nmah6390.xml

nmah6390.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-12-26

On the morning of 9/11/01, I was proceeding over the George Washington Bridge to meet with an OSHA inspector involving an accident investigation that I was working on as part of my job as a Safety Engineer with The Port Authority of NY/NJ. I was heading Eastbound toward the NY side, when I noticed the burning WTC and about this same time heard about the incident on the news radio. My manager called me on my Nextel, and asked me to meet him at the WTC, since we normally respond to any serious incident at our facilities and this was our building complex and also our Agency headquarters. I put on my stobe lights and siren, following closely behind the FDNY trucks that were racing down the West Side Highway to get to the scene. As I approached downtown, I could see that both towers were now hit, and there were people streaming out and emergency workers, Firemen and Police all around and heading in. I also saw numerous people jumping out from the higher floors above the impact zone where the planes had hit. This was the most awful thing to see,
and I do not think I can ever forget the sight of that and everything else I witnessed on that horrible day. I was lucky, I responded to the scene and survived, having been told by a Police Inspector not to go into the buildings,
since he feared that something terrible could possibly happen and he instructed me and his staff not to advance into the buildings until we had a better plan and idea of
what exactly was taking place. When they began to fall shortly afterwards, I ran with him and many other police officers who had been very close to responding into the buildings right before the collapse. For several months afterwards, I was proud to serve in our Emergency Operations Center in Jersey City, assisting the Agency during the immediate rescue period and subsequent recovery phase.

It has changed, as I believe most people's lives have also changed. I lost many friends and coworkers in the WTC, including four in my department. I am more fearful of the world now, realizing how much our country and what we stand for, freedom and democracy, is disliked by many around the globe. So I am much more cautious and suspicious, unfortunately, each day that I am working at our airports, tunnels and bridges, and ports and terminals.

The many innocent lives lost on that day, and all of the families and friends that lost their loved ones. And the sacrifices made by our emergency service workers who went in to rescue others, such as the PAPD, FDNY and NYPD. They were the heroes and will always be missed.

I have aways flown an American flag outside of my home, but my feelings have grown tremendously in terms of the importance of the flag to our country and what it really means to its people.