U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS Remembering Sept. 11, 2001

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS Vol. 35 No. 8 September 2011

Remembering Sept. 11, 2001

USACE took part in history

N.Y. District’s finest hour

Pentagon survivors tell their stories

Power troops in NYC

Flight 93 Memorial

Hole in my heart

ENGINEER UPDATE is an unofficial publication under the provisions of AR 360-1. It is published monthly by offset for the Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Editorial views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Corps of Engineers or the Department of the Army. Letters to the editor are encouraged.

Deadline for submitting articles is the 15th of the month preceding publication. Subscriptions are available free of charge but must be requested in writing. Circulation: 35,000.

Address mail to: EDITOR, ENGINEER UPDATE, CEPA-C, Washington, D.C. 20314-1000. Telephone (202) 761-4285. Photographs are U.S. Army photos unless otherwise credited. Available on the internet at www.usace.army.mil.

Acting Commander, USACE .............Maj. Gen. Merdith W. B. TempleChief, Public Affairs .................................................W. Curry GrahamEditor .........................................................................Bernard W. TateDesigner....................................................................Wendy L. Medlin

2 ENGINEER UPDATE U . S . A r m y C o r p s o f E n g i n e e r s

We all remember where we were on Sept. 11, 2001

Insights

By Col. Gary SextonChaplain, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

(This is Col. Gary Sexton’s final “Insights” column. Many thanks for his contributions to the “Engineer Update,” and best of luck in his retirement.)

Each of us has a mental archive recording key events in our lives and our nation’s history. Depending on our ages, I warrant that most of us knew exactly where we were when President Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated; when Elvis Presley died; when the space shuttle Challenger exploded and when the O.J. Simpson verdict was announced.

The biggest events that have been seared into our memories in recent history were when the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked, and brave passen-gers subdued terrorists aboard United Airlines Flight 93.

I was standing in a colleague’s home at the U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School at Fort Jackson, S.C. Her small television was tuned to one of the news channels and I distinctly remember the shock and dismay when we saw a commandeered airplane crash into the second tower. I said the first thing that came to mind: “The world just changed today.”

We are reminded of that fateful day every time we re-move our shoes at an airport before boarding our flights. For 10 years, America has been learning the lessons known by other countries such as Israel concerning ter-rorists. Many of us have children who have lived never knowing an America that was not under threat.

The events of Sept. 11, 2001, have left us with many questions. We may wonder what kind of world our children and grandchildren will inherit. We may be examining our deepest attitudes toward various faith groups and our willingness to embrace our neighbors of those groups. Many Americans experienced a powerful sense of patriotism and committed themselves to military service, with many giving life and limb in the war on terrorism.

One story of the Ground Zero restoration project that spoke to me involved the recovery of two girders that were attached to one another in the shape of a cross. This cross stood on the rubble of the recovery site each day and reminded many of the necessity of hope in the face of adversity.

This cross was recently lowered into the museum site for all visitors to see. It seemed to proclaim the impor-tance of faith and resolve in the midst of disaster. It conveys a simple message of God’s love for His people and the extent to which He was willing to go to express that love.

This powerful message was lived by hundreds of first responders who risked their lives to save their neighbors.

These brave men and women lived out the spiritual principle, “Greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his friend.”

In the book of First Samuel we see the prophet Samuel marking a victory of the Israelites over their constant enemies, the Philistines. “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up…he named it Ebenezer, saying ‘Thus far has the Lord helped us.’” (1 Samuel 7:12)

Just as the Ebenezer stone evoked memories of God’s actions and purposes for His people, our remembrance of Sept. 11, 2001, can inspire each of us to look back over the past 10 years to see how God has moved in each of our lives, especially as it has made us more aware of His presence and power in the midst of tragedy.

As we remember and reflect on the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, may we individually purpose in our own hearts to be living monuments to the sacrifices and losses of that day by committing ourselves afresh to the values and principles that have made America a bastion of hope and promise for so many.

(The opinions in this article are those of the writer and do not reflect the office policy or position of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of the Army, the De-partment of Defense, or the U.S. government.)

IN THIS ISSUEPage 3 USACE was only Army command with 9-11 missions

Page 5 N.Y. District’s worst day, finest hour

Page 7Pentagon survivorstell their stories

Page 11USACE boat operations on 9-11

Page 12Public affairs mission is untold 9-11 story

Page 14249th troops powered NYC financial district

Page 15Honoring the heroes of Flight 93

Page 16Rememberingthe World Trade Center and 9-11

Cover PhotoThe loss of the World Trade Center left a gap in the Manhattan skyline. (USACE Photo by Michael Beaird)

This cross-shaped piece of debris was found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

Photo courtesy of the 9/11 Museum website

B U I L D I N G S T R O N G September 2011 3

Rescue and recovery were the Corps of Engineers top priorities at the World Trade Center site after 9-11.

Photo courtesy of New York District

USACE was only Army command with 9-11 missionsBy John LonnquestOffice of History

In 1882, Congress authorized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide disas-ter relief to flood victims, and since then USACE has rendered aid in the aftermath of hundreds of floods, hurricanes, earth-quakes and tornadoes. However, despite more than a century of experience in deal-ing with tragedy, both USACE and the na-tion struggled to come to grips with the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Ultimately, USACE would be the only Army major command with boots-on-the-ground missions in the wake of 9-11.

On that bright, clear September morn-ing, terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners. They crashed two planes into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and later flew a third aircraft into the Pentagon. The fourth hijacked aircraft crashed near Shanksville, Pa., forced to the ground as the passengers fought with terrorists for control of the aircraft. In all, nearly 3,000 people perished in the attacks.

ReactionsNews of the attacks spread quickly to

USACE officials. Col. John O’Dowd, the New York District commander at the time, was holding a meeting in his office a half-mile from the World Trade Center when he saw a plane flying low over Manhattan. Forty-five seconds later he heard an explo-sion and the Federal Building shuddered when the first plane hit.

At USACE Headquarters, Lt. Gen. Robert Flowers, chief of engineers at the time, was addressing a gathering of retirees when an aide handed him a note telling him that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. Flowers immediately ended the briefing and strode directly to the Emergency Operations Center.

Brig. Gen. Stephen Rhoades, command-er of North Atlantic Division (NAD) at the time, was driving to a dredging con-ference in Atlantic City when he learned of the attack. He quickly headed back to New York City and, finding the bridges and tunnels into the city closed, took a boat into lower Manhattan.

Arriving at the World Trade Center complex in late morning, Rhoades was the first Army official on the scene. In a call to the chief of engineers, Rhoades compared the devastation at the World Trade Center

to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Rhoades told Flowers that the attacks would war-rant a massive federal response.

MobilizationSoon after the towers collapsed, New

York District evacuated its offices in the Javitz Building. The NAD commander declared New York a victim district and turned to the New England and Philadel-phia districts for support.

At the same time, USACE began mo-bilizing its emergency response resources. The afternoon of the attack, USACE sent its Deployable Tactical Operations Cen-ters (DTOCs) to New York City, and at the same time began mobilizing its debris, search and rescue, and structural subject matter experts for deployment.

That evening, Tom Creamer, head of NAD’s operations, readiness, and regu-latory functions, huddled with Rhoades to plan the division’s response. The two men agreed that the division needed to define its response organization; main-tain its relationship with its customer, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); augment its communication ca-pability; and work with the news media.

The PentagonMeanwhile, the Engineer Company

of the Military District of Washington (MDW) was at the Pentagon. Specialists in collapsed building rescue, the MDW Engineer Company arrived at the Penta-gon in the early afternoon of Sept. 11 and spent the next 10 days searching for survi-vors, shoring up the building, and remov-ing debris.

Several days later, the 249th Engi-neer Battalion (Prime Power) sent two 500-kilowatt low-voltage generators to the Pentagon to provide power for relief oper-ations. The 249th is the only prime power generation unit in the U.S. Army, and the only active-duty unit assigned to USACE.

People deployGetting relief workers to New York City

proved difficult because commercial avia-tion was grounded for several days after the attack.

For debris subject matter expert Allen Morse, a plane from Mississippi Valley Di-vision picked him up in the Virgin Islands and flew him to New York City. Many other USACE personnel drove to New York.

Ultimately, USACE provided rescue and structural engineers to monitor the debris pile and the condition of surrounding buildings during search and rescue opera-tions at Ground Zero. Five debris plan-ning and response teams that monitored the debris removal effort helped staff the Disaster Field Office at Pier 90, and later helped coordinate debris management op-erations at the Staten Island Landfill.

Debris missionAt the height of its operations in New

York City, more than 300 USACE person-nel were engaged in relief operations after the terrorist attacks. The largest mission was coordinating the removal and inspec-tion of 1.6 million tons of debris from the World Trade Center. Initially, the city be-gan removing the debris by truck, but later elected to transport it by barge to its Staten Island Landfill.

