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2002-09-04

Family Assistance Center for Flight 93

John D. Weaver

September 11th began as just another day for most Americans. Things changed quickly, though, as a hideous terrorist plot began to unfold. I was in my office at Northampton County Mental Health that morning, helping several other staff members complete a physical office move that had begun the day before. We were positioning desks, file cabinets, and other pieces of office furniture. Someone got word that there had been a plane crash into the World Trade Center in NY City and my coworkers scrambled to get our TV set working to see the news. I simply keep moving furniture.

Before too long the office was buzzing as a second plane crashed into the second Tower, and one hit the Pentagon, and another had crashed in western PA. Most work came to a standstill as more and more coworkers were watching the news or were trying to contact family members and friends. I kept doing what I could to complete the office move.

My office mates kept passing by and telling me headlines that seemed more and more surreal as events unfolded and the towers began to collapse. Some may have though it odd that I kept working on my tasks for the day. Others knew I'd already taken a phone call from the Red Cross, placing me on alert to travel wherever I was needed, as soon as my destination could be determined. I have been a disaster relief volunteer for over 10 years and I am a member of ARC's Aviation Incident Response (AIR) Team. Our role is to support family members and everyone else involved in the rescue/recovery process when such incidents occur. Until I was dispatched, continuing the physical activity of the office move was something concrete I could do to help my own office staff as much as I could, before I left the area.

By noon our County offices were closed. I went home and packed, finally watching some TV coverage as I did so. Folks in the disaster services field plan for "worst case" scenarios and yet no one imagined this could happen. By the time my kids got home from school, I'd gotten my assignment. I was to drive to the Johnstown area to support the relief operation for the families of those lost on United Flight 93 - the "heroes" flight on which the passengers managed to stop the terrorists before they reached their intended target.

For the next 12 days, I served as the Coordinator of the Family Assistance Center (FAC). The FAC is a "safe haven" spot where family members can come together and share their thoughts, feelings, and memories with one another. There they can also talk to mental health workers and members of the clergy, doing so in a secured place designed to protect their privacy. Many prefer avoid the media, lawyers, and any others who might further victimize them at a time when they are quite vulnerable. We were fortunate to have a marvelous facility ? the Seven Springs Resort ? available to us. It offered nature?s beauty and serenity to all who came.

On September 12th my team met with several of the 75 or so family representatives from United Airlines who had been assigned to help operate the FAC and care for the families. The United people were under incredible stress. The whole airline industry clearly had suffered a major loss and, for United, the impact was pushing the company in the direction of laying off personnel to assure continued operation. Many United workers were first timers, who had gotten there more quickly than their luggage, and who had to fear this would be their last assignment with the company. Nevertheless, they were great people who performed very well throughout our time together. Part of our DMH role here was to support them in their efforts.

Our primary role is to organize family member visits to the crash site and these are usually followed by a multi-faith memorial service. Most surviving family members need to visit the site - a visit that helps them accept their loss and begin to move forward with their suddenly altered lives. Disasters (and other traumatic life events) will always change us, but they need not damage us. Our work in disaster relief is based upon the fact that people are incredibly strong and resilient. Each of us builds character as we work our way though events such as these. Gradually the victims retake control of their lives and shift from feeling like victims to feeling like survivors.

The fact that air travel was temporarily halted following the events of 9/11 made this assignment more difficult logistically than most airline incidents. Initially, it was quite hard for distant family members and friends to get to the area. Some small groups came quickly, by car, bus, and limo. Many people from far-off areas had to wait till air travel resumed. With arrivals so spread out over time, a decision was made to offer two major site visits/memorial services, rather than one big one. We held the first on Monday, September 17th and the second on Thursday, September 20. Because some families arrived early and others came and went in between these two dates, several other personal site visits were also held. ARC DMH personnel accompanied each group.

For those few folks who had gotten in to town quickly, we arranged bus transportation and secure, priority seating for a candle-light memorial service held in the town of Sommerset, PA on, September 14th (Friday evening). This spontaneous event was the local community?s response to President Bush?s call for observance of a National Day of Prayer. Those who attended were extremely gratified by the local outpouring of support, compassion, and prayers from the estimated 3000 people who turned out for the event.

Over the 12-day assignment we served about 500 family members and close friends of those lost on Flight 93. Helping us serve them were the warm wishes and prayers of people all over the world. We received a marvelous array of flowers, cards, banners, gift baskets, comfort kits, and letters of support. These things were all placed on display in the large dining room that we were using as the FAC?s central gathering place. Especially helpful were the touching messages from innocent children, some of whom attend a school that was near the crash site. These things all gave great comfort to the families and, when we closed the FAC, these items became part of the permanent memorial to those brave souls who lost their lives while protecting the lives of others.

We kept the FAC open and staffed on a 24-hour per day basis, throughout the time family members were in residence. That way, whenever someone might be having trouble sleeping or might need company, they were welcome to stop in. Beverages and light snacks were always available. On the two days that the major site visits/memorial services were held, a full brunch was also served, followed by orientation sessions (briefing everyone on the rest of those days? events). Typically there will be daily briefings held at a FAC, offering news from representatives of the National Transportation Safety Board detailing progress on the investigation and on recovery efforts. Here, it was a criminal investigation headed up by the FBI and things were being handled with greater secrecy. Daily briefings are always a good idea because they tend to facilitate group bonding and peer support.
Without the daily briefings to draw people into our FAC gathering room, we had to be creative in getting people to make their first visit. We solved the problem through use of a greeting station in the hotel lobby. Team members took turns sitting with United family representatives just inside the front door of the hotel. Families were welcomed, given photo ID, and then escorted to their rooms. During that process, we told them about the FAC and, when ready, we offered to escort them there as well. Greeting people in this way worked so well that we reversed the process and operated a departure station at the same spot, as people were leaving.

