Tower Stories

by Damon DiMarco

  But maybe a part of it will live on. When southern Manhattan grew out into the bay over the century, the area we now call the Trade Center was muck. The H&M station was built around 1920 and, essentially, its basement had to be sea wall, constructed with eight-foot-thick concrete. That wonderful old piece of construction was incorporated into the World Trade Center. It’s intact, even after all that happened—a surviving piece of history. We’re hoping that it will be used just the way it is in the next piece of development that takes place on the site.

  Yes, we’re already involved with the rebuilding process on a consulting level. It’s very early, though. The city says they’ll be cleaning up until the late spring of 2002. Essentially, they’re stabilizing the site so they can turn it over to whoever develops it. And that gets complicated.

  The Port Authority owns the land, but Silverstein owns the ninety-nine-year lease. The government has pledged billions of dollars to reconstruction; with insurance companies involved, that was an economic as well as a political decision. The way I see it, all anyone can realistically hope for is that the right things happen and something important gets built on the skyline.

  LERA is unique in our sensitivities to the project. We have little actual influence over what new structures are built, but I don’t mind saying that our dream is to have portions of the structure built in the ’60s remain. This way, you’ll have three tiers of history: the 1920s, the 1960s, and the new construction.

  We also think that the salvaged structure has certain undeniable technical uses. For instance, it protects a portion of the PATH train station in the lowest basement. If retained, it should help speed up the return of PATH train service.

  By February 2007, the WTC site had been cleared and lay in wait for reconstruction to begin.

  An organization called the American Society of Civil Engineers is undertaking a structural study to understand the collapse mechanism [of the Towers]. Keeping in mind that people above the impact zones had no way out, ASCE hopes to improve the design of buildings in the future to include better safety features.

  Frankly, I’m not sure how much good that’ll do. What you learn about the World Trade Center applies to the World Trade Center; it was that unique. How what happened here will translate to other buildings is a little unclear to me, but I suppose they have to try. I’ll tell you something, though: what saddens me most is that no one’s going to remember all the wonderful intricacies of the complex because of the thorough destruction.

  See, our structural assessments went way beyond just looking at the columns. We crawled through tiny spaces in the old H&M basement and saw the building’s mechanical systems firsthand, which were tremendous, like no other because of their size and magnitude. There were six stations, each the size of a small house, that controlled air conditioning, heating, electricity, and emergency generators. River water was pumped in through two pairs of pipes five feet in diameter to cool the air conditioning systems. Our inspections took us to all these places and more.

  We rode the tops of elevators looking at the guts of this building. And outside the buildings, we rode through midair all the way up to the top on window-washing platforms two feet wide. How many people can say that?

  The North Tower was close to 1,400 feet tall; the TV antenna added another 360. We inspected that antenna, too, you know. You had to climb up a ladder inside it until you reached the tippy-top where the flashing light was. At that point, you weren’t inside the antenna, either. You were climbing outside, alone, and 1,750 feet in the air.

  There aren’t many chances in the world to get that high.

  72 LERA founder Leslie Robertson is credited with designing the Twin Towers’ innovative tubular steel frame. A week before the hijacked planes struck the Towers, Robertson addressed his colleagues at a conference in Germany. He noted that the Towers were strong enough to take a direct hit from an aircraft [Philadelphia Inquirer, September 12, 2001]. No one can fault him for underestimating terrorism’s resources. The destruction brought to bear upon the Towers on September 11 was beyond the scope of anyone’s imagination.

  73 This interview took place in November of 2001.

  74 The DDC stands for the Department of Design and Construction, a New York City agency.

  75 On April 26, 2001, Silverstein Properties, in partnership with Westfield America, gained control over the World Trade Center by signing a ninety-nine-year lease worth $3.2 billion. This deal put control of the largest U.S. office complex in private hands for the first time. Previously, the Trade Center had been managed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The destruction of the Towers did not release Silverstein from having to make approximately $100 million a year in payment to the Port Authority. Silverstein filed an insurance claim for $7.2 billion, which became a hotly debated topic. September 11 dealt a devastating blow to the American and international insurance trade, which were strained by unprecedented payments.

  76 Tom Haddad (see his story in the “At the Towers” section) later saw a picture of Frank DeMartini in a television special, and recalled that Frank had been one of the men who’d come to rescue him after the first plane impacted.

  MIKE POTASSO

  Mike Potasso, thirty-three. Paramedic. A strong back, and a crushing handshake. He has jet-black hair cut close on top and shaved to a buzz on the sides. Small round spectacles accentuate an intelligent, sincere face.

  On the ride to Ground Zero, Mike steeled himself for what he thought would be the hardest day of his professional life. Instead, he found himself confronted with the frustration that many emergency workers felt that day, waiting on the front lines for survivors who never arrived.

  YOU SEE A lot of strange things on this job. Some real characters. I’ve picked up Elvis a few times, picked up Jesus. I had one hysterical woman who thought she’d dislocated her fallopian tubes. You can’t make this stuff up.

