FDNY partnering with the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to develop future leaders. Left to right: Chiefs Michael Weinlein, Peter Hayden, and Frank Cruthers; Major Reid Sawyer; Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta; Chiefs John Norman and Sal Cassano; Deputy Commissioner Don Shacknai; Senior Advisor Kate Frucher; and me.
DUANE STREET FIREHOUSE
We never know the day when history will choose us. 9/11 was that day. It was a miracle that all of us from Engine 7, Ladder 1, and Battalion 1 and the Naudet brothers survived the collapse of the WTC, which allowed us to tell our story.
Despite everything that we have been through, from terrorist attacks to hurricanes, Ginny and I love being with each other. Here we are relaxing by sailing across Jamaica Bay and into the Atlantic Ocean off the Rockaways.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Even twenty years after, this story was not an easy one for me to tell. I had to search my memory of an unthinkable day, and all that followed, recalling so many critical moments and countless faces. The stress of putting words on paper intensified the experience, but in a good way, prompting me to connect and reconnect with many people without whom I could not have written this memoir.
The journey toward this book started with me wanting to write an academic book on crisis leadership. My marvelous literary agent, Lisa Queen, encouraged me instead first to tell my personal story. She immediately got Portfolio/Penguin Random House on board. The team led by Adrian Zackheim and guided by Bria Sandford with the assistance of Nina Rodríguez-Marty became trusted partners who provided support and urged me to keep going.
I could not have crafted this book without the wonderful assistance of Glenna Whitley, who cared about every story and was always willing to get on long phone calls to discuss how to shape each chapter. Thanks to Kate Frucher, Tim Herlocker, and Arn Howitt, who each in their own way helped me with the book drafts by providing valuable feedback and encouragement. I am incredibly grateful to Jules and Gédéon Naudet, who shared their film, transcripts, and interview recollections with me, catapulting me back in time. Jules especially taught me how to tell my story in scenes and characters.
I could not be more appreciative of Gary Marlon Suson, Jean Nichols, and Jeff Kowalsky, who provided me with very personal pictures. Screenshots from the Naudet 9/11 documentary gave us a valuable glimpse inside the North Tower.
I’m grateful to my mentors, colleagues, and all the firefighters I worked with in my thirty-seven years in the FDNY. From the firehouse where I was a probie to headquarters where I was an assistant chief. A special thanks to all who were part of the Duane Street firehouse, where we shared stories of bravery about that day and our journey to resilience. Thanks to Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano, Chief of Department Pete Hayden, Assistant Chief Joe Callan, and many others whom I worked closely with that day and for many years to follow. I appreciate all those dedicated people who worked with me at FDNY’s Center for Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness to connect agencies for collaboration and coordination. It was an honor to serve New York City and the FDNY with all of you. This was especially true on 9/11 and the period after, where we needed to support each other to imagine better ways of doing things.
I am also thankful to have worked with Lieutenant Colonel Reid Sawyer, Professor Nelly Lahoud, and so many others from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
Many thanks to all those who took my classes on crisis leadership at the FDNY, the U.S. Military Academy, the Harvard Kennedy School, the Naval Postgraduate School, Columbia University, and Tsinghua University. Your questions got me to think more deeply about what I have learned from my experiences.
I appreciate the talks I had with Chief James Schwartz of the Arlington Fire Department and Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs of the FBI, who demonstrated unified operations at the Pentagon on 9/11. Exchanging ideas with my 9/11 colleagues at the Harvard Kennedy School enabled each of us to imagine better when encountering extreme events.
I owe a lot to my outstanding Harvard Kennedy School colleagues, Professors Arn Howitt and Dutch Leonard. For more than fifteen years, we have taught at Harvard and around the world about leading in a crisis. This guided us to conduct international research on responding to novel and extreme events.
