GROUND ZERO

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Five years later 2006
September 23, 2001 UPDATE
September 21, 2001 UPDATE
Link to our LifeNets volunteers in lower Manhattan at Assemblages--their website and exclusive photos (posted Sept 21)
A Touching Letter from a Volunteer at Ground Zero (posted Sept 21)
LifeNets Press release dated Sept 21, 2001
September 20, 2001 UPDATE

I got up early today and went to the Javits Center to sign up as a volunteer for cleanup at the World Trade Center. I stood on line for over an hour before they announced that only construction personnel from several New York contracting companies would be taken to the site. All others should apply at the 34^th St. entrance to the Center.

I couldn’t find where they were talking about and felt frustrated with the misinformation. Suffice it to say that twenty years as a construction manager has taught me how to assess confusion quickly and weave my way through it. An hour later I’m at Stuyvesant High School, just north of the Trade Center, signed up and ready to enter.

As I walked toward the North Tower, I called my wife and told her I was scared. Once I got closer though, there was nothing in me but a lump in my throat coated with all the concrete dust that was constantly swirling about. I immediately joined a bucket brigade of hundreds of workers. Firemen, policemen, skilled labor and all the rest. I was under that pedestrian bridge that collapsed; the one that went from Tower 1 to the American Express building. I passed along buckets of debris, chunks of concrete, sheets of metal and whatever got thrown at me. I dug and filled buckets, helped cut chain link fences snagged among the rubble. Whatever I saw I grabbed. If I could not lift it, out of no where a sea of hands appeared. There wasn’t much we could not lift. So I thought.

One scary time I worked my way up behind a fireman crawling under a beam with a rescue dog. Uh-oh. This, I realized, was what I was scared about. But I just got ready to do whatever they told me. No one was found trapped so we continued.

After about an hour we were pulled away so some steel could be cut and lifted with a crane. God, it was taking so long and there’s just no way around it. So while I waited to get back in I walked around. I counted fire companies from at least twenty states. Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Norfolk. Canada, France and Germany, too. They were in the familiar gear and for some reason I felt that same feeling I always get when I’m around firemen. They see stuff I don’t see.

Having done a lot of construction around the country I’ve come to view the world as a small place. To see these familiar neighbors from all these cities made me feel so patriotic. There’s no better way to say it. Just plain patriotic. They told me when they got there, how long they were staying. They waited their turn while I complained, “When the heck are they letting us back in?” Patient Chicagoans. Impatient New Yorker.

The most common question they asked me was simply, “Where were they? Where did they stand?” They were asking the right one. I studied them in engineering classes. You could blindfold me and I could pace off both Towers. So I explained to them.

I called my mom and dad. I repeated to my father what has become a familiar if not even statement, “This is this generation’s Pearl Harbor.”

Later in the day the Los Angeles firemen who I believe had special experience for earthquake rescues were preparing to go underground with dogs through a train station. They had a map that was pretty scarce of information. Having gone to night school at N.J.I.T. years ago I remembered the PATH station and its configuration fairly well but not good enough to be a guide. The thought of being asked to go underground with them would have made me feel proud and excited. I can’t honestly say I would have gone, though. With three kids and a foggy memory, the risk would be too great for all involved.

A little excitement at the south end of the site. Someone yelled, “Run!!” and I was off. Still haven’t figured out what happened but when you see thirty firemen running…..

People rested and ate. Lord, the amount of food and supplies. There were dozens of areas that looked like Market Basket just set up the food for my daughter’s graduation. Truck loads of Gatorade, water, sandwiches from all over the country (I must have eaten a salami sandwich from the Mid-West. It had butter on it). Gloves, socks, helmets, blankets. Cigarettes. Everywhere truckloads of medical supplies and life saving equipment like the jaws of life.

Late in the day I met the Mayor of Prospect Park, N. J., William Kubofcik. Nice guy. We sat on buckets on the corner of Liberty and Church and talked a while. He asked me to watch his gear while he went to get something to eat and as he walked away, I turned to look back at the site. After being there for twelve hours and looking from all four sides, the devastation is impossible to comprehend. It’s a landscape, not a pile. It is seven stories high. You watch firemen hike up and over it. Imagine walking through a field, up over a gray dusty ridge into a lifeless valley.

At about 7:30 pm I left for home. I walked up West Street to Canal where you see those people on TV cheering the rescue workers and truck drivers as they pass. They cheered me. I just looked down and kept walking. That must be a great feeling for firefighters. I didn’t kid myself. I wasn’t swinging a bat in their league.

Some place in the Village I caught a cab back to 42^nd and 11^th. As I went to pay, the driver said something. He was from India and at first I misunderstood what he said, so he said it again.