  For instance, three weeks ago, I responded to a call. “Pedestrian struck. Someone’s been hit by a car, resulting in cardiac arrest.”

  When we got to the scene, we saw a long street stretching off in either direction with a car pulled up on the sidewalk like it had spun out and crashed. So we hollered to one of the cops and said, “Where’s the cardiac arrest?”

  The cop said, “Arrest? No, no, this guy isn’t under arrest. We’re just giving him a ticket.”

  “There’s no one here in cardiac arrest?”

  The cop shrugged. “Not that I know of.”

  Whatever, right? “Okay,” we said, “we’ll see you later.”

  Then we noticed another ambulance at the end of the block and we went to check it out, just to see if they needed help. As we approached, another cop came up to us and said, “Hey! Where you goin’? We got a cardiac arrest in the back of the bus!”

  Aha. “Where’d he come from?” we asked.

  It was the pedestrian we’d been called about. Apparently, this is what happened: the car we’d seen up on the sidewalk had spun out and hit a street sign, which fell over and struck the victim, killing him instantly. He was just some guy walking by, an innocent pedestrian walking down the street. But here’s the irony. He was killed by a “No Standing” sign. Get it? No standing.

  Well, we laughed. You have to, right? I know, it may seem callous to look at a situation like that. But when you’re constantly exposed to this stuff, you tend to separate yourself from the situation through humor to protect your own well-being.

  Medic school was rough. I’d work my regular forty hours, plus one to two tours of overtime a week. Then I’d have to go to class three days a week for four hours, eight hours on alternating Saturdays. Plus, I had rotations to do: 150 hours in the ambulance; 150 in the ER; forty hours in the ICU; forty hours OB/GYN; forty hours geriatric care; twenty-four hours pediatric; twenty-four hours OR; twenty-four hours Psych; forty hours of internship.

  This went on for eleven months. But the good news is, when you get out of all that, you’re ready for anything.

 
; As a medic, you learn basic pharmacology and cardiology so you can handle respiratory and metabolic emergencies. Along with anatomy and physiology, we’re also responsible for twenty-six different medications and the performance of certain skills, such as synchronized cardio-verting, cardio-pacing, and EKG interpretation. We can start and maintain IVs, do endotrachial intubation, needle decompression, and drug therapy.

  None of it helped one bit on September 11. Not one bit.

  I work for FDNY*EMS, Battalion 31, out of Cumberland Station in downtown Brooklyn. We’re on the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, a stone’s throw away from downtown Manhattan.

  I worked the evening shift, 3:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M., the night before September 11. When my partner and I got off work, our lieutenant told us there was overtime available the next morning and my partner was trying to talk me into working it. I refused. I was already scheduled to work a double the following day. So he took the overtime and I went home.

  A friend called me at about 9:30 the next morning, and she said, “You’re never gonna guess what happened.” Then she told me someone had just bombed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

  “Okay,” I said. “You’re full of shit. Look, I’m tired. I had a really busy tour last night, so stop playing games.”

  She said, “Shut up and turn on the TV.”

  So I put it on. And then I sat there, just watching. I couldn’t believe it. Both Towers. And I thought, I gotta go.

  Just then, my mom called me. She said, “Where are you going?”

  I said, “I’m going into work.”

  “What do you mean? Don’t go. Please.”

  But you see something like that happen? You don’t even think. You just start going through the process: How am I going to get to work? If I take my car, I’m never gonna get in there—it’s bedlam down there. I lived in Rosedale, which doesn’t have a subway—it’s the most southeasterly part of Queens, the last town in Queens on the south shore. We have the Long Island Railroad, but I wasn’t about to wait on that.

  It’s only about eighteen miles from home to my station house. So I grabbed my bike.

  I strapped on my tech bag. I didn’t have any uniforms in my locker at the station, but I always keep one spare uniform at home, so I packed that, too, along with my boots. My helmet and my utility belt was in the station locker, thank God. The utility belt’s got my shears, my catheters, a clip for my radio, my narcotics, et cetera.

  This sort of trip wasn’t unprecedented. I’d biked to the station before during nice weather. Normally it took me an hour, but I didn’t think about the time or the distance. I was just pedaling. It was harder than usual this time, because I was laden down with equipment: the fifteen-pound tech bag, which I’d strapped to the bike, plus another ten pounds or so on my back.

  I took the Conduit to Atlantic Avenue, then Atlantic all the way down to Carlton Avenue, which I cut across to get up to my station. Nobody was on the road. Normally, you could see the Towers clearly from the Belt Parkway, but all I saw was smoke. It was just after 10:30 in the morning, and I think [both structures] had already collapsed.

  As soon as I got to Bedford Avenue, I noticed more congestion, more people. So many things were going on at once. Crowds of people were coming out of Manhattan while more people were trying to fight their way in. The end result? Everybody got stuck. Nobody was moving anywhere. Everything locked down.

  A mosque in that area was chanting over their PA system and their daily prayers seemed to resonate, echoing over the gridlock on Bedford.

