Firefighter Steve Modica

From the April 2002 Firehouse Magazine

I was working as the SOC battalion aide. Chief John Pailillo and I were going to Squad 252 for a drill. When we received the alarm, it came in as a second alarm for the World Trade Center. You could see the whole top of the building was engulfed in not so much flame – you could see a little bit of orange, but mostly black, black smoke. We had heard it was a plane, so upon receiving the alarm, a second alarm for a plane crash, we thought it must be a light plane or a helicopter. As we were responding, somebody said 10-60, so at that point we realized that it must be a pretty intense situation.

There was a northwest wind that day and most of the smoke was being blown off towards the southeast. It looked like a pretty good wind up at that height. The smoke didn’t even rise. It just kind of went sideways and right off to the southeast. It looked like there was a big black stain on the outside of the building. It was kind of hard to tell exactly what it looked like, so I said maybe when the plane hit, it exploded and just scorched the side of the building. As we got closer, we realized that it was a hole. You could actually see that it was a hole in that north tower.

We parked the car just north of Vesey Street on Church Street. We started to put our gear on and that’s exactly when the second plane hit. The radios just went completely wild. Guys were yelling another plane, my God, another plane hit. Somebody said it was an airliner, it was a big plane. Somebody yelled out it was a military aircraft. You saw a flame burst, but you couldn’t exactly see what had happened. It was inconceivable that this could be happening, so we really didn’t believe it.

We saw the ball of flame. We thought it was maybe a sort of an explosion in the north tower or something like that. We started to walk down Vesey Street heading towards West Street and we stayed on the north side, I guess that would be the Verizon Building. It had a sidewalk shed up there. The whole block was a sidewalk shed, so we stayed under that. On the way down we noticed very large plane parts on Vesey Street, and you could tell at that point that this was not a small aircraft. There was a lot of stuff falling.

We actually saw bodies, but they weren’t landing on Vesey Street. They were landing up in the plaza level. That’s where mostly you could see them coming down, but we didn’t see any fall directly in front of us. We heard a lot of crashing sounds, which I assume was the jumpers. The frequency was it was very rapid. It wasn’t what you would think of a normal fire situation, where you have a jumper and then it was quiet for awhile and then another jumper. This was quite frequent.

When we got down to West Street, we made the left to go across Vesey along the Customs Building underneath the north bridge. As soon as we got under that north bridge, we made a bee-line right into the north tower. We didn’t go in through a door because all the windows in the lobby were blown out. There was a lot of stuff falling. Now at this point, you could actually see that there were more people coming down because they’re on the side of the building and there was no doubt in your mind that this was people jumping.

We went in through a window in the northwest corner of the building. There’s a little command post there and we went right over to a chief who was stationed there. A lot of guys running around, a lot of civilians, a lot of Trade Center workers, a lot of people around. So I hung back. John went over to speak to that chief and he barely spoke. He was there for like a second or so. He turned around and I looked at him and I said well, what do we do? He said start up and wherever we could find ourselves useful, we’ll help. So we started to go in towards the elevator bank area and just about every elevator bank had its doors blown off. They were just empty shafts, a lot of glass around, a lot of marble, a lot of granite off the walls, sheetrock down, some traction cable, scorch marks in a few elevator banks. No doors, no doors. The doors were blown off. Some of them were in the shafts, some of them were in the lobby. You had to walk over them.

I’ll just go back and kind of give you a personal feeling. When I first got there, I couldn’t wait to get in the building because I thought it was totally unsafe to be outside anywhere around these buildings because there was so much stuff coming down. So once we were in there I think everybody pretty much felt confident that this was kind of the best place to be. The only banks of elevators that looked like they might have been serviceable were the ones that went up to the 17th floor. Some of those elevator doors were ajar, but the cars were down with the lights on. And when we got in towards that bank area, the chief went left to go see if we could grab one and I had a World Trade Center employee come up to me and say if you want to try those elevators, these are about the only ones that can get you up to 17. We decided not to do that. So we immediately entered the B stairwell.

