Newspaper article on NYC Authority clean air projects in Queens,

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o o It was an a stay in here. o io Paramedic Loub Cook co CD OTsioi'T Advz:ii;sd life Support cowdiwtor I I O We walked up West Street northbound to the command post I remember looking to Bob^NOTb at the entrance to the runnel. Because my right and seeing an ^craft landi^ gear tire. We were zigz^mg through bodies and b^y parfs. I remember the 6^Cii. 20Mn Red ffoofe'^wMyn ‘ I was assigned to Lad^k? 101 tkal- we were ttere for a few ailnutes. we all got oaf of the rig and we were . . . Abc«ft8:30.wtt a<^p ofcof-' ■ ■standing there and we watched anoth- Iwntoaton'theapr^andkK^d. ' ■■ er planecorae in underneath the pill Hr I smell of it being like a butcher >saw-(JwrewflsactoudofsiTOte < '•'■••.■■. ■ ofsnioke Aar was coming out of the andsawOterewasacfoudofsirote? shop with all the bodies com^ftomovep'om tftteb^^i^' ' . ■first tower but obviously it v^red into around. I remember smej in Red Hook from the tower and it took another hit We that dUtifiCily... andafewotJwrmembmrafii^ioihfi , actually felt Mice a rumbling sensation We started walking acKMS roof and from there we wereai^tOseB over in BrooklyiL West Street to Tower One. I that the towers bad beeo hM afid tl^re One.ofthe members that we had remember a lot of debris falb wasfirelnit. workup with us that day was a detafi h^ from the southwest side, a I'm not really sure what dn» the first from ladder 118, Anthony Gonzalez. lot of fire coining down, a lot pl Wf so ws came downstairs and . The reason I mention Anthony Gonza- of parts, a lot of debris, bodies, a mile and a halffrom the site we Icz was ba:®i8e after the first imi some body parts. feh it was just a matte-" of ftme be we. . CdUed his wife and she was itt the south- ClifofB^ue asked me to find were ^ing to be sent over so we era tower. He said to her we haven’t anotter egress out of No, L He saying when are' they to call us and gone over there yet but we should be wanted me to find a safe way If I time went on and on oo and on and going over shortly and what you want to COtiJdgC’l civilians out. . . ' we kept saying who's going on the truck do is get omof that budding now and 2 was making a circle of the It turns (MU th^ did send a dd^ o^r to just be safe. So as we stood at the Br<x)k- loW?y... 2 made it up onto the companies here in Red Hook logo lyn Battery Tunnel entrance, we saw the tlui — 1 guess you call It the concourse level, the mezza­ nine level, and onto the foot bridge when I started to hear over to the staging area at die entrance to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel We were lined' up on Hamilton Avenue on the Manhattan bound side ■■ ■■ second plane hit and Anthony had his ceU phone with him and he c^ed his wife (who was in the tower) and of there was no answer. IIt — 1 thought I heard an eclo­ sion of some sort, but I kind of dismissed it. . . Fm the only one OU this bridge, Fm walking ;£ across It, and then 2 just re- member feeling a rumble and hearing this rumbling sound that was really intense, it actually shook my bones, . . Ever>lhing went black. Ail . e (he windows — because there are windows on both side.s of r 25^ this walkway —- started to implode in on me. and ceiling ss ■ tii^ — they had beautiful Iftil ceiling tiles in this thing. I APW<OX> think they were mosaics. . . A firefighter races up a stairwell of Tower One as workers try to flee the building aft^ American Airlines Right 11 struck It rat’ '■ ..i They just started falling on ’op of me. there were a couple of chiefs MASH unit, which they did an Thoma* FHipMHck could only assume that hun­ B f made it to about halfway. and a couple of ^ople yelling awesome job . . . Wc had Assistant Comrni»»iwr for Adminis- dreds of people were trapped and I couldn’t run anymore and screanung about fire over ^bulances lined up in rows trahoA top aide to Fire Commissioner because of all of this stuff there, secondary explosions and we were all waiting for TTiomas Von Esser Then the building [south hitting. I decided just to by and we stretched a line ofT a that call to go down there to There were a lot of bodies tower] started to come down, '•S'-. » L* gainst the column and just rig and started putting out save some fives, and that call coming down, but I didn't pay My initial reaction was that Imid on, because there was fires." never came. much attention to it For some this was exactly the way it I nowhere else to go. It was black 1 bad. . . some debris coming in the window oo me, and I just waited there tmdl it all stopped, which it EMT Michael Mcliai Balbi ion 4 In Manhattan As we are driving up Vesey past the Trade Center, we see That was die saddest thing about It. that with a job this size, this magnitude, I was saybg to myself there is going to be numerous injured and we reason I was more focused on the airplane parts until some­ body started pointing out the b€3dy parts . . . ' It was evident that we looks when they show you those implosions on TV . , , but the thing that woke every­ body up was the cloud of black material. It reminded me of Si IL Sml t II felt like forever, Once it alt a severed leg. We run over stopped, you couldn’t breathe that severed leg. . . When I are going to have to really depend on our skills, Not a weren’t going to be able to get to people above the fire. Based “ITse I'en Commandments"' when the green clouds come i:5' because all the dust. It seemed stop at West Street and Vesey. call. on the number of jumpers, we down on the street. . . to linger. It didn’t seem to a lieutenant was setting up the And (hen the second build­ J

settle. staging 2 gues.s for the ambu- ing came down, and they had :n2-r' • lacces. no place to go except into the FMMter Mkhaei Ite^jan Enga^ S in Manhattan We bad like three or four or five, maybe five, patients. Two water, over the railing. As you got further north, you could r '>*

We started hearing Maydays and everything over the radio. Guys belt® stuck. We heard guys screaming, they were of them were walking wound­ ed. I think two or three of ±cm were burned, se^nd-de- gree burns. see that they were getting hit by the cloud. Some people were trying to get into boats S; I ■>«

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jrtuck under riga. We weren’t ... The north tower started The reason I knew the sec­ S sure what was going on at the collapsing. U tipped down first ond buiMing was gone because i 5’ time. People started screaming and running towards us that the second building was com- and then the thmg fell within itself. It was an amazing sight to see. It was really unbeliev­ able. 1 thought I was watching the smoke drifted for a second, and die sunlight came through and 2 knew it wasn’t an opdcal Is IT

ing down. We were tu^ware that the first building even came down. Wc didn’t hear a movie with sp«:ial effects Chief CarniMjuillo told US .1.0 illusion, it was just gone. Flrefi^ht«r John Snow E«®r» Z1 in Manhattan ■ i i isfi anything over the radio on it ^10 Chelsea. As we are driv­ ing up West Street <o go to went into the north' tower. By tfen I guess it was 1 ri I t

As eveiybody was running Clielsea, we are picking up all really bad on the upper Boors. RWR ill towards us, we waited for the kinds of medical personnel because we iwren’t inside the I'l I doud to disperse a little bit I was giving oxygen to peopte that were gasping for air. when we finally got io tiiere, who were walid^ because everybody got evacuated to there, so we could set up a staging and a triage and a *f» Z Grm IMAGES PHOTO A firefighter rests during search efforts two days after attack. lobby long before they started jumping. You could bear the tremendous sounds, hitring the concrete. 'Y- K 11 a