  Emotions ran high among American citizens immediately following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Many people clamored for some sort of retaliatory action—but against whom? It would take several months for the FBI to name Mohammad Atta as the head suicide pilot of a terrorist ring comprised of nineteen hijackers.

  Good thing I’d taken my bike. My car would’ve been stopped dead. I was able to pick my way through and got to my station around 11:30.

  There was a lot of confusion. Nobody knew exactly what was going on, so everybody was running around getting extra equipment ready. It felt like we were going into a battle. It was that kind of tension.

  I got to work running through my checklist and packing supplies. Trauma dressings, blood pressure cuffs, narcotics, goggles. Bandages, shears, stethoscopes. The bigger stuff was already down at the site: longboards, collars, oxygen, IV bags, and intubation equipment.

  We heard that a city bus was coming to take us into Manhattan. NYC EMS handles an average of 3,000 to 3,500 calls every day, so some of us had to stay behind. The overnight crew was mandated to cover the day tour while the rest of us went to Ground Zero.

  We were just getting ready to go when one of our ambulances came back covered in rubble. So we paused to treat a couple of our own guys who were—quite frankly?—overwhelmed. They’d been down there just before the Towers collapsed and described what they’d seen. People jumping out of buildings. The debris, the explosions. The Towers coming down.

  We gave them oxygen and started IVs. While we worked on them, another guy came in covered in debris with a separated shoulder—don’t ask me how that happened. So we took a spare ambulance and ran them over to Brooklyn Hospital, two blocks away. To a man, they were in shock. And they kept muttering, over and over again: “We did our best, we did our best.”

  That’s when I learned that my partner, Gary, was missing. Those men who came in from Ground Zero told me.

  Our unit was one of the first to respond to the emergency, and initially we had six guys missing from my station. But all I heard was: “They can’t find Gary. They can’t find Danny. Where’s Gary?”

  The worst possibilities resonated in my head. Gary was missing? He took the overtime from me so I could get some sleep. We’d talked about it, and I’d made all sorts of excuses. “No, no. I can’t do it. I’m working the night shift instead …”

  He’d looked at me and said, “Listen. Why don’t you just tell me you don’t want to work the overtime, champ?”

  For all I know, things could have happened differently. I could have been right where he was.

  They herded us onto the buses, and that’s when the emergency mentality really set in, that feeling of, okay, shit’s going down. Here we go. And you separate everything at that point, you block it out. Go numb. You just focus on the job. You’re running on automatic pilot, reviewing all your protocols.

  What do you do when you first see a patient? We use the START System: Simple Triage And Rapid Treatment. You quickly assess life-threatening injuries and stabilize them as best you can.

  Is the patient breathing? No? Then try to establish an airway. Still not breathing? Try again. Still not breathing? Black tag him, there’s nothing you can do for him. Move on to the next patient.

  Is the patient bleeding heavily? Yes? Then stop it as best you can. Red tag him and move on to other people who need the attention.

  The walking wounded get green tags. Everyone in between gets a yellow.

  Once your triage is done, you sort your patients. Do they need immediate transport to the hospital, or can they be treated and released at the scene? Or do they go to the morgue?

  It’s an archaic way of looking at things, but when you’re overwhelmed by a staggering number of patients, you have to follow protocol, do the greatest good for the most amount of people. I’ve been in situations where you have ten to fifteen patients drop down on you at the same time. Like car accidents. One time I worked in the Bronx and a livery cab blasted up the sidewalk, plowing down six people. I’d only been on the job for a week.

  We were the third or fourth unit on the scene. The first woman I dealt with had her leg completely amputated. Another woman had bilateral, mid-shaft femur fractures. There was a kid pinned under a car and the driver had a broken arm. The whole area’d been cordoned off. The fire department was on the scene, extricating people from vehicles. There were helicopters overhead
and spectators.

  And that’s what I expected to find at Ground Zero.

  We got down to the site and found that the command structure had already collapsed. For a while, we just stood there, taking it all in. The smoke, the fire, the confusion. Then they finally deployed us over to Stuyvesant High School on West Street, where we set up a triage center in the hallway. And there, we waited some more.

  For a while, we were just standing there in this dark room, waiting, and I felt weird. EMS teams were rotating in and out on the site perimeter. I wanted to be of use, to help people, but there was nothing to do except stand there, holding our position, ready to work, ready for that first patient to come in.

  One of my best friends, a guy I’ve known for fifteen years, is a firefighter for 16 Truck from the Upper East Side. I knew he was working that day, and I wondered where he was. Wouldn’t you know it? I happened to run into him in the midst of everything.

  I said, “Are you all right?”

  And he said, “Fine. I’m okay.”

  He didn’t have his cell phone with him, so I called his wife for him to let her know he was alive. “Freida. I’m here with Joe. He’s okay.”

  Then I called his brother and let everyone know that we were together. I saw that happen a lot out there, this makeshift method of communication.

  So. Standing in a dark room. Waiting and waiting to go in. It got so frustrating, but I kept reminding myself, this is what I came here to do. To get my hands dirty, treat whoever I gotta treat. But I felt like a spectator, which was horrible. And this went on for hours.