story1254.xml
Title
story1254.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-08-19
911DA Story: Story
WTC 9-11-01
Friends:
I was blessed in the midst of unspeakable tragedy last week, with an
opportunity to participate in the rescue and recovery efforts at the World
Trade Center. With the blessing, support, and encouragement of my employer,
Lafarge, North America, I left very early Thursday morning, and drove to
D.C. where I boarded Amtrak for the 3 hour ride to Penn Station in New
York. I arrived before nightfall, and went immediately to Broadway and 14th
street where the security net around the area was located. With my Blue
Circle hardhat, and purposely dirty work clothes already on, I was able to
get clearance to the site. At the exact same time, two crane operators from
Bay Cranes, were driving in to relieve the crew that had just set up a 50
ton crane at the base of the explosion. The NYPD asked them to give me a
ride. Sickeningly, and amazingly, we drove directly to the remains of Tower
2 on Church Street. Less than 12 hours after I had left my home in Norris,
I stood in the midst of the most unspeakable sight I have ever witnessed.
The airborne dust was so thick you could swipe your hand through the air,
and grab it. The acrid smell, horrific. As one FBI agent later told me,
"that is the smell of several thousand people on low bake, for two days".
I am proud to say that, within 10 minutes of arrival , I helped Chad,(the
'oiler') of the Liehber crane, erect a large American flag from the cab of
the huge crane. We took extra care (and a lot of duct tape) to make sure
that she flew upright straight, and proud. After that important job was
done, I grabbed a shovel, and jumped in to work with an enormous group of
firefighter, NYPD, and EMT's, shoveling ash and debris off Vesey street,
which was totally covered and impassable. 5 hours later, we were done,
right down to the last pebble, and loaders and excavators could then make
there way to the pile of rubble. In cleaning the road, we dumped every bit
of debris into thousands of 5 gallon buckets, which were then sifted through
by other volunteers, so as to not cast away anything of personal, medical,
or evidentiary value.
At that point, like a huge wave, we all moved onto the smoldering rubble,
and began the task of moving untold tons of material, 5 gallons at a time.
The work was gruesome, but fulfilling. As one of only a handful of
'infiltrators' in the area, I felt incredibly lucky to be amongst the most
dedicated and courageous people I have ever known. I consider myself to be a
hard worker, but I have never seen anything like this band of firefighters
(FDNY on their backs) that had worked for 48 hours without stopping, one
handful and one bucket at a time.
At 3am, a sprinkle turned into a horrific downpour. No one (except me) ever
looked up, even for a moment. Within 20 minutes large streams of water ran
down the rubble pile, carrying with them the unspeakable. Still, no one
stopped, slowed, or wavered. At 4:30am (now Friday morning) the Chief
called us off the hill. Slippery conditions, exhaustion, and anger at the
spite of the horrible weather, made injuries too numerous.
I walked across the street to the Hilton Millennium hotel, now bombed out,
with no windows, and at least 4 inches of ash covering everything in the
lobby. Cops went up to the seventh floor, in total darkness, in a building
that was still listed as unstable, and raided the linen room. They brought
down sheets, blankets, and towels for us all. I spent the next two hours in
a luxurious, clean, Hilton bathrobe, sitting in a swanky dust enveloped
chair, in the lobby of what two nites before had been a $650 a nite hotel.
During our 'time-out', someone (it was too dark to see who) sat at the grand
piano, and played beautiful music until dawn.
It was a jet-black morning, with the smoke and haze now made worse and
soggier by the torrential rain. It was darker at 7am, than it had been at
midnight. It wasn't eerie, it was scary. The ever-present ash, made up of
pulverized concrete, paper, glass, and American citizens, was now a gooey
muck. The muck clogged the drains, and we all waded thigh deep through a
grey and black river of total destruction.
At this point I moved to Tower 7 about 3 blocks away, where they were short
equipment operators. This is the building that was the third to collapse,
giving time to evacuate all inside. 5 gallon buckets weren't needed here,
but the going was tremendously slow. I ran a large Cat loader, but the
twisted metal was difficult to handle. Twenty-ton dumps were often leaving
with 2 tons of debris because of the nature of the metal and support steel.
At 11 am Friday, I left the sight to find a hotel, take a shower, and sleep.
As I walked past all the media tents toward the exit, hundreds of New
Yorkers stood by the barricades. When I crossed the threshold, they grabbed
me, hugged me, gave me water, flowers, apples, beer, or anything else I
could hold. It was amazing. I got my shower, laid down for two hours, then
went back, feeling guilty for having left in the first place.