My Harvard friends and I, with Jules Naudet, traveled to Paris, France, to conduct research after the November 13, 2015, attacks on Paris and then again after the fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in 2019. We talked to everyone, from the prime minister and mayor of Paris to generals and firefighters of the Paris Fire Brigade, from SWAT officers and commissioner with the Research and Intervention Brigade (BRI) to hostages taken in the Bataclan, as well as doctors who cared for victims. We saw our personal experiences in each other’s stories, which the Naudet brothers portray in their films. Perhaps it was through the eyes of others that I learned how to write my 9/11 story.
For all our work with first responders in Paris, I was given several unique privileges. The first was standing in the seventeenth-century courtyard of Les Invalides, being made an honorary firefighter of the Paris Fire Brigade. The second was receiving the high honor of being installed as Chevalier of the Ordre National du Mérite by decree of the president of France.
And as a display of global friendship and bravery, I got to scale the outer steel structure of the Eiffel Tower with the BRI and Jules. Attached by a rope to one BRI officer above me and one below me, I firmly placed one foot at a time on each cross section of steel as I climbed the iconic structure. Then I got to use my firefighting training and rappelled down, seeing the beautiful city of Paris like few have ever done. That moment was key to my understanding of how international friendship and cooperation shape our response to difficult challenges.
My biggest thank-you goes to my wife, Ginny. I could not have written this book or gotten through these events without your love and support. You are always my hero. A very special appreciation to our daughter, Christine, and her daughter, our first granddaughter, Emma; our son, Gregory, his wife, Cristina, and their daughter, our second granddaughter, Maddie; my sister, Mary Ellen, her husband, Victor, and family. And I cannot forget my ninety-five-year-old mom, Helen: you make everything so wonderful with your smiles and unconditional love.
Finally, thanks to all the ordinary heroes who marked an extraordinary time in history by doing ordinary things for others. I will carry you always in my heart.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Corrigan, M., P. Greene, D. Kane, G. Christ, and S. Lynch. FDNY Crisis Counseling. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006.
Dwyer, J., and K. Flynn. 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive inside the Twin Towers. New York: Times Books, 2005.
McGonigal, Kelly. The Upside of Stress. New York: Avery, 2015.
McKinsey & Company. Increasing FDNY’s Preparedness. New York: New York City Fire Department, 2002.
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004.
National Institute of Standards and Technology. Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster: Emergency Response Operations. Gaithersburg, MD: NIST, December 1, 2005.
———. Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster: Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center 7. Gaithersburg, MD: NIST, 2008.
Naudet, Gédéon, and Jules Naudet. 9/11: The Filmmakers’ Commemorative Edition [film]. Paramount, 2002.
Pfeifer, J. “Hurricane Sandy Sparks a Conflagration in Breezy Point.” WNYF Magazine 13, no. 2 (2013): 24–28.
———. “Understanding How Organizational Bias Influenced First Responders at the World Trade Center.” In B. Bongar et al., eds. Psychology of Terrorism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
———, and J.
Merlo. “The Decisive Moment: The Science of Decision Making Under Stress.” In P. Sweeney, M. Matthew, and P. Lester, eds. Leadership in Dangerous Situations: A Handbook for the Armed Forces, Emergency Services, and First Responders. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2011.
“The Sept. 11 Records.” New York Times, archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/met_WTC_histories_full_01.html.
Smith, D. Report from Ground Zero. New York: Viking, 2002.
Sutherland, Audrey. Paddling My Own Canoe. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1978.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Pfeifer retired from the New York City Fire Department in 2018 as an assistant chief and the founding director of FDNY’s Center for Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness. During his thirty-seven-year career, he commanded some of the most significant emergencies in New York City’s history, including the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, the Superstorm Sandy fire in 2012, and the Ebola crisis in 2014. Pfeifer is currently a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, and the director for crisis leadership at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. He holds master’s degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School, the Naval Postgraduate School, and the Immaculate Conception seminary. Joe lives in New York with his wife, Ginny.
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