The initial rescue efforts at the Pentagon were led primarily by the military and civilian Pentagon workers, coworkers who rushed into flames and smoke to find lost, missing, and injured colleagues and follow the military’s dictum of “No person left behind.” Nearly everyone who was rescued from the Pentagon was found in the first 30 minutes.
James Schwartz, assistant chief for operations, Arlington County Fire Department: All the credit that public safety, fire, EMS, and the police departments get for their efforts on 9/11, I think what gets lost is the truly heroic efforts of the civilian and uniformed personnel that work in the Pentagon. They were the ones who really got their comrades, got their workmates out.
Capt. Paul Larson, Arlington County Police Department: When I got there, there was probably a wall of two or three thousand military personnel coming out of the building, and as soon as they heard the screams for help, all of them immediately turned around and went right back into the building to help whoever needed help.
Capt. Charles Gibbs, Arlington County Fire Department: We were there probably within about 10 minutes. We met up with Chief Schwartz. He said, “Go up there”—he was pointing to the impact site, which is on the heliport side—“and see what’s going on and let me know.” I got my gear on, and me and firefighter Keith Young proceeded up there and Fort Myer Fire Department was on the scene.
James Schwartz: Among the responding units were the crash fire rescue vehicles at National Airport, which were positioned on the west lawn and at that point really were able to provide the greatest amount of extinguishment capability. There was a large fire.
John Jester, chief, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: The smoke was so bad you couldn’t see, and the heat was so bad. There was thousands of gallons of aviation fuel on fire in the hallways.
Steven Carter, assistant building manager, Pentagon: Visibility was maybe two feet. There was a definite feel of heat coming through the area, but the overwhelming thing hitting my senses was the dense acrid smoke.
Chris Combs, special agent, FBI, Pentagon: I can remember very vividly walking through the parking lot, feeling the immense heat from that fire. At first it confused me. I was like, Wow, what is burning in there? I did not know it was an airplane.
Steven Carter: Looking up into the second and third floors, I could see people in the windows banging to get attention or to get out, but the windows were not breaking. The back wall had blown off, and it had become the only escape for some people in that area.
There was a large contingent of Pentagon occupants dipping their shirts into the water that was accumulating and putting them over their faces and attempting to reenter the building to help get people out.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman, chef, U.S. Army: As soon as I came out the stairwell, I encountered a DPS officer carrying a lady struggling with a baby. I grabbed the baby from the officer’s hands, together we ran for about 60 yards, and I placed the baby back in the woman’s arms. The woman kept saying, “Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby?” I realized the woman was in shock because the baby was in her arms, and she had no idea. The officer instructed me, “Go get help, go get help.”
Steven Carter: They were using the center courtyard to stage a triage area for injured people. They were putting them all around on the grass. There were medical teams that were bringing in equipment as much as possible, but there were very few supplies out there and a whole lot of people.
John Milton Brady Jr., safety technician investigator, Department of Defense: People were panicking. They didn’t know which way to go. I stood there, using the flashlight as a beacon and calling to the people to come toward me and they started doing that.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: I saw this ambulance pulling up. I got to a firefighter, and it was almost like he was oblivious to what I was telling him. He was downloading all his equipment as fast as he could. I kept telling him, “I have a baby, I need help. I have a lady and a baby.” All of a sudden his eyes became fixated above me. They brought a woman from behind me who was burned from the back of her head to the back of the thighs. She was a dark-complected woman, but she was bright pink in color from the amount of burns that she received.
Lt. Michael Nesbitt, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: I got a phone call and someone said he understood that we needed helicopters. I said that was correct. He said to tell them where to go, and they would have 40 birds in the air. I said that sounded good.
Lt. Col. Ted Anderson, legislative liaison officer, U.S. Army, Pentagon: I kicked open a fire exit door and screamed for people to follow me. I guess there were 50, maybe 100 people who followed me out that way. I saw a field of scattered debris—it was all gray and metallic. Everybody was moving to my right, and I turned to my left and ran toward the debris. There was nobody with me except Chris Braman.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: At that point I met a lieutenant colonel, Ted Anderson. He’s a leader in my eyes. He kept saying, “My general didn’t die on my watch. My general didn’t die on my watch.” He had come out and he was delirious.
Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: I got as close to the building as I could, trying to find a door that we could get into. We found two women out on the ground next to the building. They had been thrown out by people who were rescuing folks inside. One woman was conscious. The other was unconscious. I picked up the conscious lady. She had a broken hip and was in horrible, horrible pain. Both had been terribly flash-burned. The fire was bearing down on us. The heat was horrendous. I told her it was going to hurt, and I picked her up and threw her on my back. She screamed in pain. I ran her about 400 yards to the other side of the helipad. Chris Braman carried the other lady. We laid them there and other people came up to render aid. Chris and I ran back.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: There was an opening adjacent to the point of impact. We crawled through—the firemen went with us. You couldn’t see anything. It was so dark that I was told they call it “country dark.”
Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: Inside we screamed for people to come toward our voices. We couldn’t see anything. The smoke was billowing, and it was hard to breathe. I got on the floor and I felt my way down the wall. I felt a body right in front of the door. It was a woman, extremely heavyset. She was conscious. She was bleeding from the ears and the mouth, and she was definitely in shock. She was pinned against a wall by a huge safe. It was a six-drawer safe that had fallen and was wedged up against her. We had to try to get her out. It seemed like forever, but we were finally able to pull her free. We had to drag her from the building.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: It was so hot inside you could feel the heat. My face was burning. All I had was a T-shirt and an undershirt, that I ripped off and put over my face.
Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: Chris and I went back into the building and were trying to figure out what we were going to do. I noticed this bright flash that went by me. I thought it was the ceiling caving in. I heard Chris scream, “Help me.” It was a person on fire, trying to get out of the building.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: We jumped on top of that man, and we put him out as best we could.
Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: We picked him up immediately and carried him out. We got him as far away from the building as we could and gently laid him down. He was burned—horribly, horribly burned—from the top of his head all the way to the bottom of his feet. He had no color in his eyes. They were all white. I could see it was a civilian because he had a suit on. You could see that he had a white shirt on, but the whole front had been burned away. The back of his collar was still affixed, the belt to his pants was still affixed and melted into the side of his body. Everything else was charred black down the front.
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Lt. Col. Rob Grunewald, information management officer, U.S. Army, Pentagon: The plane came into the building and went underneath our feet, literally, by a floor. A friend of mine down the table, Martha Cardin, yelled for help, and I told Martha, “I got you, Martha. I’ll come get you.” Where everybody went and how they get out of the room is very unique, because those are where decisions are made that are fatal, or cause injury, or cause mental fatigue, or great consternation. A bunch of my officemates that were in that meeting went in one direction and unfortunately didn’t make it. The person that sat to my right, the person that sat to my left, apparently went out the door and took a right, and they went into the E-Ring, where they apparently perished. A decision to go in one direction or another was very important.
Maj. James Phillips, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: If the plane had hit any other part of the building, there would have been a lot more devastation. Ironically, the part that was hit was the newly renovated wedge.
Philip Smith, branch chief, U.S. Army, Pentagon: It was truly a miracle that the plane hit the strongest part of the Pentagon—it had been completely renovated to all the new antiterrorism standards—and it was virtually unoccupied. In any other wedge of the Pentagon, there would have been 5,000 people, and the plane would have flown right through the middle of the building.
Lt. Col. Rob Grunewald: As we got out of the conference room, we were into the cubicle farm. It’s the typical Dilbert office space, where you have tens and hundreds of cubicles in various different configurations: four desks here, six desks here, a corridor here, a hall here, a row here, an aisle here, 20 here, copier room, fax room, enclave over here. So now, on our hands and knees, in the dark, it was trying to keep yourself oriented, Where do you go? Where is safe, and how do I get there? The plane was burning on the floor below us. As we were crawling, the floor buckled, and there was flame coming up through there like a blowtorch.
