Newspaper article on NYC Authority clean air projects in Queens,

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I o o 4i. ■D c 2 o’ ■D o a. O 26 n 0) to w Nobody cried, OObody talked^ nobody made a sound. heard a woman SCraamill . I guess we're still all here O o o c 3 o □ was one chief, I believe, up

Ites there. I’m DOI sure. He told us to start our way down, make your way down, everybody out Siiwre I didn't hear that on the i O LteMBMIBii » ^>3 radio. I just heard it from — start your way down. We were there with Captain Billy Burke, who we lost. We're like. Tx^fs Cap. We’re all out.’ He said, ‘Start your way down. Make your way down. We'll all meet at the rig.’ Again, we're like. ‘Let's go.' He said. ‘Start your way HO down. We’ll all meet al the rig.’ I talked to him three times on aSzs^z^.'- the way down, oace in the MT-' ••• ■tv; stairwell, once on the 19th ■

'•t; floor as wc were switching ■BWili over from the B to the A or the - I - wi. A to the B. Again,I’m not sure. I spoke to him once in the lobby. It was the same thing all the lime, ‘Meet at the rig. meet at the rig...’ • ’I I James Basik EMSdiief -fl 0 1 We were helping people over large areas of debris and channelling them, trying to KlWs W.- < VICKI .lUH iTSflU lo^ep them calm, bringing them Exhausted emergency workers take a break during rescue efforts a day after the Sept. 11, |;W^L Akrtlu-O over to a walkway that led to 2001, attacks. At ri^t, firefighters make their way through the blown out facade of a World Among those rescued and No. 7 World Trade Center. Financial Center building as they head in the direction of the collapsed Twin Towers. lost were the rescuers. Fire­ When the majority of the j G2^i* fighters, above, carry Injured civilians were out, 1 wailed a J Capt. Karfai Deshore AU of a sialden it was all over it looked like a glam wave Mil comrade and others, at left gather at the end of a shift. few minutes. 'There was no­ body else cewning out. I a Battalion 46 and the silence set in. Nobody behind us. so I went up against feeling, a gut feeling inside Was at het desk was toM by cried, nobody talked, nobody a chain-link fence, I got down on the left side of the crater. that it was time for me to 3 co*worker that a plane one of made a sound. There was on one knee, 1 put my hands It wasn’t easy to walk even leave. the Twin Towers, She headai to the nothiQg. Absolutely oothio^ over my head to hold my two guys next to each other So 1 started waJlring. 1 went scene. You could open your eye.% it helmet on so 1 wouldn’t get hit through all this steel. over the walidr^ bridge co No. was pitch black ... in the head with anything, and 8®'*... There were high voids and 7.1 went info the second level Somebody I found this gentleman and we we just proceeded to get clob­ there were fires bumlag. or the main lobby and walked just simply held onto each other like U«le bered with all kinds of debris. They were giving us re­ down the escalator. shouted, and kids. Uy then we were cough­ It got very black. It got very ports that there were iwS A$ I was approaching the 1 luive no ing, vomiting spitting. It was quiet. It was very peacefully firefighters trapped below comer of West and Vesey, I idea who it just — we were trying to quiet: so {X'acehil that I them and a chief that was In heard over the radio that the vvas, ‘'it’s breathe... We found about thought I was dead. very bad shape. They’re also building was leaning. As I was blowing.” I five or six more people and we asking us to make sure res­ crossing West Street, that's had no clue held onto each other. Like little EMT Patrick Rkhuiw* cue was with us because when I beard that jet sound what was kids, we walked, as I found out When I came around the they needed special equip­ again, gOLDg on. I never turned later on. toward the water.. . . block, and this was —-1 don’t ment to get these guys out. I knew that the building around because a sound came Some of us fell down. We remember what time it was. But we were pretty much was coming down. I made it from somewhere that 1 never would pick each other up. It was just minutes before 1 carrying just about ourselves. about — somewhere between heard before. Some people After two women gave the World Trade Center fell. I because we were dropping West and North End there was compared it with an airplane. gtXHip some water, I irrigated made the turn and two guys tools as we were going be­ a fence, approximately, 1 guess, It was the worst sound of a my eyes because I had whatev­ were walking toward me and cause it was a tough cross* 200 feel or maybe 100 yards rolling sound, not a thunder. I er it wtK in my eyes and that I looked up and that’s when ing- away. I decided to use that as a can't explain it, what it was. made it even worse. Now I I saw One iWorldJTrade 1 spoke IO Lt. Jimmy McGlynn wall to protect myself from All I know is — and a force apparently created mud in my Center coming down. There from 39 Elaine. He said, ‘Glen, any debris, not knowing what started to come hit me in tny eyes. As I was told later on. we was no way to outrun World you’re never going to get them the extent of the magnitude back... I ran about 10,12 feet had granulated cement and jet Trade Center I from falling. out. We need air bags. We was going to be. up this little grassy hill and by foci mixture al! over our uni­ So me and the two guys laid except whai was right in half an hour, we baskally just jxxxl torches We need the I brought a couple of civil­ then this force and this sound forms and our bodies. on the ground. 