WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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I was on the bus on my way into work,

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and I got a phone call

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and I was running late,

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so I actually thought I was in trouble

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for being late to work because we had
 a big exercise planned the next day.

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So when I picked up my phone,
 I was like, yeah, I know I'm late.

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I'm going to be there in a few minutes. 

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And they were like,
 no, they're like a plane 

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just went into the World Trade Center.
 Get here as quickly as you can.

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So I immediately got off the bus,
 went to the bus driver, and I was like,

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let me off the bus. 

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I showed him my ID. 

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I was like, I got to go to work
 and I got to work,

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and I was up in the emergency
operations center. 

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I got there before the second plane hit. 

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I don't think anybody
 was thinking about terrorism.

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And so when the second plane hit, 

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we realized it wasn't an accident
and we needed to evacuate.

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So everybody that was in the emergency
 operations center

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evacuated down the twenty
 three flights of stairs.

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And then we were in the lobby
 of 7 World Trade Center when the first

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tower collapsed.

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The people that were in the 

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lobby huddled in a small room 

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off the lobby entrance and then 
we made our way out to the street

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and we found all the other New York City
 OEM people that were there.

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And we got on the command bus
 and we went north.

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We picked up people
 along the way that were fleeing.

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They were on the command bus with us.
 And we got a little further,

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and then we decided
to go to the police academy,

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because that was the next
 best location for us. 

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The first couple of days I did logistics.

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We were coordinating the movement
 of resources to Ground Zero.

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We coordinated the movement
 of cranes, rescue personnel,

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other other assets in, 
light towers down to Ground Zero.

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I worked on the debris operation and also
 on the public assistance reimbursement

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Because we had lost our EOC,
 which was in seven World Trade Center,

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we lost all the technology
that we normally use.

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We didn't have a lot
 of working phone lines,

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so we had very limited connectivity. 

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So it was a lot of paper, 

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a lot of just, you know, landline phones,
 talking to people as best we could.

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For a long time, we were doing rescue. 

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You know, we were searching
 for potential victims that were trapped.

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That was being led by the fire department
and the police department,

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and the city's Department of Design
 and Construction was overseeing

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kind of the construction
 aspects of that rescue operation.

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And then eventually we 
shifted to a recovery operation.

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And the city's Department of Design 

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and Construction and New York City
 Emergency Management fire and police

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formed a unified command work
 with other agencies,

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retained construction contractors
 to organize the site,

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so we could ensure that it was safe
 to conduct recovery operations,

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but also to move the debris away
 so that we could begin rebuilding.

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That debris was taken to a 
landfill on Staten Island.

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A whole slew of law enforcement agencies
 were at the landfill doing recovery

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efforts, looking for human remains,
 looking for personal property.

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They were cataloging everything
 so that it could either be returned

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to family members or identified
 so people could be, could be buried .

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My whole life changed after 9/11. 

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You know, I was a planner in New York City
 Emergency Management;

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just going about my work, writing plans
 for emergencies, participating

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in exercises like the one that
 we had planned for September 12th, 2001.

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And everything changed after that,

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and we went into this very large 
scale, complex disaster response

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and recovery operation.
 I learned a lot from that.

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I was personally impacted by 9/11. 

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I was in the lobby of seven World
 Trade Center when one of the towers fell.

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You know, I almost died. 

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And then, you know, working with people
 who were also victims of 9/11

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and then also responding to 9/11,
 it was hard for everybody.

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A couple of events in
 in our modern history where you mark time,

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you know, especially  in the 
emergency management community,

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if you think about Hurricane Andrew,
 the Oklahoma City bombing,

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Y2K, you know, 9/11 is 
an event where we mark time.

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It changed our whole profession.

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FEMA was absorbed into the department.

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Billions of dollars have been provided
 to state, local, tribal

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and territorial governments to prepare
 for acts of terrorism to prevent them.

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And so every day we think about

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how are we positioned
 to prevent another 9/11.

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There are a lot of FEMA 

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employees past and present
 that helped New York City after 9/11,

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and I think we all owe them
a debt of gratitude as well.

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One of the reasons why I was interested
 in coming to work at FEMA later on.

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I carry 9/11 with me every day.

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I think about my coworkers
 at New York City Emergency Management,

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often almost on a daily basis.

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I think about the impact of that event,
 not just on our office,

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but on the whole nation. Right.

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And the people who died in 9/11.

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I like to think that I carry them
 with me every day

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and think about them
 to keep their memories alive.

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And you know that's that's
kind of how it's impacted me

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and how I try to honor
 the people who were killed on that day.