We Were There, August 22, 2018

hello everyone welcome welcome till we were there my name is Judith Pucci and I am a tribute Museum walking tour guide as other two gentlemen that are sitting next to me as you just heard in the film all of us at tribute have had a personal connection to the events of September 11th now our stories go beyond the historical events of the day they explore much more the personal costs of that tragedy you are going to be hearing stories today from Greg Hansen who is sitting directly next to me and ray Burge now ray is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Rutgers University Medical School which is in New Jersey however ray lives here in lower Manhattan Greg has been a New York City firefighter for 25 years he is currently a battalion chief but on September 11th he was a lieutenant and he was then with Engine Company 24 which is located in Greenwich Village which is just north of Negro treatment you're going to hear first from race so I'm going to quickly just set the scene for you on September 20 on September 2nd no on September 11th of 2001 I would say that about 20,000 New Yorkers lived down here in lower Manhattan ray then lived directly across the street from the Trade Center and what is now called Battery Park City uh it is truly impossible to describe or for all of you to imagine the chaos down here that morning two huge towers are on fire at first people just stood around watching what was happening and it may sound odd that people did that but if you were not on the plaza of the World Trade Center or in either of those two buildings you really were not in danger until the South Tower collapsed the second building the second building to be hit the first building to fall down when that happens thousands of people scattered in all directions but what if you live down here what do you do what ray does ray puts on his baby and I kid you not and I am going to let that you explain that to these fine people right okay thank you Judith and thank you all for coming today listening to our stories is true I lived down here I still live here and September 11th 2001 started like any other day for me except that I was really late getting out that morning because the night before was Monday Night Football and the Giants were playing and the game started at 9:00 and went late and so I overslept them next morning and by fate I walked into the mezzanine level of the twin towers around 8:45 and I typically would go down the escalators to the pass and take the train over to New Jersey within about a minute a loud explosion occurs above my head it doesn't part of the building which registers to me as a bomb 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed before so it was again I thought we've got hit again and the Port Authority police evacuated us immediately we evacuated out to the northeast corner and I went over to church in DC and I looked up at the building and imagine the whole north and east face blown out oh I thought a bomb was taken up to the top of the building and it was really difficult to understand how that could happen but that's what we people who got out of the building now when you go back to the plaza imagine looking up and seeing just papers floating through the air there was millions of papers just coming around and actually one of the things I'll never forget is one of the pieces of paper actually was on the ground right where I was standing and for some reason I just bent down and I picked it up and it said Aspen at a glance that's what the paper said and I thought this was how unfair this is someone's project this belongs to somebody up in that tower that wanted me actually put the piece of paper back down on the ground and left it there meanwhile looking back at the towers you could start to see people above the impact for real eaning out of the building and waving their shirts or towels I saw several people the first person that fell or jumped I didn't register was a person the second was very clear because the person was a man he had a necktie on they could see the necktie and the third person was a woman and my stomach knotted up and I knew we were off the charts and I knew that this was something that was out just way worse than you could imagine and I just wanted to go home and I walked down Church Street and I walked across the West Side Highway to go back to my apartment and I heard a loud engine loud noise and I thought it was a military fighter jet maybe and I just looked up and it was really directly over my head and it was a commercial airliner it was clear a commercial airliner and it went into the South Tower I knew we were under attack I sprinted back to my apartment in Battery Park City and I called my wife who was on the 66th floor of the Empire State Building she picked up and she says ray I'm so glad you picked up because I'm worried I'm watching this and I said Heidi get out of that building I said that's the Empire State Building is that another target and I said go get my son our son Graham the Graham was a kindergarten the United Nations school so I was worried my wife was in the Empire State Building my centers at the UN we kind of had all the targets so to speak and I was home and I felt this was about 9:30 that it would take them about 1 hour barring no more attacks and she would be home by around 10:30 right before 10 o'clock the South Tower collapses and we have weighed out literally whiteout conditions in the lower Manhattan at that point I know I'm on a landfill my apartment is built on a landfill and I had to go into survival mode and what I felt was that I needed to have every option and I did put on my bathing trunks because I felt that the landfill would fail and I went to the battery in my bathing