But transporting the debris to Staten Island was only the first step of an ardu-ous process. Unlike the vegetative and

construction debris typically produced by a natural disaster, the debris removed from the World Trade Center site was part of an ongoing criminal investigation that involved dozens of federal, state and local government agencies. So all of the debris coming to Staten Island had to be carefully examined for human remains, personal ef-fects and other evidence related to the at-tacks.

Within days of the attack, a joint task force of New York City Police Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation per-sonnel began inspecting the debris at the landfill. When the task force found that it could not inspect the 3,000 to 5,000 tons of debris that were arriving every day from Manhattan, it asked FEMA for help, and in early October FEMA turned to USACE.

Fortunately, USACE leaders had antici-pated such a request and in late September had requested that Phillips and Jordan, a Knoxville-based debris management con-

Continued on page 4


Continued from page 3

9-11 Missionstractor, come to Staten Island to observe operations at the site. Consequently, when the FEMA tasking came, USACE and its contractor were ready to assist.

ForensicsPhillips and Jordan and the Corps quickly helped

streamline and mechanize the debris inspection program. Operations at the landfill ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and inspectors ultimately examined 1.6 million tons of debris. During that process, police officers recov-ered 90,000 pieces of personal property along with suf-ficient human remains to identify 150 victims.

“The Corps’ work at the Staten Island Landfill was the organization’s greatest contribution to the Sept. 11 recov-ery effort,” said Maj. Gen. Robert Griffin, director of Civil Works at the time.

Deficits…In the summer of 2002, soon after the Corps completed

relief operations in New York, USACE conducted after action reviews to access the effectiveness of its efforts. USACE review teams found room for improvement:

• Communications difficulties hampered the early stages of the relief operations.

• Many USACE emergency operations centers (EOC), staffed primarily to handle natural disas-ters, had difficulty handling the classified message traffic generated by the attacks.

• A number of EOCs lacked sufficient staff to operate 24 hours a day for an extended period of time.

…and successesBut on a larger scale, the Corps’ response to the Sept. 11

attacks also confirmed the strength and resilience of the Corps’ emergency management framework. Historically, during the past century, the Corps’ nationwide network of districts and divisions has always provided USACE with a local presence that few other federal agencies could match, and the attacks in New York confirmed that again.

The Deployable Tactical Operations System provided communications facilities for rescue workers near Ground Zero.

Photo courtesy of the Office of History

For example, New York District has a large civil works program, so district personnel were intimately familiar with the geography of the city and had strong working relationships with city and state officials. Consequent-ly, when New York City needed engineering support, it could turn to USACE, an organization that it had worked with for decades.

USACE also had considerable success anticipating its customers’ requirements to speed relief to the affected ar-eas. Maj. Gen. Carl Strock, director of Military Programs at the time, said that emergency response “goes back to that business of getting on the ground, seeing what needs to be done, and then calling in the assets rather than ex-pecting people to understand on their own what you can do for them and ask you to do it. So I think that was a big lesson learned for me. Ride to the sound of the guns and push support. Don’t wait to be pulled in.”

Readiness 2000The Corps’ response to the events of Sept. 11 also owed

much of its success to the changes implemented in its emergency operations program in the late 1990s. The ini-tiative, called “Readiness 2000,” reconfigured the Corps’ emergency management community from district-cen-tered resources to a single corporate concept of operations based on shared planning and response capabilities.

Notable Readiness 2000 initiatives included:• Formation of planning response teams (PRT),• Centralized emergency management training,• Development of the DTOS,• Development and awarding of pre-negotiated con-

tracts for most USACE emergency operation mis-sions.

These initiatives stood USACE in good stead after Sept. 11. The debris PRTs helped coordinate the removal and inspection of literally a mountain of debris, Deployable Tactical Operations Centers provided desperately needed command and control facilities to the New York City fire-fighters, and Phillips and Jordan used its Advanced Con-tracting Initiative contract to quickly supply crucial debris management expertise.

Change in postureThe attacks of Sept. 11 also marked a pronounced shift

in the Corps’ emergency response posture. Lt. Col. Ger-ry Mahaffee, director of the USACE Operations Center (UOC) at the time, noted that before Sept. 11 the Corps’ emergency operations community focused largely on nat-ural disasters. That changed after Sept. 11. After the ter-rorist attacks, USACE acquired a significant contingency operations mission, and in the words of the UOC direc-tor, “I don’t think we can ever go back.”

PerspectiveAs USACE and the nation approaches the 10th anniver-

sary of the Sept. 11 attacks, much has changed since that bright September morning. The nation has gone to war twice, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, and thousands of USACE employees have volunteered to participate in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reconstruction operations in those countries.

Emergency operations have continued, notably respons-es to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005, the earthquake in Haiti, and the widespread flooding along the Missis-sippi and Missouri rivers earlier this year.

Yet despite different missions and locations, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers response has always been the same, Essayons, “Let Us Try.”

(John Lonnquest is the chief historian of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.)


At the Staten Island Landfill, crews used mechanized equipment to in-spect debris from the World Trade Center.

Tons of supplies are loaded on the Hayward for transport to the firefighters at Ground Zero.



By Vincent EliasNew York District

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City was one of the most tragic days in American history, and altered the path of world events. The attacks claimed thousands of lives and reduced the towers to rubble. Fifteen million square feet of office and retail space were lost, and another 17 million square feet were lost in nearby damaged buildings.

It was a time when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers drew on the full resources of its eight divisions, dozens of districts, labs and centers, and performed crucial missions to help the citizens of New York City. USACE played key roles in using workboats to shuttle stranded personnel from Manhattan, working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on the ground at Ground Zero, and managing the removal of debris and the landfill mission.

For New York District, 9-11 was particularly harrowing because the district’s main offices are in the Javits Federal Building at 26 Federal Plaza mere blocks from the World Trade Center complex. After the attacks, the Javits Build-ing became inaccessible and remained closed until late September. This prompted the commanding general of North Atlantic Division (NAD) to declare New York Dis-trict a victim district. The initial emergency response and recovery assignment went to New England District, based just outside of Boston. The New England District com-mander was designated the NAD commander (forward) who acted as division leader on the ground, and estab-lished an emergency office to accommodate requirements by FEMA, New York City and New York State.

Joseph Seebode, deputy district engineer, was the official USACE liaison to the City of New York and assisted with coordinating with various city, state and federal agencies to provide USACE capabilities both locally and around the country to support response and recovery efforts.

“I remain extremely proud of USACE and my New York District colleagues for the valiant engagement in the minutes and hours immediately following the tragedy,” Seebode said. “The USACE team responded as I knew they would, rescuing and evacuating people with USACE vessels, supporting rescue and recovery operations, and deploying professionals who hit the ground running and were instrumental in assisting with the logistics for debris management, inspection and control.

“Within a few days of 9-11, we had well over 100 USACE experts in New York working on rescue and re-covery operations,” Seebode added. “Our people showed the true meaning of esprit de corps, and I’m proud of our response and our efforts in a time when the nation needed us most.”

Seebode, who was on a PATH train heading into the World Trade Center Complex when the first plane struck, said that 10 years later he still remains personally affected by what he witnessed on Sept. 11, 2001.

“I still find it hard to comprehend the magnitude of this tragedy and I feel a deep sadness whenever I think back to that day,” he said. “I watched people perish, innocent people who had reported to work on 9-11 like any other day. I’ll never forget what I saw, and it still hurts.”

Emergency transportAmid the chaos, USACE boat crews from its Caven

Point marine facility in New Jersey shuttled thousands of stranded citizens on their vessels across the Hudson River

out of Manhattan. On the return journeys, they trans-ported emergency personnel into Manhattan supplying fireboat and fire truck crews with necessary fuel, food and water that enabled emergency responders to remain on station.

In a few days, an emergency operations center was run-ning at Pier 90 on Manhattan’s west side. In the days and weeks that followed, New York District reconstitut-ed itself to carry out its regular missions, as well as as-sist with ongoing emergency operations, like organizing the removal of debris from Ground Zero to the Staten Island landfill, and overseeing the inspection of the debris. Other New York District personnel worked from satellite offices awarding and closing critical year-end contracts.

Robert Goldfarb, chief of Logistics Management, and his staff were relentless in providing supplies and com-puter equipment, enabling USACE personnel to function while working at the satellite offices.

“Arrangements were made to transport employees from transportation hubs to Fort Hamilton,” Goldfarb said. “Motor pool vehicles were prepositioned away from 26 Federal Plaza for employees to continue their missions. Additional cell phones were procured for employees, and Logistics Office staff transported personnel to and from the FEMA Emergency Operations Center.”

FEMA supportMore than 140 USACE personnel from around the na-

tion deployed to New York City to support the mission, including initiation of an emergency support function cell to interface with FEMA. The cell was part of the federal response plan and involved developing mission assign-ments and execution strategies to assist FEMA.

There was an enormous amount of smoldering debris in a relatively small area of Lower Manhattan called the “red zone,” a restricted 12-square-block area from Canal Street to Battery Park. More than 1,000 workers, 240 trucks, 70 barges and 260 pieces of heavy equipment removed debris from Ground Zero around the clock.

