WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:05.739 --> 00:00:09.776
I was one of the two operations
 section chiefs on what's

00:00:09.776 --> 00:00:13.646
now called the NRCC ,the 
National Response Coordination Center.

00:00:13.680 --> 00:00:16.182
Back at the time,
 it had a different title.

00:00:16.182 --> 00:00:17.851
It was called the Emergency Support Team. 

00:00:17.851 --> 00:00:20.253
On the morning of September 11th,

00:00:20.253 --> 00:00:23.289
I and a bunch of other folks
 had just finished up

00:00:23.289 --> 00:00:25.492
a yearlong executive development program

00:00:25.492 --> 00:00:26.926
through the USDA graduate school.

00:00:26.926 --> 00:00:28.328
So we were presenting 

00:00:28.328 --> 00:00:31.598
at their annual conference
 on the other side of Washington, D.C.

00:00:32.699 --> 00:00:34.167
We had presented one session. 

00:00:34.167 --> 00:00:36.069
They said, great,
 can you do a second session? 

00:00:36.069 --> 00:00:39.539
So we were waiting around
 for that session, second session to start.

00:00:40.340 --> 00:00:43.810
And everyone clustered
 around the television when the first

00:00:44.511 --> 00:00:46.813
airliner went into the World
 Trade Center tower.

00:00:47.580 --> 00:00:50.950
As soon as the second airliner
 went into the tower,

00:00:50.950 --> 00:00:53.720
I told my teammates, I said, I have to go.

00:00:54.020 --> 00:00:57.891
So really, that was my first
 memory of 9/11; just

00:00:58.224 --> 00:01:02.262
instantly realizing  that that
 the world had just changed.

00:01:02.662 --> 00:01:06.599
And then I needed to get back across 
town over to FEMA headquarters,

00:01:06.599 --> 00:01:09.169
which on that day was a real struggle. 

00:01:09.169 --> 00:01:10.403
I mean, all the traffic 

00:01:10.403 --> 00:01:14.707
was trying to flow away from the 
Pentagon and out of the city,

00:01:14.741 --> 00:01:19.446
so getting across town on that 
particular day was it was tough.

00:01:19.546 --> 00:01:25.085
Honestly, once I got into the FEMA
 headquarters and into the operating area

00:01:25.085 --> 00:01:28.655
for the NRCC up on
the mezzanine, it just felt

00:01:29.656 --> 00:01:32.959
good, I guess is the word to say that,
because I knew what to do.

00:01:32.959 --> 00:01:35.462
I had done this many times before. 

00:01:35.462 --> 00:01:37.697
I plugged into the role that I was

00:01:38.798 --> 00:01:40.600
assigned and that I was comfortable in. 

00:01:40.600 --> 00:01:43.203
And then it was just constant
problem solving,

00:01:44.971 --> 00:01:49.175
which really is at the heart of what
 emergency managers and FEMA people do.

00:01:49.175 --> 00:01:53.813
The main purpose of the NRCC,
 even in my day, was just to understand

00:01:53.813 --> 00:01:57.650
what the field was experiencing,
 what information they had already,

00:01:58.151 --> 00:02:01.154
what information they might need,
 and then just understanding what

00:02:01.721 --> 00:02:03.456
their unmet needs were going to be,

00:02:03.456 --> 00:02:05.191
and then pushing those through. 

00:02:05.191 --> 00:02:08.461
9/11 was just one of the highest volume,

00:02:08.461 --> 00:02:11.731
highest intensity events
 that we had ever worked,

00:02:11.998 --> 00:02:14.601
so it stressed the systems
that we had set up,

00:02:14.834 --> 00:02:17.470
and I think the systems
 performed really well.

00:02:17.504 --> 00:02:20.507
All of the processes
 that had been set up at the time

00:02:21.441 --> 00:02:23.676
had to operate at max capacity.

00:02:24.277 --> 00:02:26.746
It's not often in our communal life

00:02:26.746 --> 00:02:30.083
or in our individual lives
 that we realize a chapter has turned.

00:02:30.583 --> 00:02:32.252
It's often just in retrospect 

00:02:32.252 --> 00:02:34.754
that they realized something changed,
 but that was different.

00:02:35.321 --> 00:02:40.894
Probably what changed the most is it
 made FEMA and the rest of the country

00:02:40.894 --> 00:02:45.632
realize that we couldn't just prepare
 for the things that had come before.

00:02:46.266 --> 00:02:48.768
We couldn't look in the rearview mirror
 and make sure that we were ready

00:02:48.768 --> 00:02:51.204
to handle those things
 that we'd already experienced.

00:02:51.571 --> 00:02:53.673
We had to be flexible enough and

00:02:54.307 --> 00:02:57.911
responsive enough to deal with things
 that we hadn't anticipated.

00:02:59.312 --> 00:03:00.346
And I had an opportunity 

00:03:00.346 --> 00:03:03.550
afterwards to get involved in
 some of the changes that FEMA made.

00:03:03.583 --> 00:03:06.686
So it was good to see FEMA and the rest

00:03:06.686 --> 00:03:10.557
of the emergency management
 community adapt post 9/11.