The mayor leaned back in his chair as I leaned forward in mine explaining the dilemma, the floor-to-ceiling window next to him framing a view of historic Faneuil Hall. “The neighbors will listen,” Menino continued. “Just explain to ’em. You’ll have no problem.”
Over the next couple of months, Massport held dozens of small forums with community groups. At each, Logan’s deputy fire chief recounted aircraft incidents involving similar runway obstructions around the country. At neighbors’ urging, we explored alternatives to removing the fence. We set up an official neighborhood committee. We kept the mayor and other local public officials informed as we worked on a mitigation agreement—projects that Logan funding would support to help the community once the fence was removed.
In March of 2001, with neighborhood support, a Logan construction crew dismantled the fence piece by piece.
Fall 2000—Sarasota, Florida
Mohamed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi enroll at Jones Aviation, a flight training school in Sarasota, Florida. They are “aggressive,” “rude,” even fight with the instructor to take over the controls during training flights. They fail the Stage I exam for instruments rating. Soon after, they return to a different flight training school they had attended earlier in the year.
October 2000—Boston
I took a sip of hot coffee. The traffic was heavy. The slow crawl allowed me to glance away from the on-again-off-again brake lights in front of me to the ocean stretching out to my left. The water was steel gray, reflecting the sky. The surface of the water at low tide was as placid as a lake.
Thank you, God, for giving me this new day, I prayed silently, as I did every morning. Help me to remember that nothing is going to happen to me today that you and I together can’t handle.
As the traffic speed picked up, I turned down a grittier stretch of road. The ocean was now mostly hidden by warehouses, car dealerships, and fast-food restaurants. Stopped at a red light, I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. I’m going to be late, I thought, growing anxious. That day was the start of Logan’s two-day emergency response drill. The FAA required airport operators to conduct emergency drills every three years. We’d dubbed that year’s drill “Operation Excellence.” Logan rescue personnel would practice the response to a large passenger jet crashing into Boston Harbor shortly after takeoff.
Statistically, most aircraft crashes occur on the airfield within reach of airport fire and rescue crews. The FAA also required fire and rescue equipment and personnel to be able to reach the crash scene within three minutes.
“We can get there in two,” a Logan firefighter told me during one of my first meetings at Logan’s Massport Fire Rescue headquarters. Logan personnel had also assembled a “go team” of key first responders, he’d said. The team traveled to crash sites around the country and then applied whatever lessons they learned to their training back at Logan. With pride in his voice, the firefighter said the initiative was meant “to make Logan the safest airport in the country.”
8:45 a.m.—Black Falcon Cruise Terminal, South Boston
The enormous passenger processing area of the cruise terminal had been temporarily transformed into an emergency response center. Federal, state, and local first responders were arrayed in metal folding chairs around the room. Logan security director Joe Lawless began the mock emergency exercise as I took notes from my seat at the edge of the room.
9:07 a.m.—Logan Airport, air traffic control tower, sixteenth floor
The radio crackled. “Emergency Code 3,” the Massport communications specialist said over the radio. She gave the coordinates of the crash and the number of “souls on board,” the total number of passengers and crew on the downed flight.
9:22 a.m.—Boston Harbor, one and a half miles from Logan
State Police divers were in the water, looking for survivors. A Massachusetts State Police helicopter hovered overhead, a video camera trained on the scene below. A live transmission of the rescue scene was being sent to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators in Washington, DC. “We’re the first to do that,” Lawless pointed out.
The water was covered with vast swaths of red dye, a biodegradable substance representing oil and other biochemical hazards that would hinder rescuers in a real crash. Debris donated by the airlines was scattered across the water. Suitcases. Dislodged aircraft seats. Cushions. A sneaker. A black box containing crucial aircraft data was pulled on board the rescue boat. Dummies, representing the dead, were gently recovered. This part of the drill trained responders in how to handle human remains.
Twelve members of the Massport Fire Rescue crew were treading water in red survival suits. They were the passengers who had survived.
8:00 a.m. the next morning—Logan Airport Hilton hotel
The Massport Care Team had transformed an entire second floor of the Logan Hilton hotel into a family assistance center for day two of the drill. More than fifty employees had volunteered to help families of passengers who might come to Logan after yesterday’s simulated crash. Logan wasn’t a hub airport, meaning it didn’t serve as the base of operations for one or more major airlines, like Chicago’s O’Hare or Hartsfield in Atlanta. Most major airlines have their own care teams, but we were concerned these airline teams would be delayed in arriving at Logan since they were not based here. An agencywide email solicited volunteers for our own care team. Massport engineers, administrative assistants, airfield development planners, and others volunteered to be trained for a challenge far different from their normal tasks of assigning terminal gates or haggling with contractors.
A group of Emerson College drama students arrived in the Hilton meeting room. They would play the parts of anxious family members.
8:15 a.m. Betty Desrosiers, Massport’s Care Team leader, who normally headed the airport’s planning department, approached the podium. She told the assembled “families” she had little news to report.