1 laid on top front of your face, and every- popped out of the powder, and Hearst tool' I said, 'Jimmy, we ians down with me. a couple of caught up with me already. I of them ... One guy was a thing went so black that it five feet from where wo were, barely have a hook with us. firefighters. I brought them threw myself behind the last Stephen Gr^ory black guy in kind of a jump­ went from as if you shut all an R&T, a cop car, was de- We have a rope,' close to the ground. I covered suf^rt column of the pedestri­ Assstant Comnissioner suit and one guy was a busi­ thc lights off and closed your stroyed by an I-beam. So we “There were reports that tiiem with my turnout coat an overpass. It became pitch fa Cornmunicatkjns ness guy dressed in some­ eyes, it was that dark. It was got lucky with that. Mn^su we were missing, because the with me. I es^ntially waited dark. The sound got worse, the At that point in lime we heard thing else, Wc got buried hard to breathe. Tliat stuff, I walked them — we still last transmission 1 had given to and figured that was it, it was force just kept passing me. At a rumble, we heard a noise, under all the debris from 1 all that powder was getting couldn’t really sec. I had a in the battalion van. He said that. When we first did that, siren going off. but it was Chief Ferran was before we aJl over, because bf the proxim­ times I thought it was like an aitd then the building came World Trade Center and in our faces, your eyes burn- flashlight and we {ust started he’s going to ring bis siren. it sounded a mile away, but something enough to go. actually got to Picciotio. . . ity to where we were to where orange light maybe, coming down. All we saw was dust what was left of 6 Trade ing and everything else. walking to the side, and we We were operating on at least it was something to So every 20 minutes or so Ooce I got in the stair­ the building was. past me ... and everything just started to Center when they both came 1 would say maybe a half an walked info 3 financial build- channel Number 5, thank go on. he would again use this way, we couldn’t transmit It went down, got filled J was sitting with my left .side get very chaotic. down because they toppled hour we were under that rub- ing and we traced that to the God, because that's the only When wc removed some siren, and wc zeroed in on anymore. The radios weren’t with this dust and dirt, debris. toward the support beam, total At that point in rime all of us Into each other. I don’t know ble before we dug ourselves corner by touch because you way we were able to commu­ debris around the escalator, him. any good anymore. again, this cloud. I opened up darkness, total noise. 1 felt at the command post — fire­ how long we were under out, before we Ihoughl it was still couldn’t see anyrhing, nicate with him. Everyone we were able to go up Into From the time we our my eyes. It was total darkness beyond alone. I felt desolated, fighters, chiefs, myself — wc there. Everything went black OK. But when wc opened our made the turn onto Vesey, and else that was on 1, it was what was the eastern expo­ search with the siren, it was 1 guess for about two, three I felt like, all I could say was turned around, we started to and I felt stuff hitting me all eyes, 1 thought, jeez, now then all the way in the di.itance impossible to talk to any­ sure of the crater, where the probadaly an hour and a half to Fireftahter Michael Byrne minutes. 1 thought I guess this people think about their fami­ run south, down West Street over the place and they were we're in a cave. How the hell you could sec a dim, blinking body. center of the World Trade transver^ the crater arm with Engine S in Manhattan is wh.it it’s like to be dead.

I ’I lies and whatever. All I kept saying to myself, within me, ‘I don’t want to die, 1 don’t want to die, I don’t want to die’... toward Albany. Lookinfl back over my shoulder, I realized that I wasn’t able to outrun whatever was coming because screaming, I was screaming. everybody was yelling. Basi­ cally. it was so loud that you couldn't hear anything else am I going co get out of here? But .it was mostly debris and the powder. When we stood up after digging for about a red light... So I said 'head that way" because from behind us I heard a whole bunch of people, screaming. So 1 went back... He would hit the siren mode of this megaphone, and it sounded like a police car. It went 'WOO-WOO-WOO,’ like Center was. All it was was rubble. It was steel that had collapsed inward. We could barely hear this my whole group ofguys. We had guys around the top of the crater, on the ri^t side of the crater and Responded to Tower Ooe We got a report maybe 69th floor, 64th floor, partial collapse. After,that—there <. Then I heard a woman screaming next to me, and I said 1 guess we’re still all hero <A O >

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