So it is about 0830 EDT on 9/11/2001 and I am running around the training academy where the police and fire training is done in my county (Montgomery County, MD). I have been working for several months to put together a meeting with the fire chiefs in my county to discuss a major communications system upgrade that I have been working on for several years. I had been at the beach for a long weekend, and before I left I asked that some stuff I needed for the meeting be copied before I got back; that didn't happen.
So I am running around copying stuff trying to be ready by the 0900 start time. While I have the copiers running I start battling the AV equipment in the classroom I am using for the meeting. Normally this isn’t a big deal but whoever had last used the room had done an extra special job of crossing things up making it difficult to get things sorted out. After some struggling, and the requisite amount of cussing appropriate for such circumstances, I finally get my presentation displaying properly. I shoot down the hall to grab my handouts and as I come back into the classroom one of the instructors at the academy pops his head in and says to turn on the TVs because there has been a plane crash in NYC. You have got to be kidding me I am thinking, I just got this stuff sorted out and now you want me to screw it up again??? I see he looks serious so I cuss a little more and get a TV channel displaying on the screen. I am dumbfounded.
Just like the weather outside the classroom the weather in NYC is blindingly beautiful; a perfect day. But there is a huge gash in the side of one of the WTC towers and smoke is pouring out of the building. I process this for a moment and then I turn to the Operations Chief (all the folks who ride fire trucks and EMS units in the county work in his shop) who happens to be standing next to me and say “That isn’t an accident”. He looks perplexed and asks why I say that? I say something along the lines of ‘I don’t know much, but I fly little planes and I can say that there is no way that a plane flies into the WTC by accident in weather like that; you might crash somewhere in NYC but you don’t end up in the WTC in that weather.’
He and I are standing there watching events unfold discussing whether or not there is anything that the FDNY can really do to help the people above the fire and what the risks are associated with committing firefighters to the building. Blam! There is a huge fireball but I can’t tell where it came from and I am confused. It takes a few seconds before I realize that another plane has just hit the other tower and I turn to the Operations Chief and say “We are at war. I don’t know who we are at war with, but we are at war.” He asks why I think that, and I say that we are under attack but that I don’t know who is attacking us. And then I look at him and say that there are firefighters dying in NYC as we stand here and watch this.
It takes me about another minute or two to process what is going on then I turn to him and I say “DC is getting hit next.” He asks why I think that and I say: ‘At any given moment there are about 4000 commercial airliners in flight over the US during the day. You don’t put two airliners into NYC and not hit DC; we are getting hit next.’ (‘We’ as in the DC region because Montgomery County shares a common border with DC and hosts more than a few federal facilities.) He asks if I really think that will happen; I say I do.
By this time it is well after 0900 and everyone is assembled in the classroom for the meeting, but we are watching the events in NYC. I turn to the Ops Chief and ask if we should try to conduct the meeting or just reschedule given what is happening. He thinks for a moment and then says let’s try to do it given how hard it was to schedule. Ok. Back to cussing at AV equipment, but I get the presentation up on the main screen with the TVs on the side still showing the news from NYC. I start talking and flapping my arms about communication stuff but everyone is watching the TVs despite my best efforts to be engaging while flipping PowerPoint slides. I have been speaking for maybe 10 minutes when reports start coming in that the Pentagon has been hit; end of meeting.
So a few weeks before I had gotten a phone call from the Urban Search & Rescue (US&R) program office at FEMA headquarters; they wanted to know if I could fill in as one of the Operations Chiefs on the rostered Incident Support Team (IST) to fill a vacancy starting September 10th. I looked at my calendar (no European vacations planned), thought about my schedule and the likelihood that I would be deployed (the IST hadn’t moved in like 18 months), and said sure, no problem. So on September 10, 2001 I became the IST Deputy Operations Chief. We are the ones that fire departments call when they are having a really, really (like once in a lifetime) bad day. The FDNY was having a really, really, really bad day.
Rewind back to 1993. I am at home and I get a phone call. It is one of the guys on my US&R deployment telephone tree (no smartphones then…) asking me if I have seen what is going on in NYC. I ask what he means. He says that someone has blown up one of the WTC buildings. I turn on the TV.
He asks if we are going to be deployed to NYC to help. I look at the TV for a moment, ponder the thought and then say “No”. He asks why I say that. I respond: “The FDNY is the largest municipal fire department in the world. IF the WTC was lying on its side across Manhattan they might need help, but even then I wouldn’t count on it. In the meantime, as long as the building is standing we aren’t going anywhere.” We didn’t move. So back to 2001.
The Pentagon has just been hit and I am figuring I am going to be getting a phone call from FEMA any moment. I run around and pack up my stuff and head out to my car; I need to get home and get my stuff so I can go where they send me. I am almost to my car when someone runs past saying one of the towers just fell.
That stopped me in my tracks; the comment didn’t process. I was at my car but I decided I needed to see for myself because there had to be a mistake; high-rise buildings do not collapse, ever…in all of history. Back into the academy. I was wrong.
Up the road to my house and through the deployment packing drill. A quick call to my girlfriend letting her know that I was going somewhere and I didn’t know when I would be back. Off to a nearby fire station to pick up a marked vehicle. Back down to the academy where we assemble when we are deploying. Confusion about where I should go; I am very close to DC, but NYC happened first and is going to need more help. A decision: Go to NYC. Fuck.
I am going to NYC to try to deal with something that has never happened before, and we are at war…there are fighters circling over my head as I head up towards Baltimore. I am not too sure that my odds of surviving this deployment are high.
So I call the guy I am going to be working for, the Ops Chief. He will be leaving Philadelphia soon heading towards NYC. He will call me when he gets on the road. It is really strange driving up the road. I am on I95, one of the busiest roads in the country, and I am almost alone. Also, as I approach Baltimore I hear the DC fighter cover fly overhead and they were the last planes I saw or heard for days. On my way up the road my boss calls and tells me to divert to McGuire AFB. He needs to meet me there because McGuire is going to be the US&R point of arrival and we need to sort out some logistics.
McGuire wasn’t on my radar when I left so I end up asking a rather perplexed toll collector somewhere along I95 how I can get to McGuire. I don’t get a good answer, but I manage to locate the base anyway.
I call the boss and he is still a little ways out so knowing how these things go I decide that eating is the priority, so I grab a burger at a Wendy’s. Deployment priorities: Eat; if you can’t eat sleep; if you can’t sleep sit; the only reason you can’t sit if you aren’t working is because you must be walking, otherwise sit.
I head for the main gate at McGuire and I am thinking that this is going to be interesting. Here I am driving up in an emergency vehicle with Maryland plates saying that I am supposed to be heading for Base Ops; I am thinking that I might not even survive this, much less the insanity of the WTC site. As it turns out, although there were armored vehicles with .50 caliber machine guns trained on the main gate I managed to get onto the base without too much difficulty.
I get into base ops and my boss is speaking with the Base Commander. My boss looks at me and says that he needs me to stay there to work on logistics because there are only three of us on the rostered IST east of the Mississippi and that someone has to handle logistics; tag, I am it. To be continued…
Part II here.
Part III here.