Laura Petrou: There’s a web of people within the government who take over. They tell you what to do, and you do what they say.
Brian Gunderson: There were these guys standing in the landing zone wearing their gray urban combat uniforms, holding their M-16s.
Laura Petrou: They split our group up and put us in the cars. It was pretty odd driving into this underground place.
Sen. Tom Daschle: It’s a very stark place. Rooms that are very nondescript—white walls, very basic chairs and tables.
Laura Petrou: It was very spartan. It was basically different shades of gray everywhere. We were taken through some tunnels and eventually into a room filled with cubicles, desks.
Steve Elmendorf, chief of staff for House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Missouri): There was a group of people there who had been staffing that location who had been waiting since the Cold War for somebody to show up.
John Feehery, press secretary to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois): It was a sense of wonderment that “Oh, boy, so this is what we have for the nuclear winter.”
Brian Gunderson: There were obviously preparations for us to stay for a long while if we had to. As we went through it, we crossed through one room that had a set of law books, a set of the U.S. Code, in case we had to do any legislating while we were there.
Sen. Tom Daschle: We were put on a speakerphone with the president—I think the president first, then the vice president second—to talk about circumstances. Basically, they recounted their own experiences, where they were, what they knew from intelligence briefings they had been given.
Brian Gunderson: They made some snacks available—I remember that there were a few bags of Cheetos or Doritos, and a few sodas that had been cracked open—and we all sat around and looked at the TV screen, and watched the tape of the Towers coming down. That’s where we stayed for several hours.
Steve Elmendorf: While we were at the secure location, the main thing that struck me was our main source of information was CNN—still. We sat in a room—the top leaders of the House and the Senate together—and we watched CNN. Cheney called several times and briefed people, but I don’t remember receiving any information that was any different from what I was watching on TV.
John Feehery: There was this sense of shock. There was also a sense of confusion. The members felt very nervous. The leadership on both sides—the House and Senate—were isolated from the rest of their members, and that’s not where you want to be.
Laura Petrou: They didn’t feel good about being separated from their colleagues and their families. Almost from the moment they got there, they wanted to go back.
Steve Elmendorf: One of the phone calls with Cheney, Don Nickles, who was the Senate Republican whip at the time, suggested that we ought to leave. He was agitated, asking, “Why are we all here? The situation is clear. We need to get back.” Cheney was clearly annoyed by this, and his voice came out of the speakerphone in the middle of the table and said, “Don, we control the helicopters. We’ll decide when you leave.”
Brian Gunderson: I got calls from other leadership staff that were still at the Capitol Police headquarters, with other members of Congress. They basically were calling up saying, “Well, the mood’s actually pretty ugly here.”
John Feehery: One member of Congress told the Speaker that he thought he was a coward for not coming back. It was decided that we were going to have a press conference on the Capitol steps to show the American people that we were not going to let the terrorists win.
Brian Gunderson: At that point, all civilian air traffic had been grounded, so there were no nonmilitary aircraft flying over U.S. airspace. There was a feeling that the security situation had stabilized. That there was some confidence that there weren’t going to be follow-on attacks, at least not immediately, and so that it was safe to go back. Eventually the decision was made that, yes, it’s time. We can get back in the helicopters.
John Feehery: I called one of my assistants, Paige Ralston, who was back in the Capitol Police [building], and she helped organize this press conference on the Capitol steps. Trent Lott wanted it only to be the leadership involved. I made the call that we were going to have all the members there.
Rep. Dennis Hastert: We didn’t know what was facing us but we knew that there was a lot of legislative things that we had to do. We got the word that the president was going to come back and land in Washington at 6:00. We figured we’d come in right behind the president.
“We’re in a survival mode”
* * *
At Ground Zero
As some semblance of organization came to the carnage at the World Trade Center—a suddenly hallowed space that in the days ahead would first be called “The Pile” and then “Ground Zero”—agony-filled rescuers worked determinedly to find survivors.
