
FDNY Battalion Chief John Norman was at home sleeping in starting a two-week
vacation when he got the phone call alerting him to the WTC attack. The loss
of Downey moved him into command of the Special Operations Division.
Hindsight has presented several questions about how FDNY handled the
incident and Norman was frank about problems.
First is the knowledge now that sending firefighters into the buildings to
fight the fires was fruitless. But in fact the rescue operation was the
saving grace for thousands of people Norman said. And there was no way that
FDNY was not going to go in and rescue these people.
"We knew we were going to get up, get everybody out and then get out
ourselves. We were not going to put out the fire," Norman said.
One of the toughest things to do was shift from rescue to recovery. "Why
stay in the rescue mode for so long? We felt we owed it to our people. We
knew people could survive up to 14 days. If anyone could do it, our
firefighters could. We have them every benefit of the doubt," Norman said.
Like Picciotto’s case they thought there might be other survivors in voids
in the destruction but after two weeks they had checked everywhere. They
switched to recovery.
They designated 2,000 firefighters as the primary task force to work
recovery duty at the site. The more then 9,000 other firefighters went back
to normal city firefighting duties.
Norman was quick to thank all those that helped FDNY and the city. But he
was also quick to explain that the volunteers that flooded into the city to
aid and search for their firefighter brothers created a big problem for
FDNY. He said their easy access to the site and the lack of communications
with them often put them in precarious situations, sometimes dangerous.
He used an example of clearing a dangerous site of FDNY firefighters and
soon seeing volunteers looking for a place to dig, working that site without
authorization.
He said that it caused a morale problem too. FDNY firefighters on normal
duty would see a television interview with a firefighter from out of town
working at the site and wonder why they were not allowed to search for their
brothers too.
Norman described a monumental effort that involved food and laundry and
adapted work clothing and an endless list of unusual needs. Around every
corner was a new problem to deal with. But in the end, Norman said, the
recovery effort produced only three firefighter injuries that required
hospitalization.
"In the beginning I didn’t know how we were ever going make it. But we got a
lot of help from our friends," Norman said.
