WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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As we watched the second plane
 hit the building,

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I was TDY up to New York State
 Office of Emergency Management.

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And I worked there for about a day,
 and then they sent me down

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to manage and coordinate
 activities at Ground Zero.

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And it was surrealistic. 

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I think that's what allowed
 many of us to survive.

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The emotional impact of it to this day
 is the fact that it was,

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you know, a post apocalyptic scene. 

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And, you know, we were
 just moving through.

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And I know that certainly helped me
 be able to as out and do my job every day.

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I would be engaged
 with, you know, leadership

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from the police department,
 the fire department. 

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We started to look at the future. 

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You know, I was on the original
 standing committee

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or the executive committee for ICS
 and what became SIMS in the city.

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And I was representing the state
 in the RAND study

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relative to PPE and things like that.

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But every day it
 was just managing those those

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activities at the pile to ensure
 we had an integrated synchronized effort

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between all the agencies,
 whether that was bringing in subject

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matter experts to look at it,
 clearing ways for people

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to do video and pictures
 and things that needed to be done.

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Working with the health and safety groups,
 doing all of those things.

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In fact, it's interesting
 because I formed lifelong friendships

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with people who later followed me
 or preceded me here at FEMA,

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who came from either the city 
or the government.

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And we remained friends,
 close friends to this day.

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One of the things that I was able to
 accomplish was to get the insurance

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college as a center

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where folks could come in
 and just decompress.

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We had everything that the Red Cross
 ran it and we had everything in there

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from a therapeutic massage
 to 12 step programs

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to virtually every religious denomination
 and organization there.

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So people had a place to go and eat
 and decompress, and that was a sucess.

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And then we did one down at
 the Marriott down below the

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the site as well. 

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So we had these areas above and below
 were strictly for people working.

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On the pile at the at the at the

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the site to be able to go down and to

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just decompress, get help
 if they needed it.

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Yeah, I'll tell you what stood out. 

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It's two things is A: 

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The humanity of the people
 that were involved in the moment.

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I don't care who they were,
 where they were from.

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I mean, I even had cab drivers that were
 smiling and waving ask, "Can I help you?"

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And then the other side of that is the
 resiliency of this city and of this state.

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It is absolutely remarkable. 

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So I think that those two things are

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superimposed on each
 other, left an indelible

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mark on me, certainly.

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But to watch every day,
 the people out here

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all the way up and down the West Side
 Highway, offering

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food, offering drinks, just being there
 for the people down below.

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Because they didn't know what else to do,
 but I needed to do something.

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It was remarkable. 

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I think that the fact that 

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we're coming up on 20 years
 is just a good time to remember

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specifically the people that, you know, as
 you go to the front of the building here

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and look down on memorialized
 in that area out there,

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you know, that's anybody that knows somebody

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that was in the towers
 has a very different opinion on this.

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Anybody, that was friends
 with any of the folks that

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gave that last full measure in terms

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of what we do all in public safety.

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Now, that's not something
 that we're ever bound to forget.

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So to me, it's just a good point
 to remember that

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as an individual
 and hopefully as a country.