by F. P. Lione
“Okay, listen up, boys and girls,” Hanrahan ordered as he turned around and looked at us. “This is the real deal here, no screwing around.”
We all looked at Rooney.
“This is serious,” Rooney said. “We gotta help these people.”
“I want ya’s to stick together, no joke,” Hanrahan said.
Yeah, like any of us thought it was funny.
Walsh leaned down to look out the windshield and said, “Where’d the plane go?”
I looked at him. “It’s in the building,” I said. But he looked like he didn’t get it.
The radio was chaotic now, with everybody getting stepped on, making the radios basically useless.
The West Side Highway was clogged to Canal Street, so Noreen cut over to Broadway and got as far as Chambers Street before the street was crammed with emergency vehicles. People were running up Broadway away from us, while others stood in the street looking at the buildings. Some were crying with their hands over their mouths; others were pointing at the buildings as they talked on their cell phones. There were papers everywhere, floating down out of the sky, almost like a ticker tape parade.
A black male flagged us down as we got to Chambers Street. His leg was ripped open, and his head was burnt. His hair looked like burnt plastic glued to his head.
“Nor, take him over to Beekman,” Hanrahan said, talking about Beekman Downtown Hospital. “Then meet us back at the command post at Church and Vesey.”
“Easy, buddy,” I said as Joe and I put him in the van.
We ran the five blocks down Broadway with people running past us in a panic now. Everyone was out on the sidewalks, standing in the street and talking on their cell phones, looking up at the towers in horror. As we got closer I could see the orange glow of the fire inside the tower and the thick black smoke as it poured out.
We saw an airplane wheel the size of a table lying in the street, and there was debris everywhere. It was falling from the buildings onto cars, the street, and the sidewalk. We could hear things hitting the ground around us, and I realized our helmets were on their way to Beekman Hospital with Noreen. If something was to hit us from one of those buildings, we’d be dead.
When we got to the corner of Church and Vesey, Hanrahan and Bishop went over to talk to the brass. They were all business, with their radios in their hands, pointing toward West Street and methodically pointing at each sergeant, letting them know where to mobilize on West Street and then putting their radios to their ears before pointing again. I heard what I thought was the chief of the fire department yelling into his radio saying, “New York City is under attack, the Air Force must be notified immediately.”
We stood there trying to take in everything around us with our hats in our hands. People were holding bags, pocketbooks, or their hands over their heads to protect themselves from the falling debris as they ran. Some were holding hands as they walked. Others looked dazed.
An older guy who looked about sixty years old was stumbling toward us as he crossed Vesey Street. He had a nice gash on his forehead, his shirt was ripped, and he was bleeding from his shoulder.
“Easy, buddy,” I said as I crossed toward him. He started to collapse on me, and Joe grabbed his other side.
I could tell he was Italian; he was heavy around the middle, had a roman nose, and wore a button-down silk shirt.
“Thank you, officers,” he said as he leaned on us.
Joe and I looked around for an ambulance and spotted one on Church about half a block up from Vesey. We steered him that way while he told us as he sucked in air that he’d just walked down almost thirty flights of stairs.
“How’d you get banged up?” I asked.
“Fell in the stairwell,” he gasped. “Thank God no one trampled me, they picked me up.”
The paramedics were bandaging burns and cuts, taking the most serious first.
“Whaddaya got?” a stressed-out looking paramedic barked to us.
“He fell on the stairs coming out of the building,” Joe said. “He seems okay, he was able to walk down thirty flights of stairs.”
“You’re gonna be okay, buddy,” I told him.
“Thank you, officers.” He hugged both Joe and me, thanking us over and over.
As we walked back down Vesey we saw a group of people with injured among them that were more serious. They were helping each other out of the area instead of standing around watching like people usually do when someone gets hurt. They were half carrying each other and half holding on to each other. We saw a woman who had burns on her arms and back; half of her shirt was burned off her back. A man had burns on his hands and along his arms. I thought the fabric of his shirt was hanging off his arm until he got closer and I realized it was his skin. Paramedics were coming down into the area now, setting up a triage and moving out the worst of the injuries to the ambulances to transport to the hospitals. The noise was insane. There were sirens, people screaming, and horns from emergency vehicles, plus the static of the radios.
I saw chunks of concrete and pieces of metal on the street and cars with broken windshields and dented roofs from falling debris.
When we got back to the mobilization point our guys were directing people out of the area and pushing back the onlookers to keep the street clear. Joe and I joined in, telling them, “Come on people, you gotta get moving, you can’t stand here.” They would look at us for a second and then go back to staring at the buildings as they walked away.
I saw Aviation circling the towers from a distance. At one point they came in closer, I guess to see if they could land.
“That’s a bad idea,” Joe said, looking up at them.
“There’s too much smoke up there, they’ll never be able to land,” I said, wondering if they were attempting a rooftop rescue.
I know there’s a helipad up there and that some people were rescued when the tower was bombed back in 1993. But the tops of the buildings were so thick with smoke, I couldn’t see anyone being able to stand out there in it, never mind risking getting smoke and debris in the engine of the helicopter.