“What we know is that Flight 157 is down one and a half miles off of Runway 15-Right,” Betty said. “We don’t know how many, but we do know that there are some survivors.”
There were sobs and shouts from those gathered in the room. “I want to know whether my husband is dead or alive,” a young woman cried out, burying her face in her hands. A volunteer patted her back.
As I watched from the back of the room, their acting was so convincing that I wiped tears from my eyes. When a young family member fainted, the Massport emergency medical staff paused in their role-play. “Are you okay?” they asked.
The tension in the room grew as the families pressed Betty for more information. I noticed Jim Hurd standing nearby. His son Jamie had been killed in the TWA 800 crash off Long Island in 1996. We’d invited Jim to observe the drill so he could share what he’d learned firsthand from dealing with the airlines in the aftermath.
“Thanks for coming,” I said, touching his arm. He smiled gently, his eyes betraying a depth of grief that no role-play, however convincing, could match.
After the briefing, the families dispersed to other smaller rooms off the hotel hallway. There, American Red Cross volunteers would take them through the difficult process to come. In one room, a forensics team was set up. Their job was to ask family members to gather dental records and report any of their missing loved ones’ identifying physical marks. Clergy of various faiths waited nearby to offer whatever comfort they could.
A few hours later, I returned to my office and tried to shake off a sense of foreboding as I sifted through my in-box. It was piled with decision memos on development deals for Massport property, environmental analyses of the new runway, and customer service recommendations.
Some weeks later, we held a briefing on the next steps for our emergency preparedness plan. I had a particularly sharp exchange with the head of Troop F, the State Police unit assigned to the airport. In the event of a real emergency, he said, they would shut off access to the airport, closing
down entranceways from the highway. “Then how will families get here?” I asked him. He dismissed me, with a little wave that was not unfamiliar from my years of dealing with politics’ sometimes “old boy” culture. He said something like, “We’ll figure it out.”
“That’s not good enough,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “Come back to me with a better plan.”
“It’s eerie,” I said to Tom Kinton, Logan’s director of aviation, as we left the conference room. “The drill makes it feel like something is really going to happen.” Tom grimaced and nodded in agreement.
Spring 2001
The level of reporting [among counterterrorism officials and Washington leaders] on terrorist threats and planned attacks increases dramatically, to its highest level since the millennium.
May 29, 2001—Boston
I stood discreetly on Logan’s tarmac behind dozens of former and current congressional staffers as the honor guard approached the military jet. The flag-laden casket carrying the body of Congressman Joe Moakley was brought down the steps and placed on a wheeled platform on the tarmac.
June 1, 2001—St. Brigid Church, South Boston
The funeral service was packed. President George W. Bush, former president Bill Clinton, former vice president Al Gore, and many other dignitaries took their places in the front row. Like Moakley himself, the service was a blend of South Boston tradition and modest pageantry.
Near the end of the service, a security guard approached my pew. “Come with me,” he whispered. I wasn’t sure where we were going until I saw the presidential limousine parked near a waiting area. Inside a small white tent were a few local residents, including military service members or their families selected to greet the president. White House chief of staff Andy Card—a close friend of my old boss, Governor Cellucci—and his wife, Kathleene, were there, too.
President Bush entered the tent. He shook hands with the small gathering. As I said hello, reintroducing myself, he asked me, “How’s Jack?” I was amazed he remembered my son’s name.
I had first met the president when he was governor of Texas. I was serving as Weld’s press secretary and had become friendly with Bush’s communications director, Karen Hughes. I was pregnant with Jack when I chatted with Governor Bush at a Republican Governors Association meeting. He was kind and congratulatory about my son’s impending birth. “What a real blessing,” he said. “That’s great.” His warmth reminded me a lot of Cellucci, and I felt an instant connection to him.
When he was running for president, I took seven-week-old Jack to a fundraising event at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston. It was being hosted by Weld and Cellucci for Bush’s first presidential campaign. The four of us posed for a picture. I was holding Jack, Governor Bush on one side, Weld and Cellucci on the other. The Bush campaign later sent me a signed copy. “To Ginny,” Bush wrote. “A rose between three thorns.” Cellucci later told me that when Andy Card visited him at the ambassador’s residence in Canada and the two reminisced about Massachusetts politics, Card remarked, “The president really loves Ginny Buckingham.”
Now I stood quietly and listened as President Bush and Andy Card conferred about their schedules over the next few days.
“I’m staying here because I have to give a speech,” Card said. “I’ll see you at Camp David.”
“Okay, I’m heading to the airport,” the president replied. “Anyone need a ride?” He turned and looked at me. “Would you like a ride to your place of business?”
I shook my head, too dumbfounded to speak. I was as surprised that the president of the United States was offering me a ride as I was that he remembered I now ran Logan Airport.
In just a few short months, and in the years ahead, I would wonder if he made the same connection when attacks launched from my airport became indelibly imprinted on his presidency.