Capt. Darrell Oliver, Quadrennial Defense Review Office, U.S. Army: We formed up on litter teams to assist in getting others out of the building. The flames had gotten too severe for us to go back in, and the firemen directed us to stay at the door. They would bring individuals out, and we would get them to the triage area. One of the first individuals we got was severely burned on both arms. The firemen carried her to our litter and put her down. We had to position her on the stretcher, and in order to position her on a stretcher, we had to touch her. Her skin was as white as a piece of paper. As we touched her, her skin was coming off in our hands.
Lt. Col. Rob Grunewald: The smoke was beginning to get very thick, and was coming down further and further and further, and we were crawling on our hands and knees. You can’t see where you’re going, and because of the force of the blow, there were chairs thrown about, there were desks thrown about, file cabinets had fallen over, and copiers and faxes and walls. I pushed things out of the way. Martha was holding onto my belt, and we kept going.
I kept crawling through the corridor into the brand-new cafeteria, which wasn’t even open yet, because we had just moved into the renovated space. At that point I realized that there was no more fire, there was no more smoke, and we were relatively safe. I got up. I gave Martha to some people. I said, “Martha, I’m going back inside to search for some more people.” She advised against it, but I did it anyway, though I didn’t get far. By that time, the smoke was down very, very close to the ground so you couldn’t see. It was quite obvious that if I was to go back in that I would put myself in harm’s way.
* * *
Sheila Denise Moody, accountant, Resource Services Office, Pentagon: I was in a state of shock. I was still seated at my desk with my hands on my lap, and I really hadn’t moved other than from the force that pushed me back a little. Burning debris from the ceiling fell and landed on my hands. I shook my hands, I got up out of my chair, and I started to look around. Everything around me was on fire.
Louise Rogers, accountant, Resource Services Office, Pentagon: Everything went black. The only noise was the crackling of flames, and it was sheer devastation. I remember the grit from the soot in my teeth. I looked around, trying to figure out how to get out—fortunately, being at the fax machine, I was standing in front of a table, a worktable, that was in front of the window. Then I tried to figure out if I could get my feet out of the debris. I picked up one foot after the other and walked over to the table. The window had been blown out by the impact, and I climbed out.
Sheila Denise Moody: I was trapped in my cubicle space with nowhere to go and no way to get out. There was another coworker who was seated in the cubicle behind me and she cried out, “What’s going on? What’s happening? Is anybody there?” I said, “I’m here, I’m here.” She said, “Who is it?” I said, “It’s me, it’s Sheila.” She said, “My skin is on fire. I feel like I’m burning.” I told her, “I know it hurts, baby, but we’ve got to find a way to get out of here.”
Louise Rogers: As I was walking out the window, the very first Pentagon police car came around the building. He saw me, stopped, and walked toward me, and told me to sit down in the back of the police car. I told him, “I saw someone else in the office that couldn’t get out.” She was alive—I didn’t realize that not everyone was alive at that point—but she was having trouble. He came back with some help, some others, to get her out. She went into the intensive care ward, but she was one of the ones that didn’t make it.
Sheila Denise Moody: I could see a window to the right of me. It was too far up. I was able to reach it with my hand and try to bang on it, but the glass was too thick. When I hit the window, I left a blood print of my hand on the window. I didn’t even realize at the time that I was bleeding. I said, “God, I don’t believe you brought me here for me to die like this.” No sooner had I spoken those words than there was a voice I could hear through the smoke. “Is there anybody in here?” I called back to him, I said, “Yes! We’re here!” He said, “I can’t see you.” I said, “I can’t see you either, but we’re here. Please keep coming.”
With those last words, the smoke and the fumes started to take my breath away. I couldn’t speak anymore, and I started to cough and choke. Coughing and choking, something ran through my mind and said, Clap your hands. I started to clap my hands together as hard and as loud as I could, hoping that he could follow the sound. I could hear a fire extinguisher.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: There was a woman on her knees clapping her hands. She couldn’t breathe. I reached for her, reached through the clouds.
Sheila Denise Moody: Just for a split second through the smoke, I could see the silhouette of a figure. I stepped over some debris, reached out through the smoke, and there was a hand reaching back, and he pulled me out.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: Her hands were stuck up in this position, her face was covered full of ash. I was told later on that’s a natural fetal position for burn victims. The colonel and I ran her to safety.