USACE emergency personnel worked with personnel from various federal agencies in the days following the at-tacks. Wayne Stroupe of the Engineer Research and De-velopment Center caught the first commercial flight out of Jackson, Miss., following the attack.

“The work was non-stop with long days; you finally just burned out after a couple of weeks,” Stroupe said. “I met heroes every day from around USACE and other agencies that were doing their jobs as part of the team effort. I bumped into many of these USACE professionals later in Iraq and on hurricane deployments. I’m always amazed at the professionalism, wide range of expertise, and dedica-tion that USACE personnel have to get the job done and the mission completed.”

The New York Fire Department’s tactical and communi-cation vehicles were destroyed when the towers collapsed, so USACE mobilized two Deployed Tactical Operations Centers (DTOCs) to provide command and control for the fire department.

USACE also mobilized DTOC team members, and two self-contained Rapid Response Vehicles (RRV) packed with communications and computer equipment. USACE and FEMA used the DTOCs and RRVs to form a linked communications network throughout the area surround-ing Ground Zero.

Electrical powerThe 249th Engineer Battalion (Prime Power) was called

to assist with power restoration. The unit, which deploys following natural and manmade disasters to provide elec-tricity, deployed 31 Soldiers to install 50 1,500-kilowatt generators supplied by New York City. Five Prime Power Soldiers worked directly with electrical utility personnel from New York City’s power company, Con Edison, and installed two generators in Lower Manhattan and provid-ed power for buildings in the Civic Center and financial district on Wall Street. They also installed generators to power medical triage facilities and transient housing.


USACE drew upon the full resources of its eight divisions and 41 districts, labs, and centers dur-ing the 9-11 response in New York City.

Continued on page 6

N.Y. District’s worst day, finest hour


More than 1,000 workers, 240 trucks, 70 barges and 260 pieces of heavy equipment worked around the clock to remove debris from the World Trade Center site.


Continued from page 5N.Y. DistrictDebris removal

One of the most challenging missions was removing an estimated 1.6 million tons of debris from the World Trade Center site. Transporting such a large amount of debris through one of the busiest cities in the world was ultimately an impossible task. It had to be done by boat.

In less than two days dredging began in the Hudson River to accommodate barges removing debris from Manhattan. USACE personnel worked with federal re-sponse teams and debris removal experts to develop debris removal plans. Federal Emergeny Management Agency officially assigned the debris removal mission to USACE Oct. 1, 2001, to operate the Staten Island landfill to dis-pose of World Trade Center debris.

USACE assembled a nationwide project delivery team of experts from Baltimore, Norfolk and New England districts; various federal and city agencies; and contractor Phillips & Jordan (P&J) responsible for transporting tons of debris from Manhattan to the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. The mission partners included FEMA and New York City. Under the mission, P&J managed con-tractors working at the landfill.

The debris was mainly structural. All structural steel debris went to two salvage yards for recycling. The rest was transported to the landfill site. Managing the landfill presented unique challenges because it was considered the biggest crime scene in history due to the presence of hu-man remains and potential evidence related to the attacks.

Tom Harnedy, now with North Atlantic Division, was New York District’s chief of the Construction Manage-ment Section at the time, and was involved in the ‘round-the-clock operation.

“Working the World Trade Center debris recovery mis-sion at the Fresh Kills Landfill was a challenging experi-ence for me both professionally and personally,” Harnedy said. “As a Staten Islander who witnessed the tragedy, and having family friends who lost loved ones, I became very aware of the sensitivity of the work U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was accomplishing in support of the recovery, and the importance of my role as the contract manager for USACE in this effort.

“I had served in difficult assignments before, but not in one that was essentially a fast-paced contingency opera-tion with so much visibility and exposure among other agencies and the public,” Harnedy said. “At the end of the physical operations in 2002, and although it was the result of dealing with tragic circumstances, I truly felt my contributions and those of my teammates were absolutely critical to the operation running smoothly, including an atmosphere of dignity and respect.”

The 10-month effort at the Staten Island landfill ended July 15, 2002 as hundreds of people assembled for the closing ceremony.

MappingFollowing 9-11, New York City and FEMA used the

Corps’ Geographic Information System (GIS) expertise in many ways. These ranged from computer-generated maps showing potential hazards and buried fires, to emergency personnel working in the rubble, to assessing how much debris remained and the best routes to remove it.

Stephen McDevitt, a geographer with New York Dis-trict’s Planning Division and coordinator for the Enter-prise Geographic Information Systems, is now an action officer for the Corps’ National GIS Cadre.

“I received information in an e-mail message that there was an immediate requirement for GIS data by the Corps’ first responders and FEMA,” he said. “The system data was essential for mapping New York City, and capturing data and displaying geographic information.”

After retrieving the GIS data from 26 Federal Plaza, McDevitt provided it to FEMA. Other USACE GIS specialists such as Kevin Carlock of Rock Island District and Eric Morrison of Omaha District augmented FEMA along with McDevitt, and also provided GIS support to the New York City GIS teams at Piers 92 and 93 in Man-hattan.

“Emergency responders used GIS to get critical infor-mation to incident responders and allowed personnel to effectively assist with emergency response, and deter-mine mitigation priorities,” McDevitt said. “GIS allowed FEMA and all responders to understand and visualize data with maps. Getting the geography and maps created swiftly and accurately was critical. The maps enabled the debris and recovery workers to rapidly access geospatial data that helped them.”

StructuresUSACE structures specialists helped the urban search

and rescue teams search for survivors buried beneath the debris. While firemen and police sifted through the mountain of wreckage, USACE structures specialists from as far away as San Francisco District monitored hazards and performed safety analyses to mitigate the hazards as-sociated with the search and rescue operations.

Support from the structures specialists ranged from providing daily multi-level World Trade Center collapse pattern maps to firefighters to assist their search efforts, to assessing the structural damage to nearby buildings and keeping a constant eye on them for signs that they could collapse.

USACE structural experts also worked closely with local partners to constantly keep tabs on the the World Trade Center complex’s subterranean “slurry wall” foundation, which held back water from the Hudson River. Struc-tural specialists regularly inspected the wall and worked to prevent it from collapsing. This was especially important as the debris removal mission ramped up and more heavy equipment was used.

AftermathDisaster preparedness is critical, and USACE continues

to accomplish this mission by building additional more strength in planning, response teams, subject matter ex-perts, team leaders and other key assets. USACE is stron-ger in several areas since 9-11 and has trained more volun-teers to respond to disasters.

New York District distinguished itself in many ways after 9-11. It reconstituted itself in very difficult circum-stances. Despite inadequate office space, and a lack of communication and computers, it successfully completed work on tens of millions of dollars worth of contracts before the end of the fiscal year. They oversaw the ex-traordinary debris inspection and removal operation at the landfill, which safely and efficiently processed thou-sands of tons of rubble, inspecting the tiniest fragments for criminal evidence and human remains.

In every respect, by resuming its daily activities and pressing on with the projects and programs of USACE, New York District personnel made vital contributions to the recovery of lower Manhattan and the recuperation of the nation.


By Bernard TateHeadquarters

Only a few people can tell us what really happened on Sept. 11, 2001. The terrorist attacks that day affected ev-eryone in America, but only a relative few were actually at the sites when the attacks occurred.

The Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 are often overshadowed by the raw drama of two airliners crashing into the World Trade Center, the Twin Towers’ collapse, and the sheer number of casualties. But there were about 22,000 people in the Pentagon on 9-11, and four of them now work in the Headquarters of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

For them, 9-11 is more than just the biggest news story in recent history. It is part of their lives.

An ordinary dayLike everyone else in America, Sept. 11, 2001 began

like any other day.Karen. “I’m almost positive I was running late that

day,” said Karen Baker, assistant director of Military Pro-grams. On 9-11, she was a public affairs specialist in the Media Relations Division of the Office of the Chief of Public Affairs. “I remember being a little rushed, like any day commuting in D.C.”

John. “That was my first day of work in the Penta-gon, and I was really excited to be there,” said John Hoff-

man, a visual information specialist. At the time he was an Army specialist (E-4) multimedia illustrator assigned to the Graphics Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Military Intelligence. “At the time, our offices were in Arlington, Va., and we were waiting for the renovation of Wedge One so we could move back into the Pentagon.

“So on Sept. 11, I drove to the Huntington Metro Sta-tion and went to the Pentagon,” Hoffman said. “I met Jim and Gene, the two civilians I was working with, and we went to the conference room to set up plasma-screen TVs and equipment for video teleconferencing.”

Roberta. Roberta Crissy was a lieutenant colonel working for the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel (DC-SPER). She was in charge of the officer command and school boards.

“I came to work and, first thing, my senior supervisor needed to see me,” said Crissy, now chief of Military Per-sonnel. “Col. Knoblock called me in and said that Lt. Gen. Maude wanted to see us that afternoon, and we needed to get on his calendar. I told him I had staff call with my boss, and after that I would schedule us on his calendar. (Editor’s note: Lt. Gen. Timothy Maude was the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, and the highest ranking military officer killed on 9-11.)