trunks and a shirt and a pair of slight light sneakers and I was waiting for the next thing and I was gonna jump in and swim to someplace safer New Jersey Staten Island Governors Island wherever I could get and that never happened so after a while I went back to my apartment and within of another hour mayor Giuliani we learned had evacuated lower Manhattan and I had no way to get out so I got on my bicycle and I rode my bicycle around the Lower East the the battery and up the upper FDR Drive on the northbound lane and I stopped at the Brooklyn Bridge and I just looked and I saw many people walking just in unison across the bridge and I remember saying that's something you just don't see every day and I continued up where I used to work on 66th and I had no cell phone my wife had no cell phone and I had no communication with my wife so I went back to where I worked I stayed there all day and finally she called and she asked me if she was worried that I wasn't nobody hadn't talked to me since 9:30 and they said he's here and that she came over and I have to say that is when I collapsed physically and mentally because when I saw my wife and my grand my son I basically had the only the first sense of normalcy for the day and I literally collapsed and I don't remember how we got home but we end up staying in the Upper West Side a hundred and tenth and Broadway that my wife's friends and we were able to come down here periodically to get stuff from our apartment we had to be escorted by the National we had 15 minutes and finally about five weeks later we were allowed to come back was a Saturday morning at nine o'clock we were allowed to come back home with ID you could only go to your apartment you couldn't bring guests and I remember walking in with my son at nine o'clock thinking that I would be out of here in a couple couple months the most and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it it was difficult to live down here there was the smell on days it was absolutely horrific the smell of the burning rubber and the even the hair you could smell it it was it was it was just horrific there was also a National Guard was here the Coast Guard was in the harbor they had a military checkpoints it wasn't easy to live down here but at the same time you know New Yorkers have a sense that they keep a safe distance from each other have you heard that but New York changed after September 11 particular lower Manhattan and the community bonded and people wanted to be sure you were okay people were coming out to make sure our family was okay and it seemed like people were more interested in each other than themselves it didn't matter who you were people were interested in making sure you were okay and that really jellified with me and I began to really feel the empathy and love down here in lower Manhattan and after a while we decided that we weren't going to leave we were gonna stay down here and through it all and we ended up purchasing a condo here and we're here still to this day and I'm very proud of the way we came back I look love her walking around the neighborhood and seeing they come back and I also appreciate all of our guests and that's one of the reasons I volunteer is to share our stories and as long as people come out and want to hear our stories it's very humbling to us that you come and want to listen so thank you very much for coming and listening to our stories so when you came back about five weeks after the attacks and then you stayed after that we stayed we never left again until sandy so you were here throughout the recovery and the cleanup and the rebuilding everything Wow the first few months it was the smell was absolutely you know when the attacks began in that morning in fire houses and they begin the first plane hits the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. when that happens in fire houses throughout this city the night shift is ending and the day shift is beginning and it is this overlap of the two shifts that explains why so many firefighters were down there so quickly because on duty or off they responded and great was one of them a few days after 9/11 I would tell this story to my two brothers and their reaction was one would say that I had a very lucky day and the other one would say to me that it just wasn't my time and all the time I've listened to a lot of these stories and a lot of people and to think that maybe divine intervention has something to play with whether you live to survive so for the last 17 years I've thought about this and whether I was just lucky or something else was going on I don't have any answer to this question but I do know that the difference between people who live and died and comes down to some strange twist of fate those who changed their plane tickets might have missed the ferry or the bus stop for a cup of coffees got a load or friend waited for another elevator when you came out of the building you went left or right September 11 I would have a number of twists on my own day that we determine my fate that morning I was a lieutenant in an ancient company 24 about 20 blocks north here and right around e46 when the first plane hit the tower I got a phone call and that call was from my wife and she worked ten blocks north of here and she informed me that a plane had just went into the tower and I thought that was odd and a dude that we would go to something like that just as I was about to say that to her we got the alarm to respond and engine 24 and ladder 5 the same firehouse we then went respond I hung up the phone and I briefly just said I'll see you later we came down 7th Avenue and you could see the North Tower with the hall on the the floors the information that we had was it was a small plane well we got there