There were not a lot of firemen in that stairwell. We passed or got passed by 10 or 12 guys. Companies were really strung out. Some guys were in better shape than others. Some guys are passing us. We’re passing some guys. We’re swapping floor to floor with guys. Guys would pass us. A floor or two above they’d stop to rest. We’d pass them and so on and so forth. On the way up, there was a constant stream of people and very orderly. Everyone stayed to the right and it was solid people. On the way up, we would ask people where are you coming from and what were the conditions? And people would give their floor. They’d say it was fine. We’d ask was there anybody stuck up there? They’d say no, we got everybody out of that floor. I started to lose the chief in the 20s, I guess 21, 22. He started to pull ahead of me.

I got up to the 24th floor. The chief at this point was out of sight and one of the last people that I saw coming down said he was from the 89th floor and there was a light smoke condition. So I thought immediately how far are we going to have to walk up? I was dying already. So after that, after the 24th, 25th floor, there was nobody else coming down. There were no more civilians, just firemen.

You had a lot of stuff in the hallway. You had life-saving ropes, spare cylinders. Guys were just jettisoning things when they realized how far they had to go. But basically that was it until I got to the 30th floor and I had to stop. I was completely exhausted, so I stopped. I was with two other firemen from Squad 18 and we stopped and we took our turnout coats off and our helmets and our masks. We had everything off. We were just taking a rest.

A few seconds after we got all our gear off, the building shook violently, damn near knocked you off your feet. You could hear a faint sound of a rumble. It wasn’t loud, it was just a very faint rumbling sound. It lasted maybe about four seconds and then it got quiet and the lighting went out and the emergency lighting came on. The radios were completely quiet.

Then we heard this sound, this boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I’m like what the hell is that? It was four ESU cops coming down the stairs and they weren’t even touching the tread. They were going from landing to landing. We had to put our backs up against the wall to get out of the way. Then there was a transmission on my radio. I was on Channel 1. There was a transmission on the radio that somebody said there was a collapse on the 65th floor. Then somebody came back and very calm, didn’t identify himself or his company, and said we’re on the 65th floor and everything’s fine.

At the time of the rumbling and the shaking, immediately right after, Rescue 1, Pattie O’Keefe, gave a Mayday which was answered by I believe Terry Hatton. Hatton answered him and said Pattie, are you OK? He says yeah, I’m OK, I’m OK, what was that? And then they said a few other things, but I don’t really remember because he said I’m OK and I was very freaked out personally after those cops went by. They didn’t say a word. They just went by.

And then here comes a captain, he went by, then a bunch of firemen and I think a chief. It was quite a lot of guys and they went by going down rather quickly yelling get out, evacuate, they want everybody out of the building. I didn’t hear any of that. I was on Channel 1. I heard they were on Channel 3, Channel 1 and Channel 6. Maybe one of the officers was on the command channel. Maybe somebody did give an evacuate, I don’t know, but I never heard it. The first time I’m hearing it is now from these guys that are going down, this captain, and they’re yelling evacuate, evacuate, everybody out, get out of the building and they kept going.

After the building shook and rumbled, there was a lot of smoke and dust coming up the stairwell. And when the ESU cops went by and the firemen went by, I thought that was a little insane. My first thought was either they’re blowing the building up below us or they just drove another plane into it. I was afraid to make a move. I wanted to, but I wasn’t 100% sure which way to go. I tried to get more information on the radio and that never came to pass. I never got in touch with anybody.

We started to put our gear on and we went up another flight trying to make contact and we made contact with no one, so we started down. I said to myself, hey, listen, I think it’s time we get the hell out of here. I was starting to get really bad vibes. The 31st, something like that, was the highest I got. Then my instincts were let’s get the hell out of here. I thought about those cops, they must have heard something. They’re flying. They must have heard something. Big buildings don’t shake like that, so I’m like let’s get out of here. I made my decision.

On the way down, I ran into a couple of guys on the 24th floor. I said to them has anybody seen Chief Pailillo, does anybody know him? I forget who the guy was. He says yeah, I know him, he went down or I saw him go down. I said what do you mean he went down? I’m in the same stairwell. I assumed he would have come down the same stairwell he went up in. So very abruptly the fireman said to me I’m telling you, I saw him going down and that was the end of the conversation. Now, I was totally baffled, but still my resolve was to get going.

I started to go down and then I ran into Squad 252 on the 17th floor and I ran into Lieutenant Higgins and they were coming in off of a floor coming into the stairwell. He’s on the radio with Rescue 1 and I’m hearing it as well as seeing his face. He’s on the radio and he goes, Lieutenant, Squad 252 to Rescue 1. Yeah, Rescue 1. He goes you’re on your way down and he goes yep, we’re on our way down. So he says well, you’re on your way down, we’re on our way up and when we meet, we’ll come down together. So that was what they were going to do.