TelevisionThe three women found out about the 9-11 attacks the

Firefighters battle the blaze after American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. Pieces of the fuselage litter the foreground.Photo from Wikipedia

‘A massive explosion.It slammed right

through you.’Pentagon survivors

tell their stories

same way everyone else did. They saw it on television.Karen. “I was working media relations, so the national

news was constantly running on monitors in our office,” Baker said. “Suddenly people were drawn to the TV when the first plane hit the Twin Towers, and there was a lot of speculation about whether this was an accident. I might have had my head down working on something, but there was a very audible reaction when the second plane hit, and we realized this was something big.”

Roberta. “I worked with a warrant officer, and he came in and said the Twin Towers had been hit by a plane,” Crissy said. “He was always a joker and I said, ‘Bill, that’s not funny.’ And he said ‘No, it’s true.’ So my coworker, Karen Wagner, and I went to our general’s office, because he had a TV, and we watched for a few minutes to see what was happening.”

CountdownAbout 35 minutes elapsed between the time that the

second jetliner struck the World Trade Center and Ameri-can Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. Baker, Hoff-man and Crissy remember exactly what they did as the minutes ran out.

Roberta. “We watched TV for a few minutes to see what was happening with the Twin Towers,” Crissy said. “I told Karen, ‘I have a lot of work to do. I’m going back

Continued on page 8


Karen BakerPhoto by John Hoffman, ACE-IT

to my desk.’ So we went back to our desks and we were working. Our boss, Phil Smith, said that the Army Op-erations Center was standing up, and he told Maj. Linda Herbert to go to the AOC.

“I said ‘I need a classified document from there, and if it gets too busy I’ll never be able to get it. So I’ll come with you,” Crissy said. “So we left our desks, and I ran into Col. Knoblock. I said, ‘Sir, I still need to see Lt. Gen. Maude and get on his calendar.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry; I already done that. We’ll see him at 3:30 this afternoon.’ So Linda and I left for the Army Operations Center.”

Karen. “We realized this was going to be a busy news day for us,” Baker said. “One of my closest friends, Elaine Kanellis, worked a few desks away. We looked at each other and said, ‘Well, time to go get some coffee. We need to steel ourselves for the day.’”

John. “I was going to take a break, go out to the court-yard and have an early morning cigarette,” Hoffman said. “My friend Jim said, ‘Wait a moment and we’ll get a do-nut and some coffee and go to the courtyard together.’ I think that’s the single most important moment of my life. If I had left then, if I had gone the way I planned, I wouldn’t be here.”

No inklingThere seemed to be almost no thought that the Penta-

gon might be a target.Roberta. “There was no inkling whatsoever in our

group that the Pentagon would be hit,” Crissy said. “We were still shocked that someone would fly into the World Trade Center.”

John. “We were clueless,” Hoffman said. “We didn’t have a radio or TV in the conference room where we were working. So we didn’t know about the attacks on the World Trade Center.”

Karen. “Elaine was nine months pregnant, and on our way out her team leader said, ‘You need to get out of here,’” Baker said. “And we thought that was hysterical. We said, ‘We’re in the safest building in the world, and it’s going to be a busy day. Why should we leave? We’re just going to get coffee and get back to work.’ So we just

Continued from page 5Pentagon laughed that off.”

Then the jetliner struck.

ImpactRoberta. “It felt like the Pentagon had been bombed,”

Crissy said. “The ceiling fell, and the windows were break-ing, and it got pitch-black. Linda and I got down flat on the floor and laid there for a few seconds. Then someone yelled, ‘Get out of the building!’

“So we got up, and we were trying to find a way out because it was pitch-black,” Crissy said. “The whole way out Linda was repeating the Lord’s Prayer. We were hand-in-hand, and it was dark, and other people were trying to get out, too. We hit a wall; I guess one of those firewalls that close automatically in the Pentagon. So we turned around and went downstairs and got out to Ground Zero, the center court of the Pentagon.”

Later Crissy learned what happened in the office she had left moments before.

“The airplane came in right under our office,” she said. “The whole floor buckled, all the furniture fell over, and it was pitch-black. We had two doors, and the primary door was blocked but the back door was clear. One of my coworkers made it to the back door. He could hear Karen and Bill, and he tried to direct them out. But eventually he didn’t hear them any more.”

Hoffman and his coworkers were about 100 feet from the point of impact.

John. “We were putting equipment into this big rack, probably 1,500 pounds of equipment,” Hoffman said. “I was standing behind the rack, holding a drawer as Jim screwed it in from the other side, and there was a massive explosion. You felt it more than you heard it. It slammed right through you. The room went dark and the ceiling tiles and frame fell down on us. It was chaotic, like a bomb went off.”

Karen. “We were walking back from the coffee shop talking, and we heard this very loud noise,” Baker said. “To me, it sounded like a thud. We really didn’t grasp the seriousness at first because there were carts driving through the Pentagon all the time, and I thought somebody had hit a wall. Then we realized the noise wasn’t stopping, and we thought it was a bomb. We found out later that what we heard was probably a wing of the jetliner ripping through the building. We immediately dumped every-thing in our hands and started moving.

“It was scary, but people didn’t panic,” Baker said. “That’s one of the great things about working with the military. When something like that happens, they just start moving.”

Tesia. “We were watching the news in the Media Rela-tions Division, and it sounded as if a bomb hit the Pen-tagon,” said Tesia Williams, a public affairs specialist in Headquarters. On 9-11 she was a public affairs intern finishing her Pentagon rotation. “We looked around in shock. We were close enough to the impact to hear a loud boom, and there was some vibration. Ceiling tiles didn’t fall, but there was vibration.

“So we gathered our belongings and left,” Williams said. “I don’t remember any kind of alarm. There was definitely no loud ringing or lights flashing or any type of warning that I would think we’d have in the Pentagon. But, of course, we knew to evacuate.”

EscapeAll four people left by different routes and came out in

different places.Roberta. “We were in the center courtyard for a few

minutes, and we could see the huge cloud of smoke,” Crissy said. “Then someone said ‘There’s another plane

coming toward the Pentagon. We have to get out of here.’“So we left Ground Zero, ran through the Pentagon,

and out into the parking lot,” Crissy said. “Then the po-lice told us, ‘You have to go to the other side of I-395 be-cause it’s not safe here. So we crossed I-395, and everyone started toward the Residence Inn. Most of that afternoon I sat in the Residence Inn with a lot of other people. The hotel staff brought in phones so we could call our families and let them know we were OK.

“A friend picked me up and drove me home about two that afternoon,” Crissy said. “So I got home and started getting phone calls. People in my office were missing and their family members were asking, ‘I haven’t heard from Bill,’ or ‘I haven’t heard from Karen.’

“I told them, ‘It’s a confusing day, people are scattered. I don’t know where they are, but I’m sure they’re OK.’

“I called Col. Knoblock to tell him I was OK and that people were asking me a lot of questions,” Crissy said. “He said, ‘Roberta, don’t say anything, because a lot of people have been killed.’ And I realized, ‘Oh my God. We were right there.’

“So that was 9-11 for me,” Crissy said. “I spent a lot of that afternoon and evening talking to my family, telling them I was OK.”

Tesia. “After we grabbed our things, no one ran. Just a brisk walk,” Williams said. “We exited through the River Entrance of the Pentagon. Once we crossed the through-way, we could see the smoke over the Pentagon. We were all wondering what happened, because at that point we weren’t sure. Then we started piecing things together. We saw fuselage on the ground, we saw injured people run-ning down the throughway, we saw the smoke, and we had seen planes hit the World Trade Center. So we pieced together what happened.

“We were standing not far from the Pentagon, near a tree by the throughway,” Williams said. “A couple of min-utes later we saw folks running down the road, and we wondered why they were running. And then they started waving at us, telling us to run. Apparently, there was word that another plane was coming.

“And so we began to run,” Williams said. “To be hon-est, I don’t know where we were running to. It wasn’t as if there was a place to find cover. So we just ran. Once we

John HoffmanPhoto courtesy of John Hoffman, ACE-IT


realized nothing was going to happen, we stood in place and began to ensure that everyone was safe.

“A little while after that, we were told go home,” Wil-liams said. “So I and Connie Gillette and another intern walked to the Metro Station at Arlington National Cem-etery. The Metro came, and it was packed full of people. The passengers were in shock. They were staring at us, we were staring at them. We pushed our way onto the Metro, but it was totally quiet -- eerily quiet for the Metro.

“Before I got off, Connie hugged me and said, ‘Every-thing’s going to be alright. We’re going to get through this,’” Williams said. “I finally got home that afternoon, just exhausted. I talked to my parents and let them know I was safe.”

John. “I had a book of matches in my pocket, and I pulled it out and struck a match so Jim and Gene could find their tool kits,” Hoffman said. “They got their flash-lights, and that’s how we were able to see.

“I guess I was more commanding than normal,” Hoff-man said. “I said ‘OK, let’s go. I don’t know what hap-pened, but let’s just get out of here.’ We grabbed our gear, and we first tried to go out the main entrance to our conference room but we couldn’t because the ceiling was on the floor, literally.