my chauffeur stayed with the Riggin that the four other firefighters that I went into the North Tower and when we went in we could see that all the lobby glass was broken marble floors were cracked there were dead bodies already on the floor from the jet fuel that had come down the elevator shaft went over to the command post the deputy chief was already there and I overheard some officers saying they checked all the elevators and we had no working elevators so this was significant because we carry 75 to 100 pounds of gear and we normally use elevators and high-rise buildings in any case they eventually gave the order to walk up and we were teamed with Ladder Company 20 and going up the staircase we were going up single file and civilians were coming down single file and as we were passing them I was asking them where they were coming from bed finally got a guy from the 90th floor that said he had been on a floor where there was fire so we knew we had a very long climb ahead of around the 27th floor we were stopped and we were stopped by two civilian one was a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair and they had no way to get out but on the 27th floor nothing was going on everything was calm was it any different than it is right here but I felt compelled that I couldn't leave them alone so I had one of my guys stay with them I thought I directed him to try to take them out and we continued up and tried to catch up to Ladder Company Point a lot of 20 stopped at the 35th floor so we stopped along with them and at this point we were actually pretty tired sweating profusely we broke into a vending machine and we got some water and on the 35th floor there were four companies engine 33 a lot of 20 ourselves and five which is in the same firehouse but engine 24 and it was two EMTs there and a battalion chief and we were there for about two or three minutes and basically we were just resting and then over the Chiefs radio came Mayday Mayday get out of the building now a mayday is only given five times in the Fire Department and when it's followed by the command get out of the building it means that a building is about to collapse made no sense to us on the 35th floor all right and we quite frankly didn't take you too seriously but I turned to the officer of ladder five and I said my kisses they gave him a day to get out of the building uh we're giving it up and with that we all turned and went to our staircases and as we were doing so all of a sudden we heard this loud roar and the North Tower started to shake back and forth violently we had no idea what was going on but for those of you who were around and maybe watching on television you throughout the South Tower collapsed and when that happened it killed every single person that was inside that lasted for about ten or eleven seconds and then the North Tower stopped shaking and everything was the same as it was before clueless we were looking at each other we were in the staircase not sure what to do the officer from ladder 22 of his guys had gone up ahead without his knowledge and he was trying to get him on the radio he couldn't get him and he turned to me says greggy's I'm gonna I'm gonna go up and get him and I said well okay I said I have all my guys uh I'm gonna start heading down and so with that we started to go down and we would uh I told my guys stop at 27 and wanted to make sure that our other guy wasn't there and as we got there I looked down the hallway and at the end of the hallway there he was with two civilian and my first thought was this is going to be a very difficult rescue at this time and as I approached out of the other hallway came a captain name was Billy Burke I'd never met him before he was my supervisor though he outrank me and as we got there there was an elevator right there with the doors open and the other civilian said can we take this elevator and I turned to captain Burke and I said I said we don't have any tools being an engine company we carry hose if we get stuck in this elevator says we're trapped I'm not putting any of my guys in the elevator I said I think we got to take him down a staircase I thought captain Burke read and with that I went back to the staircase and I turned around and I had all my men know captain Burke no civilian what I didn't know at that time what I would learn later was that captain Burke's company arrived after me they found a working elevator for the 24th floor they had taken that elevator 24 and only had walked up three flights that elevator was manned with a firefighter to transport us up and down I felt that it was still my company's responsibility of these two civilian I had left one guy with them but with the Mayday to get out of the building in the building shaking I didn't think it was the time to have a discussion who would conduct the rescue so with that I said he's got it let's go so we started down and Suzanne we started down the staircase all of a sudden the start staircase started to fill with smoke not black smoke this kind of this white mist and again this made no sense to me because he was coming up the staircase but what had happened was the South Tower had collapsed all that smoke and dust had been forced into the North Tower and up the staircase we didn't need our mask for it though we could still breathe and as we headed down we eventually got to the third and when we got to the third floor now all the lights were out emergency lighting was working and the third at the third floor the staircase was blocked and another firefighter popped out of the hallway and he said I tried to get out that way you can't get out he said then I have a civilian here very heavyset gentleman who can't walk I said I need help so we went into the hallway and here was this