We Were There, September 26, 2018

good afternoon everyone welcome welcome to we were there it's lovely having you with us my name is Judith Pucci and I am likely to women sitting next to me I am a 9/11 tribute museum walking tour guide and we attribute all have a very personal connection to the attacks of September 11th so we are first responders we are survivors from the towers family members many of us including me lived here down in lower Manhattan and some of us even volunteered during the cleanup period after the attacks so our stories go beyond the historical events of the day and they focus much more on the personal costs of September 11th and that is what you're going to hear in the two stories that you're going to be listening to and they're gonna be told to you by Brenda Berkman who is at the far end and Karen lacy now Karen well let's don't nudge me Brenda first for 25 years of her life Brenda was a firefighter and in fact she is the first woman to ever be a New York City firefighter I only seem to find that to be much more impressive than Brenda does so I don't know I always make a big deal of at it she always looks at me like she retired as a captain and she has been in she has been featured in films articles and she is in the book women at Ground Zero the number of firefighters who died here at the World Trade Center on September 11th is 343 and throughout her career Brenda worked with about 250 of them now karen was among the thousands of people who made their livings here in lower Manhattan on September 11th she worked in the shadow of the Twin Towers just a few blocks south of here on Wall Street she worked in for Merrill Lynch and she was headed to the stock exchange when the attacks began but you're going to hear first from Brenda so I'm just going to quickly set the scene for you now the attacks begin here's the trade center when the North Tower is hit and that was at exactly 846 that morning so at 8:46 in this city throughout New York the fire houses the night shift is ending in every firehouse throughout the city the night shift is ending and the day shift is beginning and it is this overlay of the two shifts that explains why thousands of firefighters were down here so quickly because on duty or off they responded and that certainly included Brenda so 9/11 2001 as jhooth mentioned I was a New York City fire officer at that point I was a lieutenant but I was off duty that day and I was taking my time in the morning having a second cup of coffee when at nine o'clock already after the first plane had hit the North Tower my telephone rang and it was a friend of mine from Kentucky now those of you from the United States you recognize that Kentucky is nowhere near New York and my friend says to me turn on your television and I turned on my television how many of you had your televisions on on 9/11 one third of the entire world was watching 9/11 in a real-time I turn on my television I immediately think terrorism because I looked at the volume of fire that was in the North Tower and I knew that could not have been a small plane or helicopter so I left my house we don't keep our gear at home I ran to a nearby firehouse where I had worked as a firefighter and when I got there as Judith said it was empty that Brooklyn Fire Company those two companies had already been sent to the World Trade Center and they had taken all of the equipment with them so all the breathing apparatus that we used to protect ourselves in hazardous environments all the hose lines for the water all the radios to communicate with that had all been taken down to the World Trade Center with the thousands of fire fighters who who had already been sent there and half a dozen of us who had come to this firehouse on our own we figured out that we could get a police officer to drive us across the Brooklyn Bridge nearby Brooklyn Bridge and in a little Police fan because the cops had closed off all the bridges and tunnels to private vehicles we had no fire trucks so we couldn't use that and and we started to wait for the police officer to show up in the meantime the second plane had hit the South Tower at 9:03 by the time the officer got there with a van the South Tower the second tower to be hit had already collapsed only 56 minutes after and we watched a collapse on television and here comes a van with the cops so we hop in we start to go across the bridge Brooklyn Bridge has eight lanes of traffic on the inbound to Manhattan normally that time of day it's bumper-to-bumper as we start across the bridge in our little van we're the only vehicle on that side of the bridge on the other side wall-to-wall people many of them covered in dust some of them undoubtedly injury just as we get to the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge we hear an enormous noise we hear we don't see the North Tower falling down 110 stories took about 11 seconds just like the South Tower and suddenly our little van even though we're maybe a half a mile away from the Trade Center we're in this huge dust storm of all that pulverized glass and concrete and we say the cop stopped the van because we we couldn't see out of the van even with his windshield wipers gone we thought we're gonna run over somebody he stops we hop out we immediately start coughing in rubbing our eyes because we have no protection from all this crap in the air and I look and standing there on Broadway is a fire chief he's all covered in dust he's just survived the collapse of two 110-story buildings he's got a little line of officers alongside of him I'm an officer I walk over to him when I get to me says to me Brenda because he knew I was he said Brenda you have any firefighters with you and I looked around all the people that had been in the van with me they'd scattered already but they're standing there on Broadway practically right next to me was a group of my own off-duty firefighters from my firehouse north it and made their way down there they're waiting for an officer we get our assignment we start walking towards the Trade Center every single building part of the Trade Center all seven buildings the two towers had already fallen the other five buildings on fire from top to bottom all the surrounding buildings were on fire and damaged from the collapse of the Trade Center it was a 12 story high burning pile of debris try and imagine two 110-story buildings being compressed into 12 stories plus the seven stories below that's what we saw everything on fire it was hell when I tell you it was worse than anything I'd seen a lot of really terrible things in almost 20 years