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The victims were from all walks of life, but the massive response came overwhelmingly from the men and women of the city's unionized working class.
By Diane S. Williams
with Gregory N. Heires
The first call came in at 8:48 a.m. Seconds later the number of
calls to the 911 Emergency Call Center jumped from 10 to 400 - all
from people inside the World Trade Center and uniformed officers.
In the 13 minutes that followed, as the terrorist attack on the
World Trade Center unfolded, the Police Communications Technicians
received a record 3,000 calls.
Eighteen minutes later, when the second Boeing 737 tore through
2 World Trade Center, New York City was enveloped in chaos and utter
disbelief.
"I had to remain calm," said E911 Tech Gladys Mitchell,
a Local 1549 member who received one of the first emergency calls.
"I knew I had a lot of lives in my hands." E911 Techs
take calls and feed information to police officers in the field.
Other dispatchers, including Cheryl James, then seven months pregnant,
were also on duty. "When I grasped what was going on, I didn't
get emotional," she said. "I had to keep doing my job."
That day they answered 55,574 calls for help from people in and
near the WTC.
Meanwhile, hundreds of members of Uniformed Emergency Medical Technicians
and Paramedics Local 2507 and Uniformed EMS Officers Union Local
3621 raced toward the disaster with Firefighters and Police Officers
from around the metropolitan area.
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Hundreds of Officers and Firefighters who were
the first to arrive set up their command centers and began the climb
to rescue those trapped on the floors of impact.
Lifesaving direction to thousands of Police, Fire and EMS workers
poured in from the 911 Center. Through coordinated efforts with
the Transit Authority, the FBI and other agencies, millions of New
Yorkers were protected from compounded disaster.
THE 911 staff made a tremendous sacrifice, said
Local 1549 President Eddie Rodriquez. "They worked 16-hour
shifts, put aside worries about their own families and kept the
city safe."
Sadly, many of the Firefighters, EMS workers and Police Officers
who called the emergency center were never heard from again, said
George Rivera, a Supervising PCT. "We tried to reach them on
the radio," he said. "We sat with tears in our eyes."
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani ordered all off-duty city employees to
report to work. In the horrible early days and the desperate all-out
rescue effort, New York City's Police, Firefighters and District
Council 37 members provided a beacon of light with incredible bravery
and round-the-clock work.
Throughout the yearlong cleanup and recovery drive, public employees
have been at the heart of the effort, together with their counterparts
in private sector construction unions. Members of dozens of DC 37
locals played essential roles in the city's mammoth effort.
"In recent years, the public sector has been so beaten up by
conservative politicians that many people were surprised by the
essential role of the unionized workforce in the city's recovery,"
said Elliott Sclar, director of the Urban Planning Program at Columbia
University. In the worst of times, its oft-maligned public service
infrastructure came through for New York City.
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As the hail of glass and metal beneath the blaze
at the trade center rained down, EMS crews, uniformed officers and
good Samaritans helped care for and evacuate the injured who were
lucky enough to escape. Sirens blared. Then, suddenly, at 9:59 a.m.,
the South Tower imploded. The city was flung deeper into chaos.
Four DC 37 members perished in the towers: the Rev. Mychal F. Judge
("Father Mike"), a Fire Dept. Chaplain and a member of
Local 299; Paramedics Ricardo Quinn and Carlos Lillo, both members
of Local 2507; and Off-Track Betting Clerk Chet Louie, a Local 2021
member who moonlighted at the WTC. (Mr. Quinn was postumously promoted
to lieutenant.)
In addition to the DC 37 members who died in the attacks, more than
60 Emergency Medical Service workers were injured during that day.
"It was horrible," said Emergency Medical Technician Alex
Loutsky, who was at Fulton and Church streets—a
block from the site—when
the first building collapsed.
Smothered in layers of dust and smoke and unable to see, Mr. Loutsky
instinctively grabbed out into the darkness. He stumbled upon a
parked van and smashed its window to get in and recover his breath.
Mr. Loutsky then ran a few blocks to New York University Downtown
Hospital, where he often takes patients. Two nurses he knows helped
him wash down. Despite being shaken up by the collapse, Mr. Loutsky
returned to the disaster scene to help treat injured people.
"It's not a job for us, it's a calling," said Patrick
J. Bahnken, president of Local 2507, noting that EMS workers like
Mr. Loutsky put their own fears and traumas on hold and ignored
their own injuries to treat injured people and save lives.
"EMS personnel responded without hesitation, knowing they were
going into a dangerous situation, doing what they are supposed to
be doing, which is saving lives," said Donald Rothschild, president
of Uniformed EMS Officers Local 3621. "Emergency workers evacuated
both towers that day, and 25,000 lives were saved."
Two miles north, staff at Bellevue Hospital sprang into full disaster
mode and prepared for hundreds of incoming patients.
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About 40 firefighters, 10 police officers and
a Port Authority officer were rushed in. They were all in pretty
bad shape. Few others were as fortunate. Bellevue took in less than
100 WTC victims. "We wanted to do more, but there was not enough
to do—not
enough survivors," said Confesor Arroyo, a Patient Care Associate
and Local 420 member.
The North Tower, One World Trade Center, collapsed at 10:28 a.m.,
29 minutes after the South Tower fell. A fallen steel beam from
the towers punctured a water main buried 50 feet underground. The
seismic force of the two implosions burst eight water mains in Manhattan
below Canal Street. DEP workers scrambled to gain control of a situation
that was spiraling out of control. The city's underground infrastructure—a
labyrinth of gas and water pipes, electric, telephone and fiber
optic wires—was
severed by the massive shaking and threatened further by the water
that flowed uncontrollably from the ruptured arteries buried deep
below city streets.