I went back to Tower One and rejoined the bucket brigade. Four lines, at
least one hundred deep, each handing off bucket after bucket. The
continuous noise of back up alarms, hydraulic cutters, and heavy machinery
soon was drowned out by the roar of a pack of F-16's. They flew low, and
the whole pile vibrated. The President was soon to arrive. An hour later,
about 30 minutes before Bush was to come to the site, the Chief called
everyone down, and told any one who was not a New York firefighter to go one
block up to 1 Liberty Plaza which is the HQ for Nasdaq and Merrill Lynch.
It is a huge, beautiful building, directly across the street from the WTC.
It now has a serious buckle at the 32 floor. As we moved up there, without a
word, or any direction, each person grabbed a shovel, or with gloved hands
only, and began cleaning up the Plaza from the 5 inches of muck, dust, and
broken glass that were everywhere. Two hours later, by the time the
President had left, it was spotless.
Prior to the Presidents arrival, the FDNY had determined that the rescue
portion of the effort was to be called off. Bush arrived at the perfect
time to give these beaten-up and devastated heroes a lift. I knew it was
coming, but many of us teared up when through the dust and destruction a
block away, we heard the 'reflectos' (what cops and other emergency
personnel call the firemen, because of all the reflective gear they wear)
start chanting USA, USA, USA, USA. I will never forget that moment as long
as I live.
By 9pm, after milling around for an hour or so, I went back to the hotel,
with the intention of heading home early Saturday morning. I slept hard,
and awoke refreshed at 3am. I took my bag, checked out, and went back down.
As I was walking in, legions of firefighters were walking out. I had left
the site twice in 36 hours; they had been there 90 hours straight. The
blank anguish, sorrow, and exhaustion on their faces, as they left without
the mates they had searched so desperately to find, was heartbreaking.
Commendably, not one member of the media horde approached any of them.
The ultimate token of respect.
I worked till around 8am as a 'sifter', watching with a morgue worker to try
to insure that when the heavy equipment that was now being used dropped
their load into the truck beds, it did not contain human debris. I can tell
you only that there is one hell of a lot of difference in a rescue effort,
and a recovery effort.
As I left the site for the last time Saturday morning, I noticed from
several blocks away that something was different at the entryway. I got
closer, and on a beautiful Saturday morning with a brilliant blue sky, what
had been a hundred well wishers, was now in the thousands. The police
literally had to open a wall of people in order for me and a Chicago fireman I was walking out with, to leave.
The cheers, tears, hugs, and outpouring of love and thanks was as
indescribable as the scene 10 blocks back. I felt horrible about it,
remembering what I had seen 5 hours earlier as the firefighters left under
cover of smokey, sickening darkness, alone and underappreciated.
As I got to Penn station and traveled down the escalator, and army of
hardhats were riding up the escalator having just arrived. I still had on
work gear, and was wearing my Tennessee Volunteers t-shirt, and the calls of
"hey, Tennessee, where do we go", "hey Tennessee, how do we get there", were
numerous. People had traveled hundreds of miles under difficult
circumstances, but they had gotten there.
As I waited in the station for my train to leave, it occurred to me that I
had spent over 30 hours at the site, and with the exception of the first
moments there, working with Chad, the crane oiler and my flag raising
partner, I had never entered into a conversation with anyone. A sentence
here, a simple request to someone I didn't know for a bucket, or a thank you
to a Red Cross worker. That was it. In the most organized chaos anyone has
ever know, I never shook a hand, exchanged a name, or engaged in a simple
'hello'. In thinking back on it, I now realize that it was not just me. No
one spoke. You would see firemen sitting together, looking straight ahead.
Cops working like dogs assembling wheel barrows in the rain, without any
conversation with the person next to them. Food servers and support
personnel, wandering the site, administering aid without asking what was
wrong. One of the many life changing and valuable lessons I learned on this
journey, was that in times of terrible trouble and crisis - Americans just
KNOW what to do.
Aboard the train, just outside of Newark, I glanced out the Amtrak window,
and for the first time, saw the new, devil-etched skyline of our nation's
greatest city. Horribly disfigured and still covered in the thick, evil
smoke that we all breathed for 3 days. I took no solace in the site, no
pride or pleasure in knowing I had helped, no gratitude that I was out of
it. I thought only that America has now changed. That despite the pleas to
'get back to normal', there will not be a 'normal' for many years to come.
And for me, there will never again be a 'normal', because over 5000 people,
400 heroic cops and firefighters, and those two magnificent buildings that
always represented something very special to me, are gone forever.
