WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:11.044 --> 00:00:13.279 It started off as a normal day for me, 00:00:13.279 --> 00:00:14.180 I was on the East River 00:00:14.180 --> 00:00:17.550 Drive on my way to the office, which is on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. 00:00:18.151 --> 00:00:22.122 Got a call that a small plane hit the north tower of the Trade Center 00:00:22.756 --> 00:00:25.525 and pulled up right over there and 00:00:26.493 --> 00:00:29.829 went in, walked through- the windows had already blown out. 00:00:30.530 --> 00:00:34.267 When I got in the lobby, of course, all hell broke loose. 00:00:34.267 --> 00:00:38.271 The chief said was not a small plane, it was a commercial airliner. 00:00:38.872 --> 00:00:42.842 And they couldn't put the fires out because it had severed all the lines. 00:00:43.343 --> 00:00:44.544 They were doing the best they could. 00:00:44.544 --> 00:00:48.381 They had had to shut down using the elevators and guys were walking up. 00:00:48.915 --> 00:00:51.117 Few of the firefighters got up there right away. 00:00:51.151 --> 00:00:53.319 They were able to ascertain how bad it was. 00:00:53.720 --> 00:00:55.655 Got the word back to us. 00:00:55.655 --> 00:01:00.960 But we knew we had a real tough job on our hands and about 10 minutes later, 00:01:01.361 --> 00:01:05.065 we felt the vibration, we thought it was an explosion in the elevator shaft. 00:01:05.632 --> 00:01:10.170 And Ray Downey, the head of our special operations division, 00:01:10.537 --> 00:01:13.973 and the team said to me that the South Tower had been hit, 00:01:14.207 --> 00:01:19.112 that the Pentagon had been hit, that there was a plane missing. 00:01:19.112 --> 00:01:22.115 And it was like, it was like crazy. 00:01:22.415 --> 00:01:26.052 We knew then we had a real problem and we had to take half of the leadership 00:01:26.519 --> 00:01:29.589 from the North Tower and send them to the south tower. 00:01:29.889 --> 00:01:32.692 We were in the process of trying to get everybody out. 00:01:32.859 --> 00:01:35.962 But some of the firefighters that were helping people 00:01:35.962 --> 00:01:38.998 would just- wouldn't come down without those people. 00:01:39.032 --> 00:01:41.935 So it took a long time. So I left the building. 00:01:41.968 --> 00:01:43.536 We all left the lobby. 00:01:43.536 --> 00:01:45.271 I was trying to find the mayor at that point. 00:01:45.271 --> 00:01:47.707 I went around the corner to OEM. 00:01:47.707 --> 00:01:50.743 And as I went around the building, the south tower collapsed. 00:01:53.746 --> 00:01:57.517 And that was a shock for us because the South Tower was hit second, 00:01:58.051 --> 00:02:00.720 so we knew then that if the south tower fell 00:02:01.020 --> 00:02:03.389 we were in bad shape, of course, with the north tower. 00:02:03.890 --> 00:02:05.925 And the day just progressively got worse. 00:02:08.161 --> 00:02:10.196 We had the best chiefs anywhere 00:02:10.430 --> 00:02:13.166 for no other reason that we had so much experience. 00:02:13.500 --> 00:02:16.936 We have every kind of problem you could have here in New York City, 00:02:17.237 --> 00:02:21.107 and it's bigger than everybody else's problem, and there's more of them, 00:02:21.107 --> 00:02:23.543 so you get good fire chiefs and good firemen. 00:02:23.977 --> 00:02:26.279 So our chiefs are very experienced. 00:02:26.279 --> 00:02:28.348 We had people there who knew what to do. 00:02:28.348 --> 00:02:31.951 It was not- not much you could do but other than try to help people. 00:02:32.318 --> 00:02:37.290 When you get an explosion like that- with all that fuel at 600 miles an hour, 00:02:37.590 --> 00:02:41.661 of course the heat and everything was very, very bad. 00:02:41.961 --> 00:02:47.901 So doorways were twisted and anybody who was above the impact of the plane died. 00:02:48.234 --> 00:02:50.870 But there was a lot of people that were rescued below it. 00:02:51.638 --> 00:02:54.407 We found out later on that about eighteen thousand 00:02:54.407 --> 00:02:57.977 people were in the complex, judged by the card readers. 00:02:58.378 --> 00:02:59.646 You know, we didn't know how many. 00:02:59.646 --> 00:03:03.016 People on subways- it went down eight, eight stories below ground. 00:03:03.383 --> 00:03:05.585 So it was a really complicated situation. 00:03:05.585 --> 00:03:09.022 Subways, restaurants. You didn't know where everybody was. 00:03:09.055 --> 00:03:11.658 So it was it was rough. 00:03:12.125 --> 00:03:14.928 And the guys did a great job. Great job that day. 00:03:22.035 --> 00:03:24.370 What I got to see when I was at FEMA 00:03:24.370 --> 00:03:27.540 was the connection of the- the federal government connection, 00:03:27.540 --> 00:03:31.711 that I wasn't even aware of when I was a fire commissioner. 00:03:31.744 --> 00:03:33.947 I got to see what the USAR teams were like. 00:03:33.980 --> 00:03:38.318 I got to see how phenomenally dedicated they were. The training. 00:03:38.451 --> 00:03:41.988 I think, about being on a pile at- on the- at the Trade Center. 00:03:42.288 --> 00:03:45.758 I remember seeing these groups that were totally geared up 00:03:45.758 --> 00:03:48.861 wearing all the safety equipment they were supposed to wear. 00:03:49.162 --> 00:03:52.765 And that was the professionalism that the USAR teams maintained 00:03:52.932 --> 00:03:54.100 throughout the country. 00:03:54.100 --> 00:03:57.604 I always look back at what we really needed was 00:03:57.604 --> 00:04:01.040 professional help managing our disaster because it was so big. 00:04:01.341 --> 00:04:04.844 It was twenty seven acres, I think, and it was for us, it was a lot. 00:04:04.877 --> 00:04:07.013 We never needed help before in New York. 00:04:07.013 --> 00:04:08.781 But the Trade Center, we needed it. 00:04:08.781 --> 00:04:11.651 And FEMA brought in the incident management teams 00:04:11.851 --> 00:04:14.854 and all of the experts that we didn't have to help all 00:04:15.388 --> 00:04:19.025 the firefighters and police officers and FEMA folks 00:04:20.793 --> 00:04:23.763 that were trying so hard, you know, for months 00:04:24.397 --> 00:04:26.799 to to find people. 00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:31.271 The whole experience, the whole three-four months that we stayed. 00:04:31.638 --> 00:04:34.307 And then even after all the memorials 00:04:34.307 --> 00:04:38.911 and watching the kids grow up, those who were able to push forward 00:04:39.379 --> 00:04:43.950 and put the tragedy not behind them, but to carry it alongside. 00:04:43.983 --> 00:04:47.287 You need to keep it in a compartment and let it out, 00:04:47.954 --> 00:04:50.423 but you need to get it back in so you can go on 00:04:50.857 --> 00:04:53.793 and enjoy the parts of your life that you have, 00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:58.498 and not just dwell on the parts that hurt so much of someone you lost.