Sheila Denise Moody: When Sergeant Braman came to the smoke calling, “Is there anybody in there?,” my voice was still the only voice that called back to him.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: Colonel Anderson and I went into the building at least four times. The heat inside was so hot it felt like the sun kissing you.
Sheila Denise Moody: My rescuer is Sgt. Christopher Braman. In talking to him in the months since then, I found out that he actually came into the area that I was in on his third time into the building, trying to get in to see who he could help and save. Of all the people that he was able to pull out and able to help, I’m the only one who survived.
Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: We were getting ready to make entry again, and the firemen stopped us. Other firemen showed up and they physically restrained us and pulled us away from the building. I was completely and totally out of my mind at that point, reverting to full combat mode. So did Chris. He had been in the Ranger regiment. He fought in Mogadishu. As far as I was concerned, this was a combat situation.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman: We were so jacked up on adrenaline. Colonel Anderson kept getting into fights with different authority figures—firemen, military, it didn’t matter who it was. There was no question that this was another battle zone.
Sheila Denise Moody: It was chaos. People were running in every direction and they were crying. They were screaming. I went to the line where they had people who were wounded. As I was walking in that direction, I heard someone call my name, “Sheila!” I looked up and it was Louise. She was sitting in the back of a police car.
Louise Rogers: There were more and more people coming out, and we kept moving farther and farther back out of the way until we were sitting back up against the guardrail at the highway.
Sheila Denise Moody: I think they ended up putting like three or four of us in the back of the ambulance and taking us to Arlington Hospital.
Louise Rogers: By that time I wasn’t feeling too good. As soon as I got into the ambulance my hands started to hurt—there was a burning pain. I said to the medic, “Well, this is starting to hurt.” Then I passed out. I don’t remember much of anything for days after that.
Lt. Col. Ted Anderson: A three-star general showed up, along with a couple other generals, and I explained to them what was going on. This three-star general basically felt the same way I did, and he went to the on-site fire commander and said, “Look, I will take full responsibility. We need to make an attempt to go in and get our people out.” He was overruled by the fire captain. I have since come to know that the fire captain was correct to do so. I am now certain that they saved my life and I’m certain they saved Chris’s life as well. My whole outlook on the American firefighter changed that day. Those guys were the real heroes of the day for me. I have talked to firemen who later went into that area, and there was no way out. That last burned guy we brought out was the last person to come out of the building alive on the exterior side of the Pentagon.
Sheila Denise Moody: We lost 34 coworkers that day between the accounting division, which was the office that I was in, and the budget office, which was right across the hall. That area sustained pretty much a direct hit from the airplane.
Dennis Smith, maintenance inspector, Pentagon Building Manager’s Office: I had turnout gear, fire department self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). I had air for an hour. I was sweeping every room to see if anyone was still alive. As I made my way through the smoke and flames, there was water all over the floor, nine or 10 inches on the floor because the pipes had broken. Stairwells were like waterfalls. There were body parts floating around. I saw a foot, a torso, a lady hanging upside down from a chair. Someone’s head sitting on a file cabinet, totally burned. I found people sitting at a conference table totally charred. I found a man standing with his arms up in defense, leaning against the wall. Apparently, he saw it coming. He was totally burned. I went floor to floor on the collapsed fourth corridor side and yelled to see if anybody was still alive. I didn’t find anyone.
Capt. Robert Gray, Technical Rescue, Station 4, Arlington County Fire Department: Jet fuel was in everything. It was laying on the film on the surface of the water that we were walking through, so it made the gear smell.
Lt. Comm. David Tarantino, physician, U.S. Navy: The flames and the smoke were too intense by that time, and even the rescue crews couldn’t really penetrate into the buildings. Not too many people were brought out after that.
Capt. Robert Gray: It was really remarkable because you’d be on the second or third floor and you’d find a room that was absolutely pristine. It’s surrounded by complete destruction. The duct work down on the floors, the file cabinets completely ripped apart. And then one room just like this, where there’s not even but a light layer of smoke on the wall. The flags, magazines sitting on the desk. It was how the gas mixed with the air and vented through the buildings under pressure, and then blew certain areas up and preserved others.