Dept. of Environmental Protection crews kept working around the
clock to shut down water mains so foundations near Ground Zero,
including that of DC 37 headquarters, would not be further compromised.
To console survivors, families and workers, many Chaplains from
AFSCME Local 299 were on hand to provide counseling that fateful
day and in the weeks and months that followed.
Rabbi Mayer Birnhack, a Fire Dept. Chaplain, arrived from Brooklyn
just after the first plane struck; he was walking on West Street
when the second one hit. He remained on the scene as the buildings
collapsed, helping survivors get assistance and providing support
to rescue workers.
"Many of the people I saw couldn't breathe," Rabbi Birnhack
said. "They couldn't see because their eyes were full of soot.
And many people suffered from burns. My immediate concern was to
help people wash out their eyes."
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Thousands of DC 37 members
in the nation's
greatest public service infrastructure helped
New York City make recovery a reality.
From its office near Union Square, Social Service
Employees Union Local 371 mobilized volunteers to help survivors
and witnesses cope with the intense emotional fallout after the
tragedy. Working and retired Social Workers, doctors, nurses and
volunteers came from around the country to help.
And on the West Side, the city's emergency Family Assistance Center
on Hudson River Pier 94 housed more than a dozen agencies, from
social services to the American Red Cross to the FBI. Families of
WTC victims filed into the site to get legal assistance, Worker's
Compensation or simply a hot meal and a cup of coffee. The center
provided vital help for survivors and families of victims for months
after 9/11.
The size of two football fields, the center handled clients efficiently,
thanks to computers installed by a team that included Computer Specialist
Dennis Harney, Computer Technician Patrick Luc and other members
of Local 2627. In 24 hours, they set up 300 computers and installed
the software that gave them access to the necessary databases. For
months, Local 1359 members at another disaster relief center helped
people affected by the with housing problems.
Thursday night, Sept. 13, rain poured in torrents. The violent storm
flooded sewers citywide and further weakened the giant underground
wall around the 16-acre WTC site that held back the Hudson River.
Out of the public eye, an army of professional and technical workers—Structural
Engineers, Inspectors and Surveyors - assessed the damage to scores
of buildings in the area and shored up the concrete basin surrounding
the site, preventing a flood of the area, surrounding subway and
PATH stations and tunnels.
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When thousands of exhausted volunteers and workers
needed to refuel, many of them ate meals prepared by a dedicated
crew of Local 372 members who worked around the clock at nearby
Stuyvesant High School. There, a few blocks from Ground Zero, the
staff made sure volunteers did not go hungry. Powered by generators,
Stuyvesant High School was open 24 hours and the staff worked at
a fast pace, preparing breakfast, lunch dinner and snacks - as many
as 2,000 meals a day.
Other rescue workers ate meals contributed by families citywide,
but not until every donation was checked for safety by a team of
Public Health Sanitarians from DC 37's Local 768.
Fire Prevention Inspectors staffed the missing persons hotline at
the Fire Dept. Environmental experts monitored the air quality and
ensured that demolition workers followed health and safety standards.
Members from the Office of Chief Medical Examiner moved in quickly
to identify victims.
Hundreds of experts, including many DC 37 members such as Forensic
Anthropologist Amy Mundorff of Local 375, worked on the biggest
crime scene in U.S. history. Ms. Mundorff and three co-workers with
the crime reconstruction unit, Brian Desire, Ralph Ristenbatt and
Brian Gestring, were injured as they bolted from the base of the
collapsing South Tower on Sept. 11.
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For several weeks after the attack, Medical Legal
Investigators in Health Services Employees Local 768 worked in a
temporary morgue—a
tent with tables on Vesey Street at the perimeter of Ground Zero.
Theirs was the grizzly first step on the evidentiary trail - tagging
and cataloging bodies and body parts. After about three months,
a new makeshift morgue was set up in two closed high schools on
Liberty Street.
Morgue Technicians in Municipal Hospital Employees Local 420 then
transported remains to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
across from Bellevue Hospital for autopsies, and Pathologists made
identifications based on DNA analyses.
Early on in the cleanup, the chain of command was clearly established,
with public employees in the Dept. of Design and Construction in
charge. DDC divided the 16-acre disaster site among four demolition
contractors.
A volunteer team of 88 Engineers, all members of Civil Service Technical
Guild Local 375, supervised the work of the contractors.
The Giuliani administration's attempt to contract out DDC's work
to the giant San Francisco-based Bechtel Group was blocked when
federal agencies and the City Council agreed the city workers were
doing the best job possible.
Local 375 members also designed and supervised the rebuilding of
the 1 and 9 subway tunnel, which was destroyed when the World Trade
Center collapsed. They helped bring in the project ahead of schedule
and under budget.
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"New York City's public sector workers knew
their jobs and knew what to do. With a disaster of this scope anywhere
else, the state and federal governments would have had to intervene,"
said Columbia University Professor Elliott Sclar.
"Surviving the World Trade Center attacks is part of the collective
experience shared by all Americans, but especially those hardest
hit—New
Yorkers and the unsung heroes of the public workforce represented
by District Council 37," said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian
Roberts.
The heroism, dedication and pride of the municipal employees represented
by DC 37 are a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.
Yet, we can never forget:
"Every day when I pass by the Brooklyn Bridge and look into
the skyline of downtown Manhattan, I give myself the sign of the
cross," said Mario Gallo, a member of Motor Vehicle Operators
Local 983. The Assistant Highway Repairer spent three weeks hauling
debris away from Ground Zero.
"As a father, I can never forget that there are 5,000 orphans
because of what happened on September 11," he said.