guy lying prone on the floor and I found a chair and we picked them up and we put him in the chair and we rolled them to the other staircase and when we got to the other staircase there were four police officers inside not doing anything and I wasn't sure what they were doing why they were there why they were not moving but one had a belt and we tied the guy into the chair we started to take him down a staircase and as we did so the chair just broke under the guys weight at this point it had taken some time to get at this point and I was starting to get a little frustrated at the length so I told the officers just grab his legs and we grabbed his arms and we dragged him down the three flights of stairs and into the lobby and again what I didn't know at this time was that that staircase had also been blocked shut and that's why the four officers were standing there they couldn't get out but two police officers and a firefighter head stayed behind and they had tools and they forced open that staircase let us out into the lobby other officers led us out into the north side of the tower and as we got there two of the officers said hold up there's people jumping and eventually they went outside and they gave the okay that it's clear and as I went into the into the courtyard I took my mask 35-pound and I put it down onto the ground and I said to myself okay I'm out I don't need this anymore and as we went into the courtyard you could see only about ten feet it was a complete whiteout and the only thing I can compare this to is it seemed very similar being in a blizzard mm-hmm now this was a clear blue sky day and you could barely see outside we went about another 10 or 15 feet and as we did so all of a sudden heard another loud roar and my first thought was got to be another plane that's what it sounds like right on top of us and then at that moment it went pitch black outside we felt this big rush of air which I interpreted as being a shock wave right and I thought there was an explosion and at that moment I was certain that there'd be a fireball behind the black smoke I thought at that time that my life was about to end I had a couple of seconds to have a couple of thoughts I said goodbye to my family I said goodbye to my wife and I said a prayer and my prayer was take me quick and make it paint and then I got into the fetal position and waited and around this same time my wife who had been trying to get out of downtown Manhattan all of downtown Manhattan was scrambling for boats and ferries what you're running over the bridge she found a taxi with four strangers and they were heading north in traffic South Tower had already collapsed and then over the radio came the North Tower has just collapsed and with that she let out a scream and she said my husband's dead and then those four strangers grabbed her hands and they they prayed for my survival back where I was I was in the fetal position I was getting pelted with rocks nothing too hard that hurt but it was constant and after about a 10 or 11 seconds it stopped and now I was having difficulty breathing because all that smoke and dust and stuff was washed down my throat as if someone had stuck a sock down and I can remember having just one thought well whatever that was you just survived I said now you're gonna suffocate because she left your mask about 20 feet behind you there was debris all over the place I could see pockets of fire there were craters that went down about six storeys and then in a distance I saw a flashlight and two police officers stayed behind on a staircase that led to the street crawled on my belly found that staircase went down headfirst and I got out smoke had lifted in the street I could breathe I mean I had survived my ordeal was over but it would take to the rest of the evening for me to account for the men that I was in charging and every member of engine 24 had survived we all need so when I look back at this day engine 24 and myself we were extremely lucky the North Tower was struck first it was the South Tower that fell first captain Burke took a difficult rescue off my hands that I was going to take the staircase it took 29 minutes for the North Tower to fall after the South Tower took us 28 minutes and some odd seconds to get out two police officers in a firefighter stayed behind open a staircase door others led us in the right direction and a custom building World Trade Center number six in which I was in the fetal position which was split in half when the tower fell the section that I was under helped and there are those people and I've done this many times here and I'll get it yeah this is over they'll say well that was more than luck know what you experienced was a miracle all right maybe they're right I don't know I don't know anything it's that but did mean no miracle for the other firefighters on the 35th floor every member of engine 33 every member of ladder 20 every member a lot of five they were all killed there'd be no miracle for the two officers that forced opened the door the staircase door there was no miracle for the other officers that were right behind me and there was no miracle for captain Burke or the two civilians I last left on the 27th floor thank you [Applause] I'm going to invite all of you if you have any questions we're a little tight on time right outside the exit the boys will be out there if you wish to continue this they will be very happy to do itself thank you all you chose to spend some of your time with us we appreciate that thank you for [Applause]

Channel: 9/11 Tribute Museum

Views: 43,942

Rating: 4.8330851 out of 5

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Id: 8U3ng4o1amw

Length: 28min 41sec (1721 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 24 2019