“We got lost three times trying to get out of Wedge One,” Hoffman said. “We kept running into doors that were locked from the other side. You needed a key to get out that way, but we only had access through our confer-ence room. Eventually we had to come all the way back and through our conference room to get out.

“We were in the hallway on the E Ring heading toward the second corridor,” Hoffman said. “It was horrible. We could feel the heat from the fire, and the hallway was filled with thick, black smoke. We couldn’t see, we couldn’t breathe. We got down on the floor and crawled. I had my beret covering my mouth and Jim and Gene had their handkerchiefs so we could breathe.

“Then we heard voices,” Hoffman said. We heard some-body calling, ‘Is anybody in there?’ So we followed those voices, and they walked us down to the loading dock. We jumped off the loading dock, and circled around to where the plane hit, and that’s when we saw the damage and the smoke billowing over the Pentagon. We ran into a very nice lady who told us about the attacks on the World Trade Center, and that’s how the three of us finally found out about the terrorist attacks.

Tesia WilliamsPhoto by John Hoffman, ACE-IT

“We were in a huge throng of people, and the security guards didn’t want us near the Pentagon,” Hoffman said. “So they herded us through the pedestrian tunnel under I-395 to the Pentagon Mall. I was there about 15 minutes before my office called. The cell phones were all jammed, but they got through somehow. They asked how we were doing, and I gave them a quick report on what happened to us. Then I asked, ‘What do you want me to do?’ And they said ‘Go home.’

“So I’m thumbing a ride trying to get back to Hunting-ton Metro Station in Alexandria,” Hoffman said. “I met a woman pulled over to the side of the road, so distraught she couldn’t drive. She agreed to give me a ride because she was going the same way, and I took over driving be-cause she was crying so much she couldn’t drive. Then we ran into two NCOs who needed a ride to the same place.

“Then we all sat in seven hours of traffic,” Hoffman said. “At one point, another jetliner came flying toward the city. When it came into view, people panicked. Car doors flew open and people jumped out of their cars in the middle of Jefferson Davis Highway.

“I finally got back to the Huntington Metro Station, got in my car and drove home to the room I was renting,” Hoffman said. “I opened a beer, sat in front of the TV and watched it all unfold. It took a while to click that I was almost taken out because I was so close to where the plane hit.”

Karen. “There was an officer from the Office of Con-gressional Liaison who said ‘OK people, we’re getting out of here,’ and he led us out,” Baker said. “We walked to the Mall Entrance, but the guards wouldn’t let us out. No-body knew what was going on, and security didn’t know where they wanted us to go.

“So we kept moving around the A Ring,” Baker said. “The hallway started getting crowded, and Elaine was very visibly pregnant. She was hanging onto me, and to be honest I was hanging onto her! A guy came through with a motorized cart, and a female Navy officer stopped him, threw Elaine on the cart and said, ‘Get her out of here!’ But Elaine wouldn’t let go of me, so she said, ‘You get on the cart and go with her!’

“The cart got us as far as the Pentagon Concourse, and it got so crowded the driver said, ‘Ladies, I can’t go any further. I have to let you out,’” Baker said. “So we walked to the Metro entrance, and went out that way.

“So my story isn’t dramatic,” Baker said. “We didn’t even realize the Pentagon had been hit by a jetliner. At that point I was thinking bomb. We didn’t know until we got out and started to hear the news and saw the smoke billowing.

“There was a lot of confusion,” Baker said. “I had my cell phone, which didn’t work because the cell system was jammed. But my phone had a walkie-talkie feature. It only worked to talk to my husband, but I finally got through to him. He was relieved to hear from me.

“When people around me heard I was in contact with my husband, I stood there for a while just relaying phone numbers to him and saying ‘Call So-and-So’s husband and let him know she’s alright. Call So-and-So’s dad.’”

“We spent a lot of time trying to figure out where to be,” Baker said. “The security guards moved us across Army Navy Drive because they were concerned there was another plane coming and they didn’t want large crowds. So we were kind of lost, not sure where to go.

“Somewhere in that mess, we ran into Elaine’s hus-band,” Baker said. He was relieved that she was OK, and by that time she was exhausted. That was a lot of fast walking for someone nine months pregnant. Sometime in late afternoon, I think about two or three, I was able to take the Metro and get home.

“I got in touch with my office, and they were already Roberta CrissyPhoto by John Hoffman, ACE-IT

launching into 24-7 news operations,” Baker said. “I did an interview with People magazine sitting in my home at 11 that night, just because we needed somebody to talk to them. So, for me, that was really all for the events of the day. Not as dramatic as a lot of events later.”

AftermathFor Hoffman, the days immediately following 9-11

were mostly business as usual.John. “We all went back to the Presidential Towers,”

he said. “We couldn’t move into the Pentagon because our new offices were so damaged. So just like we had prepared to leave Presidential Towers, we had to put all the stuff back. We stayed there for another year until they finished the reconstruction and we could move into the Pentagon.”

For the three women, the days after 9-11 often had more impact than the attack itself as the Pentagon went into round-the-clock operations under difficult circum-stances.

Tesia. “The day of 9-11 wasn’t hard on me because I wasn’t near the point of impact,” Williams said. “We were near enough to know that something had happened, but the time after was actually the toughest.

“We came back to the Pentagon the next day. Maj. Gen. Larry Gottardi was the chief of Public Affairs, and he talked to us and asked ‘Who’s available to work? We’re going into 24-hour mode,’” Williams said. “Several of us raised our hands and said we could pull some of those shifts. So later that day I came in for the evening shift at the news media desk.

“Connie and I met at the top of the Metro,” Williams said. “Before we reported to work, she said that she want-ed to see the impact area. At that time, it was cordoned off, but you could get in there. So we walked down, and as we walked the hallway the smell became very intense. It’s a smell you won’t forget. Connie asked, ‘What’s that smell?’ I said, ‘You know what it is.’

“So we walked back, and we didn’t say a word until we got back to the media desk,” Williams said. “And then we just worked, day after day, 12 and 14 hour shifts. Our office had been ruined by the sprinkler system, so they moved the Army Public Affairs Office into a storage room in the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs Office.

“Conditions were tough,” Williams said. “There were


Continued from page 9

Pentagon

The damaged section of the Pentagon was rebuilt and reoccupied by August 2002.

DoD Photo

just two telephones when we started. There were several people in there, but there was just me and Diane Grant, another intern, to take news media queries. We handled more than 100 queries a day. The storage room was very intimate. There were 10 or 12 people in there, and some-times tempers flared. We all got sick, working in close quarters and using the same phones. And there was the smell of smoke and jet fuel everywhere. For several weeks, every time you blew your nose, you blew out soot.

“At first the news media just asked how many people were injured, how many were deceased, and what would happen next,” Williams said. “Then they started asking for first-person accounts. I facilitated interviews, and that’s when I heard what really happened on 9-11. People talked about losing friends and survivor guilt. They talked about standing at the copy machine and a friend just five feet away didn’t make it. Some people had their backs turned and didn’t know what hit them. Some people were in an office and saw a ball of fire. I heard accounts of try-ing to rescue people, and the guilt of not reaching them in time. So that was the toughest for me.”

Karen. “I spent a good part of Sept. 12 trying to find out where to go,” Baker said. “I finally got hold of Elaine and learned they had set up a satellite office with Person-nel Command in the Hoffman Building in Alexandria, Va.

“These were folks who normally deal with casualty as-sistance, so they were setting up phone lines for people to call and report someone missing, or to report that they were OK. But the news media was also calling because those were the only numbers being advertised. So we helped the Soldiers manning the phones. We developed a script of what they could say to the news media, and when they said ‘CNN’s on the line,’ we took those calls.

“I worked there a week or more helping them,” Baker said. “Those folks literally left the Pentagon on 9-11 and went to the Hoffman Building. By the time I came on board they were exhausted. I jumped in and helped, and I was glad to do that.

“We finally moved back into temporary offices in the Pentagon,” Baker said. “The Army had been the most heavy-hit, so we focused on helping them deal with the news media. My role was to be a liaison for family mem-bers, and if necessary their shield. If they wanted to talk to the press, we arranged that. If not, we were their shield.

“That was the most meaningful part of it for me, work-ing with the families and serving them,” Baker said. “There were remarkable stories. We had a number of people who were heroes and rescued others, and the news media really wanted to talk to them. I worked with several of those.”

Roberta. In the days after 9-11, Roberta Crissy also worked in the Personnel Command offices in the Hoff-man Building.

“On Sept. 12 at 6 a.m. Col. Knoblock called and said ‘We don’t have an office, but they’ve set up space for us at the Hoffman Building. So report to work there,’” Crissy said. “We set up a family assistance operations center be-cause several people from our office had been killed. We worked there from Sept. 12 until after Christmas. That whole time we were at the Hoffman Building we were scheduling funerals and attending funerals. And we still did our regular daily work, but all of our records had been destroyed in the Pentagon, so we had to recreate every-thing.