Don Nathan
9-16-01
865-660-2166
DNathan163@aol.com
Friends:
I was blessed in the midst of unspeakable tragedy last week, with an
opportunity to participate in the rescue and recovery efforts at the World
Trade Center. With the blessing, support, and encouragement of my employer,
Lafarge, North America, I left very early Thursday morning, and drove to
D.C. where I boarded Amtrak for the 3 hour ride to Penn Station in New
York. I arrived before nightfall, and went immediately to Broadway and 14th
street where the security net around the area was located. With my Blue
Circle hardhat, and purposely dirty work clothes already on, I was able to
get clearance to the site. At the exact same time, two crane operators from
Bay Cranes, were driving in to relieve the crew that had just set up a 50
ton crane at the base of the explosion. The NYPD asked them to give me a
ride. Sickeningly, and amazingly, we drove directly to the remains of Tower
2 on Church Street. Less than 12 hours after I had left my home in Norris,
I stood in the midst of the most unspeakable sight I have ever witnessed.
The airborne dust was so thick you could swipe your hand through the air,
and grab it. The acrid smell, horrific. As one FBI agent later told me,
"that is the smell of several thousand people on low bake, for two days".
I am proud to say that, within 10 minutes of arrival , I helped Chad,(the
'oiler') of the Liehber crane, erect a large American flag from the cab of
the huge crane. We took extra care (and a lot of duct tape) to make sure
that she flew upright straight, and proud. After that important job was
done, I grabbed a shovel, and jumped in to work with an enormous group of
firefighter, NYPD, and EMT's, shoveling ash and debris off Vesey street,
which was totally covered and impassable. 5 hours later, we were done,
right down to the last pebble, and loaders and excavators could then make
there way to the pile of rubble. In cleaning the road, we dumped every bit
of debris into thousands of 5 gallon buckets, which were then sifted through
by other volunteers, so as to not cast away anything of personal, medical,
or evidentiary value.
At that point, like a huge wave, we all moved onto the smoldering rubble,
and began the task of moving untold tons of material, 5 gallons at a time.
The work was gruesome, but fulfilling. As one of only a handful of
'infiltrators' in the area, I felt incredibly lucky to be amongst the most
dedicated and courageous people I have ever known. I consider myself to be a
hard worker, but I have never seen anything like this band of firefighters
(FDNY on their backs) that had worked for 48 hours without stopping, one
handful and one bucket at a time.
At 3am, a sprinkle turned into a horrific downpour. No one (except me) ever
looked up, even for a moment. Within 20 minutes large streams of water ran
down the rubble pile, carrying with them the unspeakable. Still, no one
stopped, slowed, or wavered. At 4:30am (now Friday morning) the Chief
called us off the hill. Slippery conditions, exhaustion, and anger at the
spite of the horrible weather, made injuries too numerous.
I walked across the street to the Hilton Millennium hotel, now bombed out,
with no windows, and at least 4 inches of ash covering everything in the
lobby. Cops went up to the seventh floor, in total darkness, in a building
that was still listed as unstable, and raided the linen room. They brought
down sheets, blankets, and towels for us all. I spent the next two hours in
a luxurious, clean, Hilton bathrobe, sitting in a swanky dust enveloped
chair, in the lobby of what two nites before had been a $650 a nite hotel.
During our 'time-out', someone (it was too dark to see who) sat at the grand
piano, and played beautiful music until dawn.
It was a jet-black morning, with the smoke and haze now made worse and
soggier by the torrential rain. It was darker at 7am, than it had been at
midnight. It wasn't eerie, it was scary. The ever-present ash, made up of
pulverized concrete, paper, glass, and American citizens, was now a gooey
muck. The muck clogged the drains, and we all waded thigh deep through a
grey and black river of total destruction.
At this point I moved to Tower 7 about 3 blocks away, where they were short
equipment operators. This is the building that was the third to collapse,
giving time to evacuate all inside. 5 gallon buckets weren't needed here,
but the going was tremendously slow. I ran a large Cat loader, but the
twisted metal was difficult to handle. Twenty-ton dumps were often leaving
with 2 tons of debris because of the nature of the metal and support steel.
At 11 am Friday, I left the sight to find a hotel, take a shower, and sleep.
As I walked past all the media tents toward the exit, hundreds of New
Yorkers stood by the barricades. When I crossed the threshold, they grabbed
me, hugged me, gave me water, flowers, apples, beer, or anything else I
could hold. It was amazing. I got my shower, laid down for two hours, then
went back, feeling guilty for having left in the first place.