So I kept going. I saw Captain Freddy Ill from 4 Truck. I worked with Freddy for many years. I saw him down around the 17th floor. I think he was getting ready to get his guys together and start heading down. Then I ran into 6 Truck and that woman Josephine around the 10th floor. She had just come in off the floor and I think this is when Faust first found her.

Somebody said this lady needs help, this lady needs help. There were quite a bit of firemen that said this lady needs help, this lady needs help. So just as she was coming into the stairwell, I was coming down and we met. She hooked my arm and there was a guy, this big guy from 6 Truck. He turned around to grab her other arm and she said no, I want to grab the handrail. So she shuffled over to the handrail and grabbed the handrail and kind of took a step down where he was standing and he said to her lady, grab my mask strap. He turns around and he goes here, grab this. So she grabs his strap and that was it. She’s next to the handrail. He’s helping her and I’m out of the picture.

The guys are having this conversation and I realize it’s a company, so I keep going. And when I get to the sixth floor, there was nobody around and I remember I had this urge to get out of the building so fast. And all of a sudden, this feeling – you know when your hair just stands up on edge? I wanted to get out of that building so bad that I started flying down those stairs. From the sixth floor down to the ground level, it must have taken me a few seconds because I was moving and I wanted to get out of that building so bad. When I got down to the lobby and opened the door, it looked like a snowstorm in February. The whole lobby was white. You look outside and you couldn’t see – it was a gorgeous day, but the sun was completely obscured. It was dark.

There were only a couple of guys from 18 Truck and they were by the corner of the building, just standing by that little command area. I look out and it was very weird. I remember thinking where did the all the fire trucks go? The lobby was in worse shape than it was when I went in. So I got over to the guys in the 18 Truck and we stood by the corner. We didn’t say anything to each other, but we just stood there and looked out and I guess they were having the same idea that I had, how are we going to get out of this building, because there were so much stuff falling that you were afraid to leave. You were afraid to step out.

Boom, boom, boom, boom. You’re on the first floor. It goes by and lands. And so I just assumed it was debris. So when I first got there, I had that urgency to get in the building. Now I had this complete urgency to get the hell out of the building, but we were just afraid to make the move.

We saw an engine man, and he was under the north bridge. He was looking up at the building. We yelled at him to let us know when it would be OK to run, so he kept looking and a few seconds later, he started to yell all right, run, run, run. So we all took off and got underneath that northern walkway bridge. At that point I turned around to look up at the building and that’s when I realized that all that stuff coming down, that was people. It wasn’t debris. It was people. I turned away, put my back to the building.

Then you couldn’t see the top of the building anymore, it looked like it was as if each floor was exploding. As each floor came down, you could actually see the windows and everything blow out. Things were blowing out the sides. Everybody asked me later on how come people couldn’t get out of the way? I really believe that if you weren’t watching the building, when you heard it, it was too late, too late to move. We looked up and we saw it and you didn’t hear a sound.

I couldn’t get myself to move right away and I was just stuck. And then I turned back facing north and I almost dove under 20 Truck, which was parked under the north bridge. I started to dive and then at the last minute, I decided not to and decided to just run. You could see guys just running. I was looking down and I could remember looking at their feet because I wasn’t looking up. I threw my tools and I started running and I ran. I think the building was down in about 10 seconds and you started to hear it at this point.

Now I’m running and you could hear this thing. It sounded like about four or five 747s taking off at full throttle. It just got unbelievably loud. I’m running and somebody runs up behind me and darts off to the right towards the Customs Building. I guess that would be my right. And he starts yelling get down, get down, get down. And as I ran, I turned like this and out of the corner of my eye, I could see that avalanche come like right there and it’s coming.

I literally did a flying dive onto the street. I covered up and this big rush of wind and everything went completely dark and it got quiet. Now I have my eyes closed. At one point, I thought I was dead because it was just so eerie and quiet. Then I realized I wasn’t dead when I started to choke and I couldn’t breathe.