Capt. Charles Gibbs, Arlington County Fire Department: The military had their corps people with stretchers and all that, but there were no people.
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In the minutes after the Pentagon attack, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld found himself torn between his official role—which called for him to lead the nation’s response—and his human desire to examine the crash scene and help the injured men and women under his command.
Aubrey Davis, officer, Protective Service Unit, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: The secretary was walking fast, and we were walking fast with him. As we proceeded down that hallway, a colonel ran up with a cut on his forehead and said, “Sir, it’s dangerous, don’t go down there.”
Gilbert Oldach, officer, Protective Service Unit, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: We were in smoke and finally saw that light. The doors were open and the sun was coming in. You could see the light.
Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense: I saw the field out there sprayed with pieces of metal.
Aubrey Davis: I remember the secretary reaching down and picking up a piece of the plane with the name of the aircraft or something on it. He said, “This is American Airlines.”
Donald Rumsfeld: Oh my Lord, the whole place was burning. People were being pulled out and stretchers were being carried to ambulances.
Aubrey Davis: The Communications Center kept asking where the secretary was, and I kept saying we had him. They couldn’t hear.
Victoria “Torie” Clarke, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs: Several times in the next half hour or so people would ask where the secretary was. The answer was “out of the building.” We took that to mean that he had been taken to a secure location. But he had gone out to the site.
Mary Matalin, aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, White House: There was a real concern in getting information about the casualties at the Defense Department. At first, we thought Secretary Rumsfeld had been hit, then we heard he was pulling bodies out of the rubble. We couldn’t quite get a location on the secretary of defense.
Joe Wassel, communications officer, Office of the Secretary of Defense: There were people to our left sitting on the grass. They were starting to set some triage when we heard someone say, “Hey, I need some help.”
Aubrey Davis: I recalled that Secretary Rumsfeld had been in the navy. He was like the captain going down with the ship—he was going to make sure everything was OK before he went back.
Donald Rumsfeld: I tried to get some folks to help out and helped out a bit myself. I talked to some people about what had taken place.
Aubrey Davis: At one point someone ran up to the secretary asking for help. The secretary asked him what he needed, and Rumsfeld motioned to his communications guy, Joe Wassel. He said, “Tell him what you need.” He said we need helicopters and such. We were still trying to get the secretary off the site of impact. We heard that the Park Police helicopter, Eagle One, was going to land to take him out of there. He said, “No, if they land they will use it to transport the injured.”
Donald Rumsfeld: I decided I had done what I could, there were enough people there, and went inside.
Victoria “Torie” Clarke: The next thing we knew he had come in to the command center—dirty, sweaty, with his jacket over his shoulder.
Col. Matthew Klimow, executive assistant to the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, Pentagon: About 10:30, Secretary Rumsfeld joined us. He immediately asked for an update, especially on the rules of engagement. We explained the policy we had agreed with General [Ralph] Eberhart: we were going to try to persuade a potentially hijacked plane to land—but if it was headed to a large city, take it down. Everybody was calm and cool. Rumsfeld then confirmed with Vice President Cheney what the ROE was. It was around 10:30 that we received a report that there was an unknown aircraft about five miles out. It was a blip on the radar screen that had disappeared. We thought this was it. The plane was minutes, maybe even seconds away from hitting us.V
I. This may have been more garbled communication about Flight 93, which government officials in Washington still didn’t know had crashed in Pennsylvania.
The 29 minutes between the collapse of the South Tower and the collapse of the North Tower were filled with tension for those inside the remaining building—as well as for loved ones waiting for word on whether their family members could or would escape. Due to faulty communications, not all of the firefighters inside the North Tower received the order to evacuate, so even in the final minutes of the North Tower’s life, some FDNY firefighters trudged upward toward the crash zone. Others, though, heard the warnings and simply refused to leave.
Thomas Von Essen, commissioner, FDNY: To understand all this, it is important to understand what it means to be a firefighter. Firefighters do not run away. They do not leave if they think they can stay.