All of a sudden it felt like everything around me was coming from a distance. The sound dulled, and I felt a little dizzy. I took a couple of steps away from Joe to clear my head, looking at the ground to compose myself. I noticed there were bonds and memos and paperweights, papers that were burnt, and paper that you’d never know was blown out of the building. I saw a check for seventy-six thousand dollars made out to a phone company; part of the name was singed black. It was mindboggling that up until a little while ago, this stuff was just sitting harmlessly on someone’s desk.
“A plane hit the Pentagon,” I heard Big Bird say. He looked shaken.
“Who told you that?” I asked, looking up at him.
“That reporter right there,” he said and pointed to a woman with a press tag around her neck.
“She said she heard planes were hijacked in Washington, DC, and Philly too,” he said.
“This is bad,” I said, wondering how many other planes were out there. “This is really bad.”
“Our country is under attack,” Joe said like he couldn’t believe it. He rubbed his hand over his face and put his head down.
“Okay,” Hanrahan said when he and Bishop walked back over. “The command post has been moved over to West and Vesey, we’re gonna muster up over there.”
We hurried down the north side of Vesey toward West Street. People were running past us toward the East Side. I could tell they were coming from their offices; they were dressed in suits, some were rumpled, some looked fine, some had briefcases and pocketbooks, and others looked like they just ran out of the building.
The closer we got to West Street, the worse it looked. I had to step over a woman’s leg; I could tell by the size and shape of it that it was a woman’s. It had no shoe on, and I could see the bone sticking out of it.
Rooney made the sign of the cross as he stepped over it, but Walsh stopped, staring at it.
; “Come on, buddy,” I said, giving his arm a tug. “We gotta keep moving.”
I looked up at the building as if I could see where the leg had come from, and I saw people trapped above the fire in the North Tower standing on the window sills, close to the edge. They would disappear into the smoke and emerge again as the smoke swirled around them. The windows were broken. I don’t know if they knocked them out or the explosion did; they aren’t easy windows to break. Then I saw someone jump from the building, suspended in a free fall, and land with a sound that I’ll never forget.
“Did you see that?” I asked Joe.
“I saw it. Someone just jumped,” Rooney said.
I got confused all of a sudden and felt like I didn’t know what was happening around me. Then the realization that someone did this on purpose hit me again, and I got scared, wondering how many more planes were coming.
I was thinking this was not a good place to be, so close to the North Tower. There were building materials like metal, glass, and insulation all over the street and sidewalk, and we were stepping over body parts that looked almost fake to me. I felt my body jerk at the bang of another body hitting as it slammed onto the roof of the customs building, the six-story building adjacent to the North Tower.
I was walking, looking up at the building and the jumpers, looking down at the ground every couple of seconds to watch where I was stepping. I was thinking one of these bodies could get close enough to hit us and we’d never survive it.
I was glad when Rooney said, “Boss, can’t we go up a couple of blocks and come down West Street? I don’t want to get hit with a jumper.”
Bishop whirled around at him and yelled, “Why is your hat off? Why are all your hats off?”
Hanrahan looked at Bishop like he was crazy. Bishop always takes the easy gigs, and I’m sure he was scared out of his mind to be here. He was known for taking his temper out on whoever was closest to him at the time. We all looked at each other, and Rooney’s eyebrows shot up. We were stepping over body parts and he was worried about our hats.
“C’mon, we gotta get over there. Everybody put your hats on,” Hanrahan said in a no-nonsense, “I don’t have time for this” tone of voice.
When we got to West and Vesey the whole area was jammed with fire trucks, police cars, ambulances, and city vehicles. There were cops and firemen everywhere, some being mustered up, some running toward the towers. The brass were back to talking into their radios, barking out orders while they pointed at the sergeants and pointed to the direction they wanted us to go.
They posted us on the corner of West and Vesey, right across from the North Tower, with instructions to evacuate all civilians out of the area and not let anyone back in.
Over the next few minutes I saw more people start jumping to their deaths from what looked like about the ninetieth floor on the north side of the North Tower. They jumped head first, with their arms and legs out and their feet up in the air like a free fall. I saw what looked to be two people holding hands.
Every time someone jumped, the crowd would let out a frightened scream, and I could see the terror on their faces as they watched with their hands over their mouths. The sound was so loud that my whole body jerked every time someone hit. Rooney and Walsh made the sign of the cross every time someone jumped, and Joe would run his hand over his face and put his head down.
I watched in horror as they smashed into the roof of the Customs House or onto the ground. When they hit, a red mist came up from where their bodies landed.
After about ten people jumped, Walsh said, “Oh, come on,” as he started to cry. “Why doesn’t Aviation land on the roof and get these people out of here?”
The helicopters were still in the area, but they made no attempt to approach the rooftop.
“Because the smoke would get sucked into the engine and it would seize,” Joe said before he turned around and threw up.
“You okay, buddy?” I asked him, rubbing his back.
