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Kind: captions
Language: en

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I got home in the wee hours 

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and was rudely awoken by the phone,
 ringing off the hook early in the morning

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and and I didn't
 get out of bed to to answer it

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until I heard the crashing sound, that
 rhythmic bang, bang, bang, bang.

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That was obviously the tower collapsing. 

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I found out later,
 but I didn't know what it was. 

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But it was accompanied
 by a collective scream across the city.

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And I couldn't imagine
 what that noise was.

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We couldn't be in
 touch with family and whatnot. 

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The phones in New York were
 what was working, was really overwhelmed.

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The telecommunications was really bad. 

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So it was hard to keep our families
 updated as to where we were and to

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and to find out about our friends. 

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I'm a native New Yorker,
 so I know I knew a lot of people

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who worked in the World
 Trade Center towers. 

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And thankfully, the ones close
 to me were all right.

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But I certainly a lot of friends
 of friends and family were lost that day.

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But I was I was out of the loop.
 So that made it difficult.

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Well, a lot of people 

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forget or didn't realize at the time,
 but don't even realize now

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that for everything else
 that unfolded that day, 

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it was also tens of
 thousands of people made homeless.

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So we had people stationed at the entry
 points, the access points to downtown

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to Battery Park City and places
 around, right surrounding the debris pile

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and everything, directing people
 to where they could get help and shelter

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and get get federal assistance.

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A lot of FEMA employees
 are retired responders.

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So we had a lot of people who were former

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FDNY and New York City police

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who were wondering what happened
 to their friends and colleagues

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and because they were retired
 and with us and busy.

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On one hand, it was good to be busy. 

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On the other hand,
 we were cut out of the loop of finding out

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what happened to our friends and whatnot.
 So it was very emotional.

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I mean, it impacted me as the New Yorkers. 

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I knew a lot of people who had suffered
 a lot of loss the the night before

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9/11 when I arrived in New York
 in the wee hours of the morning

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of 9/11. I met a
 friend who would just watch

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the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday Night
 Football, and he was on his way home.

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I said, no, I don't go home, come in, 

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come in, come back in the bar
 and keep me company.

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I kept him out late
 and he was late for work. 

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And that saved his life. 

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And he became. Oh, sorry.

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But he lost so many of his colleagues

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that he became the chief operating officer
 for Cantor Fitzgerald.

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And my wife became the volunteer
 coordinator for their memorializing. So.

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I did that for years to come. 

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I mean, like any disaster.

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You see the negative parts
 when you see the positive parts of

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people coming together. 

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So certainly in New York
 at that time, New York

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was always renowned
 for being impersonal and even rude.

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But after 9/11, everybody was 

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hugging each other in the streets and
 and it really came together.

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And I think that was a sea change
 in the culture in New York. 

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And I think that was true
 across the country for quite a long time.

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Having a having a disaster
 like that affect my hometown like that

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really brought home
 a lot of the importance of our mission,

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the nobleness of our mission,
 and and showed me firsthand

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what communities go through when they
 when they go through a disaster like that.

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So to me, it strengthens the importance
 of the mission of FEMA and gave me

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personal touch point to to identify
 with people in disaster areas after that.

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When people tell me about their hometown 

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being devastated,
 I had a story of. Yeah, me, too.