“Immediately after 9-11 we were so focused on support-ing the families of those who were injured or died, and planning and attending funerals, plus our normal mis-

sion, I think for a long time we didn’t have time to dwell on it,” Crissy said. “In early January we moved back into the Pentagon, and that was really emotional because you thought, ‘This is where my friends and coworkers died.’”

EmotionsAll four people felt the emotional aftermath of the Pen-

tagon attack, but it was worse for some than others.John. “Not all of the memories came back right away,”

Hoffman said. “Something so crazy, you just put it out of your mind and say, ‘I don’t want to think about it.’ I remember my first panic attack. It was about four months after 9-11, and I was in Nordstrom’s in the Pentagon Mall. The Metro runs underneath the building, and the floor shook. Man, I flipped out. I had to get out of there.

“When they renovated Wedge One, we completed our move,” Hoffman said. “I was in that conference room daily. I had to go back in there for two and a half years. I got comfortable enough to work there, but that’s when the memories started coming back. One time I walked with one of the ladies back to her desk to do something for her. We went into the area where we had gotten lost, and I had to stop. I couldn’t go in there. It flooded me with memories of being trapped in that place and not able to get out.

“I started having nightmares about the heat and smoke and debris and chaos,” Hoffman said. “The screams of people that you couldn’t help. Those still haunt me. Af-ter too many sleepless nights and too many nightmares, I sought professional help through the Army.”

Karen. “It was hard going back to the Pentagon, the memories were all right there,” Baker said. “Every now and then someone would slam a door and you would jump. I don’t think any us didn’t have some grief, some issues with anger at what happened.”

Tesia. “I think the part that affected me most was hearing the accounts of what happened,” Williams said. “Hearing the stories day after day, you start to feel some post-traumatic stress. So ultimately it wasn’t 9-11 that af-fected me. It was the days and weeks after.”

Roberta. “I had flashbacks when we moved back into the Pentagon, and I had bad dreams routinely,” Crissy said. “And survivor guilt, knowing that the two people to my right were both killed. It was tough, thinking that life is short and you never know what’s going to happen.

“There was a 9-11 counseling program, and I got into counseling in February 2002 because I wasn’t dealing with it well,” Crissy said. “I was depressed, I was crying for no reason. The counseling helped a lot. I still sometimes have bad dreams and survivor guilt, but not nearly as much as I did then.”

HealingIn the 10 years since Sept. 11, 2001, America has

worked to heal, to honor the heroes, and to remember those who were lost. Memorials have been built or are un-

der construction at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Penn.

Roberta Crissy, Karen Baker, John Hoffman and Tesia Williams have found their own ways to bring something good out of their experience.

Roberta. “I know my story could have ended differ-ently,” Crissy said. “I had been told to go see Lt. Gen. Maude, but I stopped and told my senior supervisor that I hadn’t gone yet. That was out of character for me. When you’re given an order, you do it. But I talked to Col. Kno-block, and he said he had taken care of it. I think that a higher power had me stop and talk to him, otherwise, I might have been in the general’s office or on my way there when the plane hit.

“If I had been at my desk, maybe I would have been with my coworkers who couldn’t get out,” Crissy said. “There were opportunities where I could have gone into harm’s way but I didn’t, and I believe it was because of a higher power. I was blessed that day.”

John. “We were in the renovated part of the Penta-gon. It had been reinforced with a steel framework, and there were Kevlar blankets in the walls,” Hoffman said. “We found a crack two inches wide in the wall of our conference room from floor to ceiling. If those renova-tions hadn’t been there, I know that explosion would have destroyed us. If I hadn’t delayed taking my break, if we hadn’t heard those voices that led us out, I wouldn’t be here.

“I have a good job today. I have a fiancé, and a family that I adore, including a new son almost 1 year old. I enjoy riding my motorcycle,” Hoffman said. “I wouldn’t have any of those things if I hadn’t made it out of the Pen-tagon, or sought counseling. I’ve been very lucky.”

Tesia. “I had to grow up very fast,” Williams said. “I was a 23-year-old intern, and I had to grow up and ma-ture and learn to get the job done. I formed some very close relationships during that time, individuals I worked with, and I’ve kept up with a lot of them. We share a special bond because we were all experiencing the same thing. We knew how it felt to handle hundreds of me-dia queries and work 12-hour days, and have to be strong through it all.

“To be honest, at that time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay in federal service. But seeing the reaction of the ser-vice members when it happened and their strength, and even the civilians and how they carried through and didn’t complain. People talked about how we were a family, how everyone took care of each other. Coworkers attended physical therapy appointments. Leaders sat down with employees and talked. Everyone shared that bond. That’s the reason I decided to continue with this career, because you just don’t find that often.”

Karen. “I have a lot of people say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry that happened to you!’ And I’m sorry too; it was a terrible time,” Baker said. “But I think a lot of things came out of 9-11 that we can be thankful for. We were proud to be serving our country, proud that the Pentagon was still standing. There was a lot of fanfare about people coming back to the Pentagon the next day. I think we were all proud to be back and serving.

“There was frustration because we were trying to run an international news media operation with no office and no basic resources like computers and phones,” Baker said. “So people were on edge, but we pulled together. People that I know from that time are probably my clos-est friends. We have a bond, and every Sept. 11 we touch base with each other.

“Elaine had her baby on Sept. 21 after 9-11, and he played on my son’s baseball team last spring,” Baker said. “There’s nothing like watching that kid run bases and thinking, ‘Hey, he’s OK! We made it out, and we’re OK!’”



The Hocking was part of the volunteer fleet that evacuated people stranded in lower Manhattan on 9-11. The dust and smoke from the collapse of the Twin Towers is visible over the Manhattan skyline.

Modern Dunkirk

USACE boat operations on 9-11

Liz Finn was in a training class when the first hijacked airliner crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The assistant ves-sel master with New York District joined her classmates on the pier at the district’s Caven Point facility in New Jersey and watched the tower burn.

At the same time, three crewmen from Wilmington District, Capt. Billy Cuth-rell, Capt. Ray Blem, and Assistant Master George Loveless, were also taking a class at the district’s New York Harbor Facilities. They looked out their classroom window and saw the first jetliner hit the tower.

When the second airliner struck the South Tower, Finn and her crew boarded the Gelberman, a converted tugboat used for drift collection, and got underway to lend assistance. Cuthrell, Bleam and Loveless went to the Hayward, also a drift collection boat. The Hocking, Hatton, Hudson, Driftmaster and New York Survey Boat #1 all joined a spontaneous flotilla that has been compared to the evacuation of the British army from Dunkirk during World War II.

“Tugboats, U.S. Army Corps of Engi-neers boats, water ferry boats, contractor boats and privately-owned boats were all evacuating people from Lower Manhat-tan,” said Brig. Gen. Stephen Rhoades, commander of North Atlantic Division at that time.

The boat operators themselves sponta-neously began the boatlift. Within hours, five Coast Guard cutters and 12 small boats, and more than 100 public and pri-vate vessels were operating on the scene.

Thousands were stranded in Lower Manhattan, unable to get home because of the disaster. “When we arrived, the people on the pier had a deep stare and were cov-ered in dust,” said Tony Hans of New York District. “They were afraid to leave and afraid to stay.”

Despite the disaster, transport went smoothly and without incident. The Coast Guard estimated that between 350,000 and 500,000 people were evacu-ated by water from lower Manhattan in just a few hours.

“Everyone was great,” Finn said. “No one got hysterical, there wasn’t any push-ing or shoving, and every small boat in the harbor was helping.”

The USACE boats ferried more than 3,000 people off the island. Three marinas were set up at Caven Point, N.J. The first marina was for the uninjured, the second marina was for the injured, and the third marina was for the critically injured. Bus-es and trains at Caven Point took people home.

The action worked the other way as well. “On each return trip, the crews took back emergency personnel,” said Joe Meyers of New York District. “The boats ferried more than 200 firefighters and other emer-gency personnel from New Jersey to Lower

Manhattan.The Hayward assisted local fireboats and

fire trucks by transporting supplies. Since access to the area was limited, it was dif-ficult to supply the vehicles with fuel and water. “They were passing five-gallon cans by hand,” said Josh Daskalasis of New York District. “There was no other way to access the site.”

The Hayward supplied firefighters with more than 16,000 gallons of fuel and wa-ter. The boat crews also transported wa-ter and antifreeze for the fire trucks, and 1,000 gallons of potable water to the fire-fighters. This allowed the firefighters to keep working without leaving to refuel or find more water.

At one point, the Hayward had a stack of supplies 20 feet wide, 20 feet long and 10 feet high. Supplies included flashlights, batteries, protective gear, food, water, lan-terns and shovels. Other supplies and equipment delivered included:

• Ferrying shovels and two forklifts to Lower Manhattan.

• Ferrying emergency personnel to Lower Manhattan.

• The survey boat Hatton ferried respirators from Pier 40 on New York’s west side to North Cove near the World Trade Center. The res-pirators protected searchers at the Ground Zero from heavy dust and asbestos.