Capt. Jay Jonas, Ladder 6, FDNY: The period of time between the two collapses was the scariest. The unknown was about to come up and get you. It was like watching the old Frankenstein movies when you were a kid, and you had the spooky music playing in the background. Well, the spooky music was playing, because that monster was about to come up and get you. That was the most anxiety I had the whole day.
Joe Graziano, firefighter, Ladder 13, FDNY, North Tower stairs: They told us to evacuate Tower One. We ran into a fireman, Billy Kasey, from Engine 21. He was carrying a gentleman who was having heart problems, a big guy, and Billy was having trouble. I turned to my captain, Walter Hynes, and said, “Cap, I’m going to help this guy down.”
Capt. Jay Jonas: Over the radio I did hear Chief [Pete] Hayden calling for an evacuation, for guys to get out. In particular, he engaged Paddy Brown. He called him by name: “Capt. Paddy Brown. Command Post to Ladder 3. Capt. Paddy Brown. Evacuate the building.” Paddy got on the radio and he said, “I refuse the order. I’m on the 44th floor. I got too many burned people here. I’m not leaving them.” Even in that high-anxiety situation, I thought, Wow! That’s unbelievable! That was an incredible act of bravery.
David Norman, officer, Emergency Service Unit, Truck 1, NYPD: We started to move quickly down the stairs. We would inform everybody on the way down, other fire department units that were on these floors, “Listen, we’ve been told to evacuate. We’re leaving.” We ran into some Port Authority personnel who were in disbelief. They seemed to think that if they are 20, 30 stories below the affected fire floor, they’re safe. They said, “I don’t know why you guys are leaving. It’s not that bad.”
Joe Graziano: Billy and I coaxed the gentleman down. We said, “Look, we’re not going to leave you. We’ll get you out.” We didn’t think there was any urgency at all. The man’s name was Ralph. That’s all I remember about him. Ralph was a trooper. I remember passing other firemen in the stairwell. I passed all the guys from 2 Truck, and Capt. Freddy Ill, who I knew. The strap on my mask was falling down, and I said, “Freddy, do me a favor and fix my strap.” He tugged it, and I kept on walking.
Bill Spade, firefighter, Rescue 5, FDNY: A police officer, John D’Allara, came over to me and we start talking. I certainly was never aware that the fire department was evacuating the buildings. People were filing by, walking through the block strewn with debris. Then there was only a trickle of people coming by. Officer D’Allara said, “Maybe we should go back to the doorway and see how many are in that stairway.” I said, “Yeah, I guess we should.” We went back to the staircase and his boss was there, Sergeant [Sean] Curtin. As soon as we got to the staircase, he said, “I think we should leave now.” It was only the eight of us in the staircase at this time. I said, “We go together, we stay together.”
David Norman: When we got down to the bottom I realized the magnitude of everything. I thought, There is no building. There is literally no building left. I said to the rest of the team—and I think they saw the urgency in my face—I said, “Listen. We got to go and we got to go now. There’s nothing left of that building.” When you’re told that and when you see it are two different things.
* * *
Capt. Jay Jonas: We were heading down the stairs and right around the 20th floor we ran into Josephine Harris. She was standing in the doorway. She was crying. She was one or two weeks shy of her 60th birthday. She had made it down from the 73rd floor—she was a bookkeeper for the Port Authority—with the help of somebody from her office. She told them to go ahead. She probably physically couldn’t make another step.
Billy Butler, firefighter, Ladder 6, FDNY: When we came upon Josephine, somebody said to me, “Help with this woman.”
Capt. Jay Jonas: Tommy Falco looked at me and said, “Hey, Cap, what do you want to do with her?” I looked at her, and it seems like an easy decision to make: “Of course we’re going to help her.” Every fiber in my being was screaming at me to get out of this building. That spooky music was playing. Looking back on it now, yeah, it was an easy decision to make. But it really wasn’t, because not only was I endangering myself, I was responsible for five firemen and their families. That’s not an easy decision to make. I looked at her and I couldn’t say no. I said, “All right. Bring her with us.” And we did.
Billy Butler: I started down with Josephine.
