TWO WEEKS AT GROUND ZERO

By Guy Lounsbury

 

I had the honor of being chosen by the 109^th Air Wing, New York Air National Guard to assist in the efforts currently underway at the WTC disaster site, commonly known as Ground Zero.  Our part in this effort was from September 22 to October 6.  During that time I kept a journal of what we did, what we saw, and what my thoughts and emotions were.  I thought that perhaps it would be of some interest to my neighbors what it is like for the workers at that site.  This description will be based on that journal.

 

The 109^th was tasked for two weeks with various missions directly related to the efforts currently underway at Ground Zero.  My particular part was to help maintain security in and around the perimeter of the site.  During that time, I had the opportunity to see first hand the utter devastation that the terrorists had caused.  I also had the privilege to see Americans at their best.

 

The first hint of what is coming when entering lower Manhattan is the smell.  The smell was evident as soon as we exited the Brooklyn – Battery Park tunnel.  I had expected the smell of decay.  We had arrived on site almost two weeks after the terrorists had struck and it seemed natural that with all the dead still in the rubble that this smell would be the most pervasive.  That wasn’t the case though.  The best way I can describe the smell is that of burning garbage.  I suppose that it is due to all the cable insulation that is still smoldering in the wreckage but I really don’t know.  I just know that we all described it exactly as such.

 

It is obvious upon entering lower Manhattan that something has happened.  There are police and military personnel everywhere.  Traffic is routed in crazy patterns to try and keep it flowing past the affected area.  Battery Park, on the southern tip of Manhattan has the appearance of a military camp.  Marines are guarding the entrances and will not let anyone through without a proper military ID.  All the street corners in this area have military personnel checking ID’s.  Security is very serious and very thorough.  As you can imagine, traffic moves very slowly.

 

My first assignment was to assist at the main entry control point leading into the area.  It was two blocks North West of the WTC.  The Army MP’s that we were relieving had been on site since Sept 12.  The first thing that they did was to take us through a tour of the entire area.  It was the first of six or seven trips through Ground Zero for me.

 

I had thought that I was somewhat prepared for what I was about to see.  The site has been shown countless times on television, and in newspapers and magazines.   I was wrong.  Nothing could prepare anyone for the sights in that place.  My mind still recoils at the images I have seen.  I don’t know if I have the words or the will to describe it all accurately.

 

There are thousands of workers at the site, firemen, policemen and construction workers mostly, but also a fair amount of military personnel and civilian contractors.   And, of course, the relief workers that makes the whole thing even remotely bearable.   They all seem to share the common traits of exhaustion, filth, and a vacant stare in their eyes.  Most of them had been in there everyday since the disaster occurred.  There is so much death in there, it presses against you.  Everywhere you look you feel it staring back.  It is an incredible testament to human determination that these people are able to continue on as they do.

 

The actual area of destruction is far greater than I had imagined.  Not being familiar with the WTC, I had envisioned what I thought would appear to be two collapsed buildings.  For some reason, the images on television make it all seem smaller than it actually is.  All of the surrounding buildings were damaged, most of them severely.  It takes an hour to walk around and through Ground Zero.

 

There is dust and paper debris everywhere.  It covers the ground like snow.  The fire escapes of the surrounding buildings are filled with paper from the WTC.  The dust makes everything grey in the area, even the people that work in there.  It seems like it would be a gritty substance, but it isn’t.  It is actually quite fluffy.  I pinched off some from a destroyed car and was surprised how light it actually was.  Our best guess was that it was composed mostly of gypsum from all the drywall that was pulverized.  I am sure that there are other things in the dust that remain best unthought-of.    Everyone that works in Ground Zero coughs, sneezes, and has burning eyes and a running nose.  Physically I felt sick in there from all the dust and whatever is in it.   Everyone thought they were coming down with colds, but a day out of Ground Zero and it would pass.