The Hocking became the USACE com-mand vessel on Sept. 11. Less than two

hours after the Twin Towers collapsed, the Hocking transported Rhoades to the site to assess the situation and offer USACE as-sistance.

After the initial evacuation to Caven Point, more USACE boats joined to sup-port USACE, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the city’s trans-portation and supply needs. These boats were the Wampanoag, Cataumet and Col-


vin.They shuttled personnel and dignitaries

to various sites. Passengers include the Lt. Gen. Robert Flowers, the chief of engi-neers at that time, congressmen, and many Army staff members.

(This information is from New York Dis-trict news releases, and was published in the “Engineer Update” in October and Novem-ber, 2001.)

New York City firefighters disembark from a USACE boat on their way to work at the World Trade Center site.


Public affairs mission is untold 9-11 storyBy Larry Rosenberg New England District

I was at my desk on Sept. 11, 2001, with the radio tuned to a local Boston talk radio station when one of the hosts said, “You’re not going to believe this, but some nut just flew a plane into the World Trade Center.”

I immediately turned on the TV and watched another plane slam into the second tower. The world was chang-ing with each heartbeat, without notice, without remorse. Without hesitation I called New York District and said that I was only an hour or two away and could fly in to assist should the initial federal response team need a hand.

I am the public affairs officer of New England District. Little did I know I would be on the ground the next day. In a New York minute, the lives of all Americans changed. It wasn’t just the physical skyline of Manhattan that altered forever, but the psychological landscape of the world.

By 11 p.m. on 9-11, New England District received the mission to establish an Emergency Response and Recov-ery Office in New York City.

ArrivalBoth New York District and North Atlantic Division

headquarters were declared “victim” as a result of the at-tack. The initial goal was to set up a functional operation until our New York offices were reconstituted. The esti-mated duration of the mission was 4-6 days. It lasted 22.

The initial Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) New York City disaster plan was based on a Cold War 1962 scenario that placed the FEMA Emergency Operations Center (EOC) 22 miles from a nuclear blast site in Manhattan.

The FEMA EOC set up operations at the Joyce Kilmer Army Reserve Center in Edison, N.J. The challenge for public affairs was to implement a central communication structure that would support the U.S. Army Corps of En-gineers as part of the total federal response led by FEMA.

But to accomplish that objective, coordination had to be initialized with the FEMA Region 2 and the FEMA EOC chief of staff. Within six hours of arrival, coordina-tion with FEMA had been established, promises made, and USACE was welcomed into the FEMA Joint Infor-mation Center (JIC) at the Javits Convention Center in New York City 3.5 miles north of Ground Zero.

The most pressing need was to establish communica-tions with the City of New York, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, New York District and North Atlantic Division, the news media and the public. Successful coordination with the city and mayor’s office would be key to the success of the PA missions.

To gain the confidence of the city, I began attending the daily coordination/planning meeting at the Police Acad-emy in lower Manhattan. In addition, Lt. Gen. Robert Flowers, the chief of engineers, assigned Joe Seebode, NY/NJ Harbor program manager, as his direct liaison to the mayor and the City of New York.

Within days, USACE was accepted by the city as a key player in the city’s and mayor’s communication efforts. By Sept. 14, USACE had gained the respect of the city by accomplishing a quick coordination loop with FEMA for release of information. (This would evolve into the Corps/FEMA Daily Media Advisory.)

The Corps’ PA ability to balance differing messages with differing audiences and stakeholders was key to keeping my promise to Giuliani and FEMA to communicate the total federal response message to the media and general public.

By Sept. 15, the key messages and strategies for the Corps’ role at the World Trade Center were developed, co-ordinated with FEMA and NYC, and part of the FEMA JIC operations. Those operations were consolidated from Edison and Javits to Pier 90. The first of the USACE PA personnel began to arrive on Sept. 16.

In lower Manhattan, Peter Shugert, public affairs officer of New York District, had exited the subway. When he reached the top of the stairs, he saw hundreds of New Yorkers staring in disbelief at the gaping hole in the North Tower.

Three blocks from the World Trade Center, he witnessed the second aircraft hit the South Tower. Shugert made his way to the Federal Building six blocks away, but was denied access by the Federal Protective Service -- the building was being evacuated. Shugert made his way back to his previous posi-tion and took several photographs, figuring that photo docu-mentation was essential.

When the NYPD said they thought there was a third plane headed that way, the crowd stampeded. Shugert, who lives in Brooklyn, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge with thousands of others. One third of his way across the bridge, he snapped a series of photos as the South Tower collapsed.

“The Brooklyn Bridge shuddered, as did the souls of thou-sands of us,” Shugert said. “We looked on in anger and total shock and disbelief.”

By the time Shugert walked through a warm cloud of par-ticle dust and reached home, the North Tower had collapsed.

Public affairs strategiesIn 2001, there were no digital cameras, imperfect In-

ternet access, cell phone service in NYC was limited to Verizon (all other cell towers were atop the WTC), and Twitter and Facebook did not exist.

So our challenges were great, and my baseline doctrine was an Army Field Manual, FM 46-1, Army Public Affairs. Our goals:

Ensure that the public knows USACE is working in

Photo courtesy of Larry Rosenberg

Managing celebrity visits was an important part of the USACE public affairs mission after 9-11. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins were among the celebrities who volunteered to serve food to the workers at Ground Zero.

close partnership with the City of New York, the State of New York, FEMA and other federal agencies in re-covery and response activities.

• Stress the work that the city, state and the other federal agencies have done in their response.

• Establish a “one-voice” message to ensure accu-rate and timely information.

• Handle news media per established protocol.• Develop and provide key agency messages and

program descriptions in written format to leader-ship and USACE employees working at various sites.

Immediately establish strong communication chan-nels with other federal agencies and section areas with-in the organization.

• Provide consistent messages to external audiences and coordinate information received with other functions.

• Staff the JIC round the clock as the city and FEMA directs, or until the situation does not warrant it.

• Stress that USACE was always available as a source of information.

• Monitor non-traditional public information sites, primarily the Internet, to gauge public opinion or detect complaints based on lack of informa-tion. Be prepared to suggest methods to improve communication to the many diverse communi-ties in Manhattan.

Anticipate potential issues/problems and monitor for trends.

• Ensure the transmission of consistent and accu-rate monitoring of newspapers, television and ra-dio broadcasts. Make corrections quickly. Identi-fy trends and work on strategies with appropriate federal and city emergency response and other agencies to eliminate or minimize problems that may develop.


In Little Rock, Ark., Bob Faletti, public affairs officer of Little Rock District, was signing in retirees for the annual Retiree Day celebration when he heard on the radio that a plane hit the WTC. He assumed a small plane lost in the fog, probably a Cessna with a student pilot.

Then reports that a second plane had hit the towers and a third attacked the Pentagon put the situation into perspec-tive. “I felt no different than any other American, I needed to be there; I needed to help. I would drive if I had to,” Faletti said. “I reported in to Pier 90 on Sept. 18.

“I turned 54 on Oct. 5,” Faletti said. “I completed 35 years service on Sept. 11, 2001. I served almost six years on active duty, including two tours in Vietnam as an infantry officer. None of that prepared me for the physical and emo-tional destruction caused by the terrorist attacks on the WTC and Pentagon.

“I wanted to be a member of the USACE PAO response team because of a strong desire to help those affected, and to provide the PAO support our engineers and other teams would need,” Faletti said. “I knew the engineers and oth-ers would do the work, and I knew that PA could be a force multiplier by providing internal and external communica-tion support.”

News mediaBeginning Sept. 12, the world’s news media attention

focused on the city’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) Press Center, first located at the Police Academy in lower Manhattan, and later at Pier 92. (The city’s origi-nal EOC was in the WTC and destroyed in the attack.) The OEM was set up with functional areas from all city offices and many federal agencies, including the mayor’s media office.

The Corps’ NYC JIC Liaison was assigned to assist. Al-though he was a part of the Corps/FEMA contingent, the position effectively worked for the City of New York. The primary responsibility of those at the NYC JIC was to work USACE issues, but it also was important to answer media queries of all kinds. Those available in the press center, working around the clock, pitched in to handle anything regarding information the city, state and federal agencies were attempting to disseminate or react to.

Bond of trustWithin days, a bond of trust and goodwill built among

the permanent city staff and USACE people. There was

The USACE public affairs operation was an important part of the Disas-ter Field Office at Pier 90.

Photo courtesy of Larry RosenbergPhoto courtesy of Larry Rosenberg

Frequent trips to Ground Zero were a part of the public affairs response. Above, Larry Rosenberg talks with a USACE first responder.

no doubt that without USACE help, the city would have had a difficult time handling the information crisis. In the words of the city’s assistant press officer sometime dur-ing week two, “You folks are the greatest, and we couldn’t have done this without you.”

The federal PA augmentation also included FEMA, a small business representative and a Red Cross member. They helped the city handle the media portion of the cri-sis.