William Jimeno, officer, PAPD: Believe it or not, someone did find us. Probably within an hour after Dominick passing, someone came above the hole and said, “Who’s down there?” I yelled, “Jimeno, PAPD!” I said, “We’ve got officers down.” The voice left us. It was very, very frustrating, and I was very mad, and I said to Sarge, “How could they leave us?” Sergeant McLoughlin says, “We don’t know what’s happening up there, this person could be injured, this person could be delusional, you’ve got to keep focused.” I said, “Sarge, I’m in a lot of pain. I’m in an extreme amount of pain.” Sergeant McLoughlin said, “You gotta hold on.”
Det. Steven Stefanakos, Emergency Service Unit, Truck 10, NYPD: They asked all members of the Emergency Service Unit who were there to mobilize—ironically—at the police memorial in Battery Park City. There’s 10 Emergency Service squads throughout the city, we lined up in those 10—one through 10—right by the memorial. That’s when we started to realize who was actually missing.
Sal Cassano, assistant chief, FDNY: I was taken to the hospital—a few broken ribs and some bumps and bruises—but I was cleared. I called for someone to take me back to headquarters and started to work in the Operational Center, handling phone calls, trying to put together a list of the people that were missing, the companies that were missing, and see where we were. We were trying to wrap our arms around this.
Dan Nigro, chief of operations, FDNY: We put out fires in the streets where all the cars were burning. We put out fires in some buildings as the day went on, but we realized we did not have enough water and time to put out Building Seven of the World Trade Center. I said, “After what happened, let’s make a collapse zone around this building.”
Scott Strauss, officer, Emergency Service Unit, Truck 1, NYPD: We came around the corner from City Hall Park, and we saw one of our Emergency Service vehicles on fire. It was like a movie. It’s like, “No! This is Lower Manhattan—this doesn’t happen in Lower Manhattan. It happens in the Middle East somewhere.”
Lt. Michael Michelsen, Wilton (Connecticut) Fire Department: As they were pulling the trucks out of the wreckage that first day, starting to move things, you’re looking at a fire truck—which most people view as incredibly strong and incredibly indestructible—these things were broken like little kids’ toys. It was like they were made out of papier-mâché and then stepped on.
Scott Strauss: We were finding plenty of body parts, but we weren’t finding anybody who was rescuable. We kept doing that all day long.
Dan Nigro: At that point, we were trying to find anybody, anybody we could rescue.
William Jimeno: We kept going back and forth, trying to keep each other going. I would yell at the sergeant if I heard him fading away; he would yell at me if I was fading away. All I could do was hope, and pray, and that’s something we did. We prayed together, at one point. McLoughlin said, “I don’t even know your first name.” I said, “Will.” He said, “Mine’s John.”
* * *
Still trapped inside the devastated but miraculously intact Stairwell B of the North Tower, a handful of surviving FDNY firefighters hoped their colleagues outside would find them.
Pasquale Buzzell
i, engineer, Port Authority, North Tower: The firemen who were in Stairway B also, they were below me. They were like the second or third floor, I believe, and they were in more of a cocoon—part of the building that didn’t collapse. I was on the 22nd floor, and I basically fell to what was the height of the rubble, which—if the building was still standing—it would have been the fourth floor. I basically fell 18 floors. I ended up maybe about 75 yards to the north. As it crumbled, the stair didn’t stay exactly center.
I was on a pile of rubble, a little ledge, with my feet dangling from my knees down. I started calling out for people that I was with, to see if anyone was around me. I started calling out for help. I didn’t see anyone for a while. An hour went by, and I was still calling out for help.
Lt. Mickey Kross, Engine 16, FDNY: I couldn’t move too much, so I started pushing. Nothing was giving. I pushed over my head, and the debris started to move. I made a little hole for myself. I crawled out. I had a beam over me. I’m sitting on the beam and now I’m thinking: What do I do now? Now I’m in the staircase proper.