I opened my eyes. That was a big mistake. They just got shut with the dust. I can’t breathe. I have my mask on my back, but I’m afraid to stand up. My thought was, well, I guess I survived the collapse. Now I was thinking about all that metal sheeting, that light aluminum and stainless steel that’s floating around. I thought that’ll cut you in half, so I said let me just stay down. So I remember reaching behind me. I turned my tank on and I fumbled around for my facepiece. I get that on my face and I didn’t even think that it could be full of stuff. I took a breath and I got some hit. I couldn’t even swallow. I threw up. I put the facepiece back on and I laid there for a while. I kept trying to look up to see maybe it’s going get light somewhere. And I started to crawl. I crawled for a good while. And then I saw it was getting light in that direction off to my left and I stood up and I started to fumble around. I still had my facepiece on.

When it started to get clear enough where you could actually take the facepiece off and see a little, I was down by the river on Vesey Street. I dropped to one knee right by a police barricade and I saw a couple of guys from my old company, Lieutenant Dougherty, Eddie Caccia and Kevin Mc Govern and they actually survived both collapses. Later on, they told me that they were in the Marriott, the lobby of the hotel. And some chief grabbed them and said 53, go move your rig and move anybody else’s rig that you could get, move it north. So they went out and they got in their rig and that saved them.

I think we were in shock. I looked at them. They looked at me. I was happy to see them. I was on my knee. I couldn’t breathe and I was descended upon by EMS people and they ripped my jacket off. I was basically fine, but I just was trying to catch my breath. They threw me on the stretcher. They’re starting to wheel me over to this triage center and I finally got composed and I said listen, I’m all right, you’re going to have bigger fish to fry than me, I’m fine. I get off the stretcher. I go back to get my equipment. Everything’s gone. My helmet’s gone. My coat’s gone. My radio, I have some guy holding my radio. I grab my radio and we all started walking north. I mean everybody was just walking north – no rhyme or reason, just a complete look of disbelief, horror.

First thing I thought was to call my wife. I kept asking people if they had a cell phone. I get to this police sergeant, I ask him you have a cell phone and he tells me yeah. I said, can I borrow it? He says sure. He hands it to me and I get through to my wife. I couldn’t believe it, because I heard people yelling I can’t get through, I can’t get through. So I figured let me try her. First shot, I get through and my wife answered. She is absolutely wild, she’s hysterical. I told her I’m all right, I’m OK, I’m alive and he runs off without his phone. I had to yell hey, Sarge, Sarge, Sergeant. I said I got your phone.

So I met up with him and then we went north, past Chambers Street. We all sat on the divider, and I washed out my eyes. Somebody had a hydrant on. We sat there for about an hour and a half and then went back when you could see. I was just completely amazed at what had happened. That northern walkway bridge was completely down, crushed right down to the street. 20 Truck was collapsed. I couldn’t see anybody under the rig, but I only imagine that the guys that dove under that rig were dead because the rig was completely squashed. I mean it was flattened, flattened to the ground.

You know what, if guys would have stayed close to the bridge on the building side, they would have been fine if they just stayed right there.The way the bridge came down, it got crushed in the middle up against the building. It was a big area where they would have been perfectly fine. Guys who ran west or south or even northwest, they were dead.

We went underneath the bridge and then climbed up on top of the debris. It was like a two-story climb. And then you could stand up and survey the whole area. It was unbelievable. We searched around for a little while, and I remember the first person I saw was Captain Ruvolo in Rescue 2 and I immediately broke down when I saw him. And he hugged me and he says it’s OK, take it easy and I was just absolutely destroyed. He asked me where the command center was. I said I think it was here, I’m not 100% sure, so we started to look for guys and we went down. There weren’t even a lot of voids. I mean it was just like a completely flattened area. And the radio, no communication, no PASS alarms, no nothing.

Some stuff was burning. Buildings were burning, 7 World Trade was burning from the ground to the ceiling fully involved. It was unbelievable. And I remember remarking to a guy who was with me there’s nothing here. This is a 110-story office building. You couldn’t find a file cabinet. You’d think there would be rubble. You couldn’t find a piece of wood, a piece of carpet, a computer. There was nothing. It was just dust and big, big pieces of steel. That was it. There wasn’t even a lot of concrete. Everything was pulverized.

At that point, I just felt completely disgusted. I said this is impossible. I said nobody could ever live through this, I remember saying to myself, nobody could ever live through this. And I turned around and I felt my hip. My hip was bothering me and my shoulder was bothering me. I got off the pile and I went to an EMS bus and they took me to Bellevue.