 

There is a parking lot not far from where the towers stood.  In it are the cars that were parked there at the time of the attack.  They are for the most part destroyed.  Smashed and twisted, some with roofs ripped off and others with just the windows blown out.  In Ground Zero, there is very little glass left in either the buildings or the cars that were present on Sept. 11.  Interestingly, one car might be completely destroyed, but another right next to it remained untouched except for the dust and broken glass.  Just a matter of wherever debris happened to land.

 

The debris that remains of what was the WTC towers are mountains of rubble at least 5 or 6 stories high.  There is construction equipment on these mountains filling an endless stream of dump trucks.  These trucks run in and out of the site 24 hours a day.  They never stop and the mountains of rubble don’t appear to be getting any smaller.  Smoke is constantly pouring from these mountains.  Firemen spray water on them in an effort to get the masses of wreckage to cool down.  The men who work on this must constantly change their boots as the heat melts them.  Two weeks after the attack, one fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers’ remains.

 

Massive steel girders are sandwiched in with crushed concrete.  They are huge, bigger than any that I have ever seen.  Someone told us that they weigh 1000 lbs. a foot.  They are all blackened and twisted.  They are really the only thing that is recognizable in the rubble.  There are no pieces of furniture apparent, you don’t see bits of computers or filing cabinets or any of the other things that make up an office.  Once we got up to the edge of the rubble there were some small traces of such things, but for the most part everything was pounded into dust when the towers collapsed.  Outer partial shells of the buildings remain standing.  I don’t know what is holding them up.  They look ready to come down at any second, yet the workers were having a terrible time trying to bring them down.  Men with cutting torches, suspended in baskets from cranes, were cutting away at them.  It was like the towers had that one little spark of life left in them that refused to die.  Men were also cutting the steel beams into manageable pieces that can be hauled away.  This is dangerous work; if a supporting beam is mistakenly cut the rubble can shift and crush anyone that is working on it.  At the top of one of these remaining walls was an American Flag.  It was a poignant sight.

 

After the shock of the towers had somewhat subsided, we were finally able to notice our surroundings.  The buildings around the towers are all damaged.  Whole corners of huge skyscrapers are missing; they have been torn completely away.  There are huge holes gashed out of building faces, 50 - 60 feet long.  One building has a gash running down the face of it at the end of which is a piece of the WTC.  We were told that this dangling piece of building weighs approximately 60 tons and no one was sure what is holding it there.  Many of the buildings will have to come down.  The damaged ones are covered with enormous sheets of nylon.  One building, WTC 4 I believe it is, looks like a giant hand has reached out and smeared part of the building away.  It is all burned out.  Structurally it didn’t appear quite as bad as some of the other buildings that were farther away from the towers.  Toward the end of my two weeks there, I had the opportunity to view the site from the roof of a skyscraper a block away.  There is no longer a middle of WTC 4.  It was completely gone, destroyed.  Just the outer wall was left.  All I could think of was the people inside these surrounding buildings when the attack occurred.  Did the people in these buildings evacuate too?   Down there you hear the words “body parts” all the time.  It seems that the workers find them everywhere.  They must be inured to this or else they wouldn’t be able to continue the work.  It is a gruesome task.

 

As we walked up the street, we passed by the morgue.  Just at that time, the body of a firefighter was brought out.  Everyone, firemen, police and military, were lined up on the street.  A police officer called us all to attention as the dead fireman was placed into a waiting ambulance.  As the ambulance left with its heroic cargo, under motorcycle escort, the call was given to present arms.  I have been in the military for almost 19 years.  Of all the salutes that I have given, that one was by far the most meaningful of my career.  There are signs everywhere down there that say “You rushed in when other were rushing out.”  On Sept. 11, the NYPD and the FDNY were the bravest of the brave.

 

The people working at Ground Zero have taken to writing in the dust of the buildings still standing.  There are names from all over the country.  These names, written in dust, should be etched in stone.  They are the names of extraordinary people.  Many tell what fire or police department they are with.  I saw firemen from as far away as Miami and Los Angeles at Ground Zero.  It seems that everywhere in the country has sent people to help.  There are also pictures of the missing.  Each picture has a plea for information.  These pictures are everywhere and reminded us of the terrible toll that was suffered that day.