on the New York City Fire Department I could never have imagined that you might have read books or seen movies nothing like what we were looking at and we had no water when the towers fell down they broke all the water mains all that day and the following days we would draft water out of the Hudson River almost a half a mile from the site to put it on the fires at the Trade Center burn forth for about six months thousand thirteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit we started looking all around for anybody that might be alive I honestly thought this is it this is where I'm gonna spend my last day in the New York City Fire Department because I can't imagine surviving this but we had a job to do we didn't know what was going on we didn't know what might come next another plane a dirty bomb there were tons of rumors floating around we just did what we had to do to try and find people that might still be alive 5:20 in the afternoon we'd made our way around to the other the northwest side of the Trade Center looking for people and son we hear a loud noise it's number seven World Trade Center falling down everybody forgets about that because it was only a forty seven storey building and we're in the collapse zone so all this stuff starts raining down on top of us and we're running for our lives again honestly folks it was purely luck of the draw who died and who survived that day and I was one of the lucky ones for some reason I managed to survive it was down there many days thereafter trying first looking for people who might still be alive and then looking for the remains of people and it's shocking to me that nobody was killed at the World Trade Center after 9/11 because it was such an incredibly dangerous site it was like working in a field of razor blades and I got injured other people got injured nobody went sick because we had a job to do and we just kept doing it five years I stayed for the with the New York City Fire Department after 9/11 trying to give them the benefit of seniority I got promoted to captain but eventually I just said that's it I got to do something else with my life and you know what I want to leave you with is the fact that many of us have done lots of different things to try and rebuild our lives and recover from the events of 9/11 I tell my story not only here in the museum but as Judith mentioned as a a guide for walking tours of the memorial we're about 250 of those names or people that I knew personally and I am very involved in my church's social justice and mission activities and I've also become an artist it took me ten years after 9/11 before I put anything having to do with 9/11 in my art but now I've I've documented the rebuilding of the World Trade Center in a series of prints that I've made called 36 views of One World Trade so I thank you for listening to our stories today I think you for coming to the museum to learn more about 9/11 and to honor those who lost their lives that day [Applause] you know when Brenda says she's an artist she doesn't just like make a little sketches the museum has actually brought bought her entire series of the new one World Trade Center she is an extremely talented artist who knew she put out fires and now she makes great art now listen as thousands of first responders rush down here to the Trade Center Karen and everyone else who worked and lived in lower Manhattan at that time learned something very quickly this part of the city like that became a war zone and so let me take it from here I was in the shadow of the South Tower when it began to collapse I had walked there purposely on the morning of September 11th and but it did not walk the most direct route there I walked through circuitous ly around the edge of Manhattan Island along the rivers and I had some people said after the fact well that was smart you didn't kept herself out of harm's way and I said that wasn't brains that inspired that walk that was fear I had seen things on my walk to work that morning that were unimaginable and unforgettable and my control-freak brain responded to those things with never be trapped never be trapped so my walk I said there's gonna be no bridges no tunnels no subways no basements that if I stayed along the water that if I had to jump it would be to safety and I had almost made it as it was I got to the edge of the world the World Financial Center at the time which was near a beautiful glass enclosed atrium called the Winter Garden when I had never taken my eyes off the tower since I had left for the work that morning but when I got there the scene began to change as I began to see the South Tower collapse I looked around and noted that with this glass atrium beautiful soaring glass atrium in my sights and the building coming down that I was within the zone I assumed the tower was gonna collapse like this as opposed to on itself like it did so I fled the area of the Winter Garden and ran to the water's edge I jumped up onto the seawall and stood next to a police officer that was stationed there he hoped he was like lady don't jump and I looked at before I could look at him this Taos tower collapsed and the air went from beautiful crystal-clear blue day to pitch-black since I knew he couldn't see me defying his order I jumped into the Warner now when I when I say pitch-black I'm saying that when you took a breath you inhaled a handful of topsoil it was that thick so I would go under the water and come up waiting trying to get a breath and that's still going back under until the waters came up it was like a dark gray then it was like a light gray and then it was clear about six inches off the top of the water I was thinking that when it start when it was completely clear I was gonna swim back to my house in New Jersey but when I let go over the seawall I think I realized that I had no knowledge of tides or river currents and I would have to you know formulate a new plan as well as I was waiting I heard someone shouting through the through the dust who's in the water is there anyone in the water as Brandon mentioned there were fire boats in the water the fire boat John D McCain was moored in the area and had been sent there to assist in firefighting operations they clearly didn't come there in that morning to fish people out of the water but that didn't stop them they threw down a rope I'm in a skirt and suit going to work and I can't get up the rope they throw down a ladder I can't get up the ladder the guy took my savior's this gentleman in bunker pants and got sunglasses and they can't see I because they're covered in ash this