“I’m fine,” he said. He spit and wiped his mouth.
“There’s got to be something they can do,” Walsh said.
“If they could land, they’d land,” Joe said, looking up.
I had to turn around. I didn’t want to see it anymore. I don’t know how, but I managed to compose myself. I started praying for each person that jumped from the building. I remembered what Joe said about going into God’s throne room, and I asked God if I could come in and talk to him. On the inside of me I felt like he told me yes, to come in and pray for these people. I prayed to him to help these people jumping, to take them before they felt the pain of hitting the ground. I prayed for their parents, their wives and husbands, their children and grandchildren, for God to help them through this. I prayed for my family too, and for everyone else dead or alive that was in those buildings.
“Alright,” Hanrahan barked. “No one is allowed in the area. We are directing the evacuations of civilians uptown, and under no circumstances does anyone get in.”
“What about the press?” I asked. There were already a ton of reporters here.
“We were told nobody,” Hanrahan said. “If they want to get in, they’ll have to get in someplace else.”
We started moving people out of the area. We’d point up West Street and say, “Go, go, go,” as we waved them on their way.
For the most part, people would listen, but you always get people who just don’t listen.
“I need to get in there—”
“Uptown! Move it, don’t you see what’s going on? No one’s going in there.”
“Officer, you don’t understand—”
“Go! Go!” we’d tell them, waving them up West Street. “Move uptown, come on, out of the area.”
“Why won’t you listen to me?” one woman started crying.
“Nobody’s going in,” I yelled at her. “You have to leave the area now.”
“But—”
“No but, just go!”
They would walk away, looking back at the tower as they walked.
A guy walked toward us, a suit-and-tie type with half a smile on his face. “Do you think a lot of people are dead?” he asked Rooney.
“Are you kidding me? Get out of here!” Rooney screamed at him.
We had a steady stream of people now, and for the most part, we stood there pointing and saying, “Go, go uptown, let’s go, move it.”
There was a cameraman standing with us, filming as we moved people out.
“I need to get my daughter out of school,” some guy said, trying to get past us.
“No way,” I said, putting my arms out to block him as I shook my head. “Everyone is out of the buildings and uptown.”
“Please, I need to get in there. I don’t know if my wife got my daughter and got out,” he pleaded.
“Everyone’s already been evacuated from the area,” I said, hoping it was true. “I’m sure you’ll meet up with your wife and daughter further uptown.”
Bert and Ernie told the cameraman to move it uptown now. He walked about three-quarters of the way up to Barcley Street and continued filming.
Walsh was still green enough to fall for a sob story and a pretty face. He walked a female about twenty years old over to Hanrahan and said, “She was supposed to meet her sister—”
“No! Everyone out of the area! Let’s go!” he yelled at Walsh.
We were hearing more things hit the ground now. Bodies and chunks of debris were falling with more frequency now, and every time we heard something hit, our bodies did an involuntary jerk.
Rooney was staring at the FD and ESU trucks parked on West Street and said, “If anything big comes down, we’ll dive under the fire truck and we’ll be safe.”
We had been there probably close to an hour when pedestrian traffic started to slow down. The area was filling up with firefighters getting their equipment out of their trucks and heading right into the towers. Civilians that either had been on their way to work or had made it out of the buildings after the first plan
e hit were crying, breathing heavily, holding hands, or looking back in shock with their hands over their mouths as we sent them uptown.
The buildings seemed to be burning out of control now, with a lot more people jumping to their deaths. Then the ground started to shake, and I heard a sound like a thousand trains pulling into the station all at once.
16
The sound of the trains was coming from the South Tower, and we looked up to see the top floors of the tower give way and start collapsing one at a time onto the floors below. It reminded me of a building being demolished, and it almost looked as if explosives were being set off seconds apart on each floor.
“It’s coming down, run, come on!” Hanrahan yelled.
The cameraman was now directly behind us, still filming as the building started to collapse.
“Let’s go, shut the camera off!”
As the top floors started to slide down we ran north on West Street, yelling, “Come on, come on, let’s go!” as we grabbed people, dragging them with us as we ran.
I could feel the dirt and dust on me within seconds, and when I turned back I saw the rest of the building crumble to the ground.
Then I saw the smoke, coming toward us like a wave of death.
Everyone on the street was now screaming and running in all directions. Some ran across West Street toward the water, some uptown, others toward the East Side.
“Move, now. Move it, let’s go!” Hanrahan and Bishop were waving their arms and pushing people with frenzied moves. I was grabbing people’s arms, dragging them with me as I ran, yelling, “Come on, come on, don’t stop, keep moving!”
The cameraman stood there filming until he saw the smoke coming, and then he turned so quick he tripped and dropped his camera.
I started running again, thinking whatever was in that smoke was gonna hurt us. I could feel debris hitting my hands and flecking off the skin on my arms. I looked back, wondering if we could outrun the cloud, but it was coming too fast. The smoke was huge as it chased us, and just as I was about to reach Chambers Street I took a deep breath as it overtook us.