 

At Ground Zero, you see the worst imaginable things, but you also see the best.

 

Everyone that is working there is polite and respectful of each other.  All say some type of greeting when passing each other.  There is a feeling of being on sacred ground.  Many heroes gave their lives that day and we were all respectful of that.  Never have I seen such camaraderie as I have of the people working in that awful place.  I cannot even begin to describe the feeling I had when some exhausted, filthy fireman would pass me on the street and sincerely inquire how I was doing.  How trivial my condition seemed to be when compared with theirs.  No one could look at these men and not wish to do something to help them.

 

There are letters from school children posted everywhere.  I don’t know why, but these got to me more than anything else.  These pictures and simple letters from the most innocent of us all, thanking all the workers for their efforts, it seems unimaginable that these children should even be aware that such horror can exist.  I have seen grimy, weary workers with stooped shoulders, barely able to walk, stop and read these letters and walk away a little straighter and with a smile.  I will never for the rest of my life forget this image.  Sometimes, the smallest of us provides the greatest relief.  These letters are more appreciated than I think the kids can imagine.

 

There are relief workers everywhere at Ground Zero.  There are cases of food and beverages sent from all over the country lining the streets.  Bottle water is everywhere, an ocean of it.   Workers drink it constantly.  There are boxes of warm clothes, batteries, respirators, and everything else that might be useful.  Phone calls are provided free by Verizon, cell phones are made available by many companies, Campbell’s soup is there, and McDonald’s is there, all doing what they could to help the workers.  There are comfort stations set up by the Red Cross filled with any kind of small comfort that a worker might need.  There are places to rest, places to eat, counselors, podiatrists, doctors, clergy and massage therapists available.  People from all over the country have rushed there to provide whatever assistance they can to the people working on the recovery.  They walk the streets all night offering coffee and snacks to the perimeter guards.  They are angels on earth; they are Americans at their absolute best.

 

My time as a perimeter guard was mostly at night, when the streets were fairly quiet.  Other than the good relief workers at St. Paul’s and the Red Cross Stations at the Federal Reserve and the New York Athletic Club, there weren’t too many people to converse with.  Most of the people that I saw had come to reflect on the enormity of what they were seeing and to grieve at the magnitude of the loss suffered.  We covered stretches of Broadway and Nassau Streets.  From the posts on Broadway, bits of the destruction at Ground Zero can be seen by the general public.  The entire area is bathed in floodlights, giving it a ghostly, surreal appearance.  The very air itself, opaque with smoke in the light, seems unworldly.  Only two blocks away, you are looking at something that is immeasurably distant, the other side of the looking glass.  It is like looking into another unimaginable world.  Framed by the buildings untouched, you gaze at a landscape of complete destruction.    I have watched people stare at it without moving for a half hour or more.  They were transfixed by the sight, and who could blame them.  It is a cruelly fascinating thing to witness, the result of “man’s inhumanity toward man”.

 

I have listened to so many stories of loved ones lost.  I have shaken so many hands and heard so many people say “Thank you for being here”.  I have listened to people sobbing over their loss and then immediately ask what they could do for me.  We all tried to say the appropriate things, listen with the sympathetic ear and provide what small comfort we could to the grieving by our presence.   It seems so little to give to those that have suffered so much.  I wish I could have done more.

 

I have heard that no one can go into Ground Zero and remain unchanged.  I would have to agree.  Not because of the destruction, I would not give that satisfaction to the cowards that caused this.  Rather it is the people that make the apparent difference.  I think that we sometimes forget our identity as Americans.  Of course we all know who we are, but our emphasis on individuality tends to foreshadow the feeling of unity.  But that feeling of unity is there, and it is strong.  I have seen this and I continue to feel it.  I am so proud of the character of Americans, I am so proud to be a part of it.  Our enemies are just starting to realize the mistake they have made in their judgment of us.  E Pluribus Unum, "One from many,"   These are more than just words, they are our national conscience. 

 

God Bless America