Capt. Jay Jonas, Ladder 6, FDNY: We got about half-a-landing down and the word came from downstairs: “We can’t get out from down here.” We’re trying to figure out what happened. We’re alive. We’re coughing, gagging, we have very limited visibility. I can see walls of twisted steel around us. We’re in a stairway that’s intact but filled with debris. There are no lights.
Lt. Mickey Kross: I started hearing noises. I started hearing moaning, and guys were starting to communicate, yell out. These were the guys that I was trapped with. They were calling out, “Who’s there? You guys all right?” I realized I wasn’t alone. When you find out you’re with other people, it makes you feel a lot better.
Capt. Jay Jonas: I got a Mayday message from Lt. Mike Warchola from Ladder 5, who we saw on the 12th floor, that he was trapped on the 12th floor in the B Stairway, and he’s hurt badly. I was the highest one on the stairway so I started climbing the stairway, trying to move debris. He transmits a second Mayday, and he’s a little more distraught the second time. I’m trying to move the debris around, and I can’t move it. It’s too heavy. The third Mayday came in, and he was even more distraught than the previous time. I get on the radio and say, “I’m sorry, Mike. I can’t help you.” That was the last we heard of him. In reality, we found out later that the 12th floor didn’t exist, that his “Mayday” was coming from the rubble.
Lt. Mickey Kross: I jumped onto the other staircase. Then I crawled up a few steps, and the other guys were there—Lt. Jim McQueen from 39 Engine, Chief Richie Picciotto, a couple of the other fellows. There were about six people under the landing.
Capt. Jay Jonas: We tried to get ourselves out and we couldn’t figure out a way. I finally gave out my own Mayday message: “Mayday. Mayday, Mayday. This is the officer of Ladder Company 6. We’re in the B Stairway and we’re trapped.” The first man to answer my Mayday was Deputy Chief Tom Haring, a friend. He said, “Okay. I got you recorded. Guys will be coming to get you.”
Dan Nigro: When I heard the operation going on for Ladder 6 I thought, They made a mistake. I said, “You can’t be rescuing anybody in the North Tower, the North Tower is gone.” I did not think it at all possible that anyone could be in that building and be alive.
Capt. Joe Downey, Squad Company 18, FDNY: When they located the guys in the stairwell, it was a mad rush trying to get those people out, to identify where they were.
Capt. Jay Jonas: We gave them—all these guys who came from all the firehouses in the outer boroughs—we gave them a focal point. This is, Wow! The Six is trapped! Go get ’em! That was the mission. One of the next people that came on the radio was Nick Visconti, a deputy chief. Nick came to my wedding. I said, “Wow! Nick’s here! Nick’s running my rescue!” He would ask me very strategic questions. He asked me about how I got into the building. I said, “We came in off of West Street. We walked through the glass doors. We made a right and a left and the B Stairway’s your first left. You can’t miss it.”
I spoke to Nick a few days later, and he said when he asked me that he was surrounded by about 100 firemen who were ready to go. When I said, “We walked through the glass doors,” there was a collective sigh because there wasn’t a piece of glass intact for about 20 blocks.
Lt. Mickey Kross: We tried to force the door off the stairway. They used the ax and the Halligan—it’s like a pry bar—and they opened the door, but there was a wall of debris behind it.
Capt. Jay Jonas: I’m starting to get radio messages. One was from my neighbor, Cliff Stabner. “This is Rescue 3 to Ladder 6, Capt. Jay Jonas. This is Cliff. I’m coming to get you. Where are you?” I was very good friends with Cliff. He would get me choked up every time I would talk to him on the radio, because he would end every radio transmission by saying, “I’m coming for you, brother. I’m coming for you.”
Lt. Mickey Kross: Now I figured at least they knew where we were. I didn’t realize that everything was gone; it was a big pile of debris.
Capt. Jay Jonas: Another person that got on the radio was Bill Blanche, a chief over here in the First Battalion. I had worked with him—he was the only one that gave me a little glimpse into how bad it was going to be. He says, “This is going to take a real long time. It’s really bad out here.” I had come to the realization that we might be here for a few days.
Lt. Mickey Kross: They started searching for us maybe an hour, two hours, three hours. I really lost track of the time.