Summer 2001
Mohamed Atta (American Flight 11), Marwan al Shehhi (United Flight 175), and Ziad Jarrah (United Flight 93) take the first of several cross-country surveillance flights on the same type of aircraft each will pilot on 9/11. At various times and in various cities, the other pilots do the same. They and the muscle hijackers also build their strength at local gyms and purchase small knives. Atta travels to Spain to meet with an al Qaeda liaison to Osama bin Laden. He confirms the muscle hijackers have arrived in the US; the pilots have been assigned to their attack targets (the Twin Towers, the US Capitol, and the Pentagon). “If I can’t reach the World Trade Center,” Atta tells the al Qaeda liaison, “I’ll crash the plane into the streets of New York.”
Summer 2001—Marblehead, Massachusetts
“Mama!”
I hurried up the stairs to answer Jack’s cry. He’d lately developed a fear of monsters. In his two-year-old mind, his room had become a potential den of dangerous creatures.
“D’ere,” he said, pointing to the closet as I entered the room. “D’ere.” He pointed and followed it with “Door,” his broadening vocabulary serving as a road map to his fears.
Normally impatient, I checked each place he pointed to, trying to rebut his certainty that I would surely find the monster if only I looked in the right place.
“No monsters here, little love,” I said to reassure him.
But each spot deemed monster-free only brought forth another request to check or recheck a corner. Suddenly, I got an idea. I turned to Jack with a broad grin.
“I have a can of special monster spray, Jack, right here,” I said. I held up my right hand, three fingers and my thumb encircling an imaginary can, my pointer finger poised on the unseen button.
Jack looked at me with a quizzical expression. My change in tactic had clearly gotten his attention.
“This gets rid of monsters,” I said. “Watch this, buddy.” I arced my arm back and forth across Jack’s room, making what I thought constituted a decent spraying sound by putting my tongue behind my teeth and hissing. “Sssssss. Sssssss.” I aimed the “can” at the closet and cried, “Take that, monsters! And that!”
Jack was giggling as he started directing my aim. “D’ere, Mama, d’ere!”
“That will show those monsters,” I said. “They won’t come near this room now.”
After several minutes of this new game, I could see Jack rubbing his eyes and reached to shut off his light. I covered him with his blanket and sang “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music, as I had done every night since I first learned I was pregnant. In minutes he was asleep.
I crossed the hall to our bedroom. The nightstand light was on. David was reading the rest of the newspaper he hadn’t gotten to that morning.
“Jack was a little tough to get to sleep tonight,” I said as I clicked on my light and reached for the mystery novel I was halfway through.
“Hug?” David asked, grinning warmly as he reached for me. I put my book down and moved closer to lay my head on his shoulder.
“Seven years and I love you more today than I did the day we were married,” David said, squeezing my shoulder and bringing me closer as if for emphasis.
When we met at the State House in 1992 we had quickly gone from being close friends to falling in love. David liked to say we are each other’s bashert, a Yiddish word for soul mate. I felt the same way, like our relationship was predestined and therefore indestructible.
“Do you want me to read to you?” he asked.
“If you must,” I answered, teasing him, pretending to groan. I took off my glasses, placing them next to the water glass on the nightstand. I knew I would be awakened later when David turned the sheets upside down and groped under my pillow in search of his own glasses. Unless I removed them for him after he fell asleep, they’d slip off in the night. I smiled at the comfortable familiarity of our routine and closed my eyes.
“This is one my dad always read to my mother,” David said, beginning the poem “When You Are Old” by Yeats.
When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once and of their shadows deep . . .
David’s voice was the last thing I heard before falling into a deep, undisturbed sleep.
No monsters here.
Between August 25 and September 5, 2001
The hijackers purchase nineteen plane tickets for cross-country flights departing from Logan, Dulles, and Newark airports on the morning of September 11, 2001.
Chapter Three
The Day
September 11, 2001, 5:43 a.m.—Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine
“Looking for US Airways?” Michael Tuohey asked the two Arab businessmen who appeared confused. Tuohey had transferred to Portland from Logan Airport in 1986. A native Bostonian and self-described “tough guy” who grew up in the projects, he enjoyed a quieter life in Maine. When he wasn’t working the early shift at the airport, he happily puttered around his garden. He was one of a few ticket agents on duty at the counter.
Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz al Omari approached and showed Tuohey their identification. He saw they were booked on the 6:00 a.m. Colgan Air flight to Boston. Atta was checking two bags, al Omari none. Tuohey asked Atta routine security questions about his luggage. When Atta confirmed he’d packed his own bags and kept them in view, Tuohey handed the men their boarding passes.
Atta looked angry. “They told me ‘one-step check-in,’” he said, clenching his jaw. Tuohey hadn’t issued boarding passes for Atta and al Omari’s connecting flight in Boston even though, under airline rules, he could have. Something about the men was making him uncomfortable. Requiring the two to check in again in Boston meant they would have to deal with another ticket agent before going again through security.
On My Watch Page 3