I went back to Tower One and rejoined the bucket brigade. Four lines, at
least one hundred deep, each handing off bucket after bucket. The
continuous noise of back up alarms, hydraulic cutters, and heavy machinery
soon was drowned out by the roar of a pack of F-16's. They flew low, and
the whole pile vibrated. The President was soon to arrive. An hour later,
about 30 minutes before Bush was to come to the site, the Chief called
everyone down, and told any one who was not a New York firefighter to go one
block up to 1 Liberty Plaza which is the HQ for Nasdaq and Merrill Lynch.
It is a huge, beautiful building, directly across the street from the WTC.
It now has a serious buckle at the 32 floor. As we moved up there, without a
word, or any direction, each person grabbed a shovel, or with gloved hands
only, and began cleaning up the Plaza from the 5 inches of muck, dust, and
broken glass that were everywhere. Two hours later, by the time the
President had left, it was spotless.
Prior to the Presidents arrival, the FDNY had determined that the rescue
portion of the effort was to be called off. Bush arrived at the perfect
time to give these beaten-up and devastated heroes a lift. I knew it was
coming, but many of us teared up when through the dust and destruction a
block away, we heard the 'reflectos' (what cops and other emergency
personnel call the firemen, because of all the reflective gear they wear)
start chanting USA, USA, USA, USA. I will never forget that moment as long
as I live.
By 9pm, after milling around for an hour or so, I went back to the hotel,
with the intention of heading home early Saturday morning. I slept hard,
and awoke refreshed at 3am. I took my bag, checked out, and went back down.
As I was walking in, legions of firefighters were walking out. I had left
the site twice in 36 hours; they had been there 90 hours straight. The
blank anguish, sorrow, and exhaustion on their faces, as they left without
the mates they had searched so desperately to find, was heartbreaking.
Commendably, not one member of the media horde approached any of them.
The ultimate token of respect.
I worked till around 8am as a 'sifter', watching with a morgue worker to try
to insure that when the heavy equipment that was now being used dropped
their load into the truck beds, it did not contain human debris. I can tell
you only that there is one hell of a lot of difference in a rescue effort,
and a recovery effort.
As I left the site for the last time Saturday morning, I noticed from
several blocks away that something was different at the entryway. I got
closer, and on a beautiful Saturday morning with a brilliant blue sky, what
had been a hundred well wishers, was now in the thousands. The police
literally had to open a wall of people in order for me and a Chicago fireman I was walking out with, to leave.
The cheers, tears, hugs, and outpouring of love and thanks was as
indescribable as the scene 10 blocks back. I felt horrible about it,
remembering what I had seen 5 hours earlier as the firefighters left under
cover of smokey, sickening darkness, alone and underappreciated.
As I got to Penn station and traveled down the escalator, and army of
hardhats were riding up the escalator having just arrived. I still had on
work gear, and was wearing my Tennessee Volunteers t-shirt, and the calls of
"hey, Tennessee, where do we go", "hey Tennessee, how do we get there", were
numerous. People had traveled hundreds of miles under difficult
circumstances, but they had gotten there.
As I waited in the station for my train to leave, it occurred to me that I
had spent over 30 hours at the site, and with the exception of the first
moments there, working with Chad, the crane oiler and my flag raising
partner, I had never entered into a conversation with anyone. A sentence
here, a simple request to someone I didn't know for a bucket, or a thank you
to a Red Cross worker. That was it. In the most organized chaos anyone has
ever know, I never shook a hand, exchanged a name, or engaged in a simple
'hello'. In thinking back on it, I now realize that it was not just me. No
one spoke. You would see firemen sitting together, looking straight ahead.
Cops working like dogs assembling wheel barrows in the rain, without any
conversation with the person next to them. Food servers and support
personnel, wandering the site, administering aid without asking what was
wrong. One of the many life changing and valuable lessons I learned on this
journey, was that in times of terrible trouble and crisis - Americans just
KNOW what to do.
Aboard the train, just outside of Newark, I glanced out the Amtrak window,
and for the first time, saw the new, devil-etched skyline of our nation's
greatest city. Horribly disfigured and still covered in the thick, evil
smoke that we all breathed for 3 days. I took no solace in the site, no
pride or pleasure in knowing I had helped, no gratitude that I was out of
it. I thought only that America has now changed. That despite the pleas to
'get back to normal', there will not be a 'normal' for many years to come.
And for me, there will never again be a 'normal', because over 5000 people,
400 heroic cops and firefighters, and those two magnificent buildings that
always represented something very special to me, are gone forever.
Don Nathan
9-16-01
865-660-2166
DNathan163@aol.com
Collection
Citation
“story1254.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 26, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/8398.