Capt. Jay Jonas: Now we’re going very slow. What was once a normal gait going down the stairs, now it’s only one step at a time. We were creating a logjam of people behind us. On a couple of occasions, we had to step aside to allow that logjam to clear, and then we would continue.
Billy Butler: Everybody was trying to push us along and it was a very slow process.
* * *
Following the two attacks and the first building’s collapse, worried family members across the region began to hunt for their loved ones—some heading straight to the World Trade Center—even as the survivors fanned out into a city still unsure of what had transpired.
Dan Potter, firefighter, Ladder 10, FDNY: My focus was to try to get to [my wife], but as I was trying, there were a lot of firefighter duties I had to do also. When somebody said, “Check that escalator,” I went and checked the escalator real quick. But there was always that ring in the back of my head: I have to find out what she’s doing. Still, there were victims in the Deutsche Bank that I helped out. You had to do your job as a firefighter. You are dressed to represent New York City as a firefighter. Yes, I’ve got to take care of my wife, but I still have to be a firefighter.
John Napolitano, father of FDNY firefighter John Napolitano: When the South Tower came down I tried to get into the city from our house in the outer boroughs, but I couldn’t. I said, “My son’s very good at what he does. He’s probably somewhere safe or has people somewhere.” I didn’t want to think the worst, obviously. I went to my daughter-in-law’s house.
Dan Potter: I crossed Greenwich Street and went right into the Deutsche building. I walked into that building and there was a woman shuddering. I said, “Okay, go to the back of the building and you’ll be okay.” Five or six people came around the building, all bloody—all different faces, hands, and all covered in gray. They were walking like zombies. I said, “Just go to the back.”
Jeannine Ali, controller, Morgan Stanley, South Tower: We walked up to the Seaport. There was a Pizzeria Uno—this is actually a very funny story—on the second floor of the Seaport. There were chairs and stuff outside. We put our stuff down on the chairs, and we went to go inside this Pizzeria Uno—it was locked. The bartender was leaning against the bar, watching the television with his back to us, cleaning a glass. We were pounding on the door, like “Let us in! Let us in!” He turned around and said, “We don’t open till 11:30.” I said, “Look at the TV! Let us in!” He kept saying, “We’re not open yet. We don’t open until 11:30.”
Dan Potter: I saw a children’s nursery, so I ran in there real quick to see if there were any kids in there. There was too much debris. I had to go back to Greenwich Street. I thought, I’ll go around, try to get to the command post, get to the North Tower to save my wife.
John Napolitano: My daughter-in-law was at work when it happened. She worked for Computer Associates, and a lot of colleagues knew that her husband was a firefighter. They said, “You better take your kids and go home.” When I got to the house, a lot of their friends were already there, and Anne was sitting there and their two little girls were playing. Elizabeth was going on six, and Emma was going on three.
Dan Potter: I came out of the Deutsche building and I ran into an old friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in probably 17 years, a fire marshal, Mel Hazel. He didn’t recognize me because I was covered in everything. What he did recognize was the 31 on my helmet, because he had worked there as a fireman. He said, “Hey, 31, you all right?” I realized who he was, and I said, “Mel Hazel. Mel it’s me, it’s Dan.” He said, “Oh my God, I couldn’t recognize you. Need a hand?” “I have got to find Jean. Jean’s on the roof of the first tower. I’m convinced she’s up there. Can you help me with that?”
* * *
Capt. Jay Jonas: On the way down I ran into Lt. Mike Warchola from Ladder 5, and this was to be his last day in the fire department. He was going to retire on September 12th. I knew Mike. We were firemen together. He and two of his firemen were working on a man in the stairway having chest pains. I looked at him. I said, “Mike, let’s go! It’s time to go!” He said, “That’s okay, Jay, you have your civilian, we have ours. We’ll be behind you.”
We kept going and made it to the fourth floor and Josephine Harris fell to the floor. She was yelling at us to leave her, to leave her alone. We weren’t going to leave her.
Billy Butler: The whole building started to rock.
Capt. Jay Jonas: The floor started having little wavelike ripples in it.
Billy Butler: Then everything went black.