The USACE contingent extended well beyond their functional areas to answer queries and handle problems that had more to do with city business than USACE. A willingness to sacrifice personal interests to serve the immediate needs of the city was an important develop-ment. It had to be sincere, and it had to stand the test of time.

It took the “outsiders” working 12-14 hours a day for several weeks to establish this goodwill and trust. Once in place, it was indelible and it was critical to future coor-dination between U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the City of New York.

InsidersBy week two, the WTC PA Team at the NYC JIC had

gone from outside assistance to bona fide members of the city team. Both FEMA and USACE had the ear of the mayor’s office through the mayor’s press chief and sched-uler.

It wasn’t exactly privileged status, but close. The WTC PA Team was in a position to go directly to agency chiefs in city government for both information and coordina-tion. This was a crucial advantage for USACE to use when needed, and there was a lot of sweat equity built into these professional relationships.

The WTC PA Team was referred to exclusively as “the Corps of Engineers” in the overall emergency response. The mayor and the OEM chief were constantly conduct-ing tours for news media and visiting dignitaries. More than once, the OEM chief pointed to a WTC PA Team member wearing the USACE emergency shirt and said, “We’ve got a lot of help here, including the Corps of En-gineers.”

Also, as ESF-3 duties reduced over time, the ESF-3 presence in the city EOC was removed, and public affairs were the only USACE folks working fill-time in the NYC OEM on Pier 92.

In Honolulu, Larry Hawthorne was awakened at 3 a.m. by a call from his daughter. “We’re at war, Dad,” she said from her post as an intelligence officer at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska. “You’d better get up and turn on the televi-sion.”

“I tuned in just about the time the second World Trade Center tower collapsed, got dressed and went to my office at Fort Shafter,” said Hawthorne, public affairs officer of Ho-nolulu District. “It took almost two hours to get through security, but I finally made it. It was surreal to be so far away from the attack and yet feel part of it. I was overwhelmed with a desire to do something, and the one thing available was to be part of a public affairs emergency action team. I immediately volunteered and a week later I arrived at the FEMA JIC on Pier 90 in New York.

“My job was to work with the city’s Emergency Operations Center in Pier 92,” Hawthorne said. “It was bedlam in the city’s media center, but it was as close as I could get to help the victims of 9-11. I fielded hundreds of calls from media and the general public, but my telephone conversation to provide reassurance and what little comfort I could to the widowed wife of a victim is the one I will never forget.

“I’ve worked floods and earthquakes in California, hur-ricanes in Hawaii, but never have I felt a more compelling need to help as I did during the World Trade Center response,” Hawthorne said. “How lucky I was to play a part.”

PersonalI know I speak for all responders to this first attack of

the war on terrorism when I say that a passion grew in all of us to contribute to the greater good by telling the stories of the real heroes so that the American public could understand the catastrophe that enveloped Manhattan and the U.S.

Our world changed at 8:46 a.m. Sept. 11, 2001, and we knew that when the terrorists were held accountable our new world would be a better place. We knew because we saw the seeds planted by the New York City firemen and police, by the USACE structural engineers, by the search and rescue teams and by the people of New York. This is one harvest that continues to be tended.

I still feel that passion, and I’m still proud to have been part of that moment. My mementos are my memories of making a contribution that would grow and become a sense of resolve to ensure that those who were murdered did not die in vain.


249th troops deployed to NYC

Sgt. 1st Class Jeremy Zemaitis was a young sergeant when he deployed to New York City.

Photo courtesy of Sgt. 1st Class Jeremy Zemaitis

By Bernard TateHeadquarters

“We first saw Ground Zero from the sky as we flew into New York City,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jeremy Zemai-tis. “There was stunned silence on the plane. Seeing the devastation on TV is one thing, but we were all looking out the windows, and we were just stunned by the sight.”

Of the 31 Soldiers in the 249th Engineer Battalion (Prime Power) who deployed to New York City after Sept. 11, 2001, only Zemaitis remains on active duty with the unit. (Editor’s note: Although the response to New York City gets the most coverage, the 249th also deployed six Sol-diers and two 500-killowatt low-voltage generators to pro-vide power for emergency operations at the Pentagon.)

The 249th is the only prime power unit in the U.S. Army, and the only active-duty battalion assigned to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It provides commercial-grade electric power to military units and federal relief organizations during operations ranging from training to war to disasters.

Immediately after the 9-11 attacks, a team of 249th Sol-diers deployed to New York City and used 1,500-kilowatt generators supplied by the city to generate power for Wall Street. The New York Stock Exchange resumed operation on Sept. 12.

Early Sept. 12 the battalion deployed a two-person prime power action team to Edison, N.J., as action offi-cers in the emergency power section of the Federal Emer-gency Management Agency (FEMA) relief effort.

On 9-11, Zemaitis was a new sergeant in the 249th. He had graduated from the Prime Power School in Au-gust 2000, and was assigned to B Company at Fort Bragg, N.C. He had been with the company only about a year, and on 9-11 was in vendor school training (now called Industry Lead Training) in Tampa, Fla.

On Sept. 13, a prime power team of Soldiers from the battalion’s Headquarters & Headquarters Company at Fort Belvoir, Va., and B Company deployed to New York to assist North Atlantic Division (NAD) and to serve as subject matter experts for power-related issues. The Sol-diers were led by their battalion commander, Lt. Col. Kevin Wilson, but worked under FEMA direction.

After meeting with the NAD forward commander, FEMA representatives, and the local power company,

Sergeants with the 249th prepare power connections on an emergency generator during the 9-11 response.

Photo courtesy of the 249thPhoto courtesy of the 249th

Sgt. 1st Class Dan Gilstrap on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 12, 2001.

Consolidated Edison (ConEdison), the 249th deployed an additional 21 Soldiers to assess power needs and install emergency generators in lower Manhattan.

“We came back to the company that Friday, and on Sunday we headed up to New York City,” Zemaitis said. “We arrived at JFK Airport in our BDUs with our tool-boxes and all our equipment. A taxi picked us up and took us to a USACE boat that took us up the Hudson River to the Corps’ Disaster Field Office at Pier 90.

“We in-processed and spent the night at the DFO, and the next day they sent us out to assess the area,” Zemaitis said. “Our credentials got us into a lot of restricted areas, taking photos and documenting where we could help.”

Soldiers deployed from both Fort Belvoir and Fort Bragg on Sept. 16 and spent the next three days helping ConE-dison. Some of the significant missions included assess-ing power and installing generators at multiple financial buildings, including the New York Mercantile Exchange

and the NASDAQ Electrical Hub. ConEdison asked the Soldiers to help install 50 1,500-kilowatt generators sup-plied by the city.

“We went down into the underground vaults where ConEdison had the switch gear,” Zemaitis said. “We were helping them hook up the generators to power the Financial District. Of course, safety is the first priority, so whenever we went into a manhole the ConEdison guys made sure it was a safe working environment.

“Upon entering the vaults, we checked what was us-able down there and tested to make sure the lines were still good,” Zemaitis said. “Once we determined the gear was operational, we isolated that area so we could tie the back-up generators into the electrical connections so that it would just feed the areas that we knew were safe.”

Soldiers from 249th also worked with ConEdison to set up generators at medical triage facilities and transient lodging centers. To accomplish the missions more effi-ciently, the 249th split its assessment/installation teams into day and night shifts, enabling electrical repairs to continue around the clock. The pace was intense.

“When you’re involved in that type of event, your adrenaline pumps and you want to just keep going,” Ze-maitis said. “A lot of the 249th guys were like that. This was such an intense, massive mission, and it was so heart-felt to be there, people didn’t want to stop. They wanted to keep going and do as much as possible. We were going for two days straight when we got there. We wanted to get out and do anything we could to help.”

By Sept. 18 most of the city’s power was restored, and FEMA determined that the 249th was no longer needed to augment the local infrastructure. The Soldiers rede-ployed to their home stations that evening.

The deployment had a profound effect on Zemaitis.“It has been the driving factor for all of my other de-

ployments,” he said. “In November of ’01 we went to Uzbekistan, and from there we did some missions in Af-ghanistan. I’ve been to Afghanistan twice and Iraq twice. Going to New York City and witnessing 9-11 first hand gave me a determined drive when I went on future de-ployments. It gave me the experience to say, ‘This is why I’m deploying. I was there, and I saw what happened.’”

(Capt. Hans Pung, operations officer of the 249th during 9-11, and Vince Elias of the New York District Public Affairs Office, also contributed to this article.)


Honoring Flight 93

Pittsburgh District builds memorial in Shanksville, Pa.

The Flight 93 Memorial contains many elements that honor those who died when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pa.

By Dan JonesPittsburgh District

Ten years ago, what began as a calm, peaceful morning on Sept. 11, 2001, turned into a pivotal moment that would shake the security of America and the world. United Airlines Flight 93 began its journey from Newark, N.J., to San Fran-cisco. Forty-six minutes into the flight, four terrorists took control of the aircraft. During the hijacking, many passengers were able to call loved ones who informed them of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Realizing that the terrorