what were you doing the morning of Sept 11 2001?

Tuesday morning Sept 11 2001. I was at the office, getting ready to drive to the regional Emergency Services meeting to meet up with my counterparts from the surrounding counties to discuss planning, logistical needs, etc.

I was just getting up to leave for the meeting when the radio in the office tuned to the local radio station broke in with the news of the first tower being struck.

I was just about halfway there when the office called me to tell me another tower had been hit.

I got to the city where the meeting was being held and sat down. everyone was kind of anxious, they had a TV on with the volume down as we had an abbreviated meeting. many in the room were like myself, part of a cadre of responders that rolled on large national events, We saw live on TV the first tower collapsing, and then the person running the meeting from the state told several of us to go home, pack our bags and wait for the call, and to be ready for a long deployment.


So I was deployed to NYC, spent the next 6+ months there. I was assigned to the Logistics section, my job was to make sure the workers at Ground Zero had everything they needed, gloves, hard hats, boots, tools, masks, safety glasses/goggles, booties for the feet of the SAR dogs

On October 28th 2001 they held the first memorial ceremony for family members at Ground Zero and I was tasked with being a VIP escort, talking VIPs to their seats for the memorial.

At this point, the fires were still burning under all the debris, the acrid smoke still rising.

25 years later I remember clearly the smells, the sounds, the sudden hush when they found remains, the way everyone respectfully lined up as the remains were removed in a body bag and taken to a waiting ambulance. The sound of the pipes playing Amazing Grace.

On my days off working at Ground Zero, I did ride alongs with the different stations around the city