In addition to ARC DMH, Spiritual Care, Health Services representatives and th folks from United Airlines, three other organizations had representatives available within the FAC. These were the FBI?s Victim Assistance Program, the Pennsylvania Office of Victim Assistance, and the Keystone Crisis Intervention Team (individuals with training through the National Organization of Victim Assistance). The first two groups offered educational information and support for those who wanted to seek victim compensation funds. The third served as my team of childcare workers, to assist families with therapeutic play and babysitting needs. Ordinarily the childcare services would be provided by the ARC CAIR Team (Childcare AIR), but with transportation disrupted we were unable to get anyone from our team and I ended up needing to substitute these folks who had already had child abuse and criminal background checks done.

Many of my nine-member DMH team members were new to disaster relief work and they did not have mass casualty experience. To orient them to their role, I offered them two bits of simple advice. The first is:

LESS IS MORE (KEEP IT SIMPLE). Obey this fundamental premise:

There is nothing you can say or do that will quickly end the shock, ease the pain, or make survivors feel better?
But there are lots of things you can say or do that can make them feel (or act) worse!

Examples: I know what you?re going through. or Everything is going to be fine.
(Either comment may seem innocent enough, yet often results in an angry response.)

Passive Listening is often the best approach ? use attentive silence and keep responses to a minimum. Overreaction is counterproductive to cathartic ventilation. There is a concept in communication known as Rehearsal Drop ? basically a point in conversation where the listener?s listening ends and his or her formation of a question or response begins. By speaking too much, responding too quickly, or falling into any of the other nervous interviewing patterns he or she displayed at the beginning of his/her counseling career, the novice or nervous DMH worker often shoots himself or herself in the foot.

The second bit of advice I offered the team members was: HOW DO YOU FEEL? (DON?T ASK!). When the surviving family members and friends are ready to talk, there is no way to avoid getting their feelings. Still, I frequently see well-meaning, novice DMH people try to begin their conversations with the quintessential question, How do you feel? (or some similarly intrusive variant that goes straight for victims?/survivors? gut feelings). Following any disaster, hundreds of well-meaning, untrained volunteers can be found hitting on survivors with that same question. Someone who is only available to serve for a short time is often impatient ? wanting to make something meaningful happen during his or her short time on the job. Then they can feel good about what they did, write an article, etc.

How do you feel? is often perceived to be the stereotypic psychobabble that TV and movies use as shorthand for all MH counseling. It is also the same bluntly intrusive question many media representatives use to get their 15-30 second sound bites of traumatized people in pain. Avoid it! There is no need to go directly after the feelings in any counseling situation, let alone one as sensitive as sudden death scenarios. Once you begin opening up a dialogue about the facts, the feelings will follow, without you ever needing to ask for them.

Many times the most helpful things that DMH workers do are also the most basic. For instance, one family came to the FAC with a large poster board. Each family member also brought his or her favorite photos of the person they?d lost. Their simple plan was to create a small photo-mural to leave at the site. I asked them if they wanted to also write anything between the photos and, when they said yes, I got them a permanent marker to use for the notes. Similarly, we found many people were commenting on how much the vast collection of banners, letters, flowers, and stuffed animals meant to them. We began offering disposable cameras to them, so that they could have something to keep and to share with others who could not be there with them.

My experiences with mass casualty incidents always sadden me (something that generally hits us as we end our work) and this was no exception. In fact, this one was worse for me than usual. It seemed like we had done two air incidents in a row, because we had separately served two large groups, barely sending the first home when the second was arriving. We had also done several other private site visits and memorial services, before and between the big ones, rather than just doing one big one as is more typically the case in an air incident.

Whatever the reason, I cried off and on during my tour of duty, especially tearing-up as our caravans of buses would pass saluting police officers along our motorcade route to the site visits/memorial services. I also cried off and on all the way home, a five-hour drive, as I returned home from western PA. Both of those things are very typical for me. What was different, though, was that for several days thereafter, I found myself having what I've joking dubbed "random acts of crying" triggered by certain songs, pictures, or news reports. That ran its course but, as I sat down on October 5th to write some reflections on the experiences at the FAC, I found I was tearing up again. I had chosen to write about my experiences as a way to pass my time while on a bus ride to NY City. I had at that point had two weeks rest and I was on my way to join the larger, ongoing ARC operation for the World Trade Center.

Disaster work gives people an interesting perspective on life. For instance, when someone works as many major disasters as I have, some of the pettiness of day-to-day activities of living can be more easily ignored and it's easier to keep focused on what's important. During times of tragedy, one thing that is very important is support - support from family members, support from friends, support from communities of faith, and support from others who care enough to share something of themselves when people are in need.

I'm truly privileged to be able to help out as I do when terrible things like this happen. Others may think me a bit strange (or crazy) to give up my time and volunteer as I do. The fact is, the most rewarding moments of my professional career have all come to me as an unintended and unexpected result of my volunteer work with ARC.

As my bus approached NY in the morning mist, I could see the altered skyline at the southern end of that great city. I found myself thinking about the 1000s of people who never got to say goodbye to their loved ones - people who never got to finish living out their dreams. Some of them also may never have experienced the joy of helping others who needed help in a time of crisis. Please try to let go of any animosity you harbor toward others and avoid putting off showing loved ones you care. Life is too precious a commodity to squander. As the events of 9/11 have shown us, it can be taken from us in an instant. Also, if you are not already doing so, please share some of your time, talents, and treasure helping others. This will, in turn, allow you to get back far more than you will give.