Capt. Jay Jonas: We also had a chief that was below us, below the guys from Engine 39, named Richard Prunty. He was beyond the point that there was a huge area of debris. Every time I gave our location, he would get on the radio and say, “Don’t forget about Battalion 2.” “Yes, we have Battalion 2.”
Lt. Mickey Kross: He was about 20 feet below us and he was trapped up to his chest in debris, and he was losing consciousness. I remember we were talking to him on the radio and telling him to hang in there. The last thing he said was, “Tell my wife and kids I love them,” and that was it.
Capt. Jay Jonas: At one point during our entrapment after the collapse, we had an explosion that shook the area. One of my firemen from Ladder 6, Tommy Falco, looked up at me. He says, “Hey, Cap. What do we do now?” I looked at him and I says, “I don’t know. I’m making this up as I go along.”
* * *
The two sons of Ray Downey, FDNY’s head of special operations, both firefighters, searched carefully for their father, reconstructing his movements amid the chaos following the twin collapses.
Lt. Chuck Downey, FDNY: There were so many guys looking to help out, but there was so much to cover. Voids all over the place. Everybody was crawling, whatever you could move to lift up. It’s a tremendous amount of square area to cover.
Capt. Joe Downey, Squad Company 18, FDNY: Right from the start, we were trying to locate our father. Our agenda was to find out where he was and where he could possibly have survived. Right from the beginning, we were asking questions. He survived the first building, and he went back in.
Lt. Chuck Downey: There were quite a few people that saw him at the command post, saw him across West Street.
Capt. Joe Downey: As it was clearing—before it even cleared—they said he was the first one back out on the radio trying to get everybody out of the North Tower.
Lt. Chuck Downey: He turned people away. As he came out, he was, a couple of eyewitness reports said, all white—brushing stuff off his face, radioing people to get out of the North Tower and directing others to head north on West Street.
Capt. Joe Downey: We know where he was when the second building came down. He was helping this gentleman coming out of the Marriott. Two of our firefighters were trapped in the Marriott when the first building came down, in the hotel lobby. They were working their way out. He saw the guys coming out. Him and Chief Stack—Larry Stack—stayed there with a heavyset gentleman that they couldn’t move. It was the two chiefs and this civilian. I feel he knew he wasn
’t going to come out, and he made that conscious decision on doing what he had to do. He probably couldn’t have lived with himself—the type of person that he is—if he did go away from the building when his guys were still in the building. He could have easily walked to West Street like everybody else. He couldn’t leave that gentleman, and he couldn’t leave his companies up in the North Tower.
Lt. Chuck Downey: He made a statement to FDNY Capt. Al Fuentes right when the South Tower came down: “There were a lot of good men in that building.”
Capt. Joe Downey: I think it was almost a hundred guys from just his Special Operations Command that died. Special Operations Command includes the five rescue companies, seven squad companies, the Hazmat Unit. The only one of his companies that didn’t get there was Squad 270. Every other company that was there was wiped out.
* * *
Pasquale Buzzelli, engineer, Port Authority, North Tower: There were some firemen searching the rubble. They were actually looking for those firemen with Josephine Harris, trapped in the stairwell, but they stumbled across me. When I saw the first fireman—I believe it was Mike Morabito—I said, “Hey! Help! I’m up here!” He said, “What do you need?” I was taken aback. I said, “I’m stuck. I can’t get down.” He’s like, “Oh, all right. We’ll get to you in a minute.”
I’m like, “Okay.” He said, “You need a rope or something?” I said, “Whatever you need me to do, just tell me.” He looked at me again. He said, “Who are you with?” Because I had a blue shirt on, black pants, he thought I was another fireman, searching the rubble that got stuck. I was like, “I was in the building. It collapsed.” I said, “I’m stuck here. I can’t get down.” He said, “Holy shit, guys! We got a survivor!” He got on the radio and then he goes, “Hold on! We’ll get to you!”
The Only Plane in the Sky Page 33