lady you got to drop your bag but sir I have tickets in here I'm going to a show tonight and it's a college graduation present it's a coach bag and he just they the guy looked at me he looked at his firefighter brother my father guy said I'll go get her and he jumped in got underneath me on a ladder and shimmied me up to the top I got on the boat there were other evacuees already on the boat some soups some children other firefighters we're about halfway across the Hudson when the second tower fell and that's when it really hit me that this was a worldwide event and my world the world would never be the same I walked back to my apartment that morning two and a half miles I was one of those people that you see you in the shows I was a totally covered in ash within the addition of wet I had no shoes no bag no keys when I got back to my apartment in Hoboken we had views of the city and I watched that smoke blow off the pile for five days on the fifth day we went back to work however 17th they reopen the stock exchange my commute that used to take 20 minutes took an hour and 20 minutes I had absolutely zero interest in going back downtown the line the streets were lined with armed guards Minh it was very nerve-racking I had to keep telling myself your sacrifice of an hour and 20 minute commute and being uncomfortable is very minor compared to what everyone else had to do so we stood under the podium that day when the dignitaries rang the bell to reopen the exchange but we didn't smile and hug we shared stories of people that we still considered missing one of my issues which is interesting with that it corresponds with something that Brenda said well with that day night I took it away for a long time was the randomness of who died that day in our community there was a gentleman that had a breakfast meeting at windows on the world he didn't work there he had no business being there except having breakfast there was a young man who was interviewing for a job so they his stories range from the incredibly unlucky to be incredibly lucky a gentleman took his kid to school for the first day someone missed the train someone stopped it I don't know if you remember getting pictures developed stopped to get pictures pick up his pictures that were developed and was not on the 90s explore so I do know that I'm lucky and that's one of the reasons I do this I just tell my story I do like Brenda I appreciate you all coming and listening to it I usually leave my to my story or my tour with a following quote from Elie Wiesel whoever survives a test whatever it may be must tell the story that is his beauty we have a couple of minutes so questions they will be happy to answer any question you have so please what would you like to know there's one ground rule you may not be shy okay who's going to be bold and brave here let's say you should be plant somebody ok please yes well the the carrot said the dust cleared off a little bit although it really did not completely tamp down until Thursday remember this happened on a Tuesday when it rained I think it was Wednesday night it rained and so Thursday was the day was a little bit clearer but no if you look at photographs of the early parts of early time after the collapse of the of the twin towers you see that the entire air are all around the 16 acre site that was the World Trade Centers just full of crap and it wasn't until til it rained that that lifted now you can look at what was going on in lower Manhattan from New Jersey it was bright blue sky there wasn't any dust over there at all oh that's all that stuff blew out east and south of here 15 miles they found burned pieces of paper that had come from the World Trade Center and had been carried out on the wind so the wind was pushing everything this way and and we we just had to work on it that's all there was to it I mean it just kept burning like I said it wasn't until six months later really that we were able to get all the way down through all the rubble and we went through everything by hand because we were looking for you know when we discovered we couldn't find anybody else alive we were looking for remains and we recovered over 20,000 remains by looking it through everything by hand and then going out all that rubble was taken out to the Staten Island landfill well there's all look through again and that's how that's the effort that we made really to try and bring people home to their loved ones so the actual blinding part of it that Grant and the brenda described lasted for a short period of time when that lifted you could see but when the towers came down it did go to black people said they couldn't see their hands in front of their faces but that didn't lift so the rest of the day it was visibility so she could function yeah there's there's videos of that people were taking at the time that the dust cloud overwhelms them and it is it's totally black just completely and you hear them coughing right and people described how they thought now we were we were very lucky when seven World Trade Center came down with and we've heard it starting to come down we ran towards the Hudson River just like Karen had run towards a river and we we find a doorway on our way there and we was open we dashed inside the another building which protected us a great deal from what was falling on top of us and that that huge dust cloud because otherwise we would have been in that same overwhelming blackness that the people experienced with the collapse of the Twin Towers and breathing that in it was full of toxins carcinogens to breathe that in was extremely unhealthy so to have some shelter from it was fortunate and that went on for months and we didn't we didn't in the fire department we didn't really get properly decontaminated at first so when you hear this the numbers about the number of people in the fire department who have already died from 911 related illnesses over I think it's up around 180 now and over a thousand are sick with 911 related illnesses so and other people have 911 related conditions so you know the stuff goes on and on and on because we were exposed to the after effects of the World Trade Center for many many months we are going to have to wrap up however if you have any more questions or I'd like to continue the conversation they will be right outside that exit so feel free to please approach them

Channel: 9/11 Tribute Museum

Views: 16,450

Rating: 4.8561153 out of 5

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Id: ZL-uA4XXRh4

Length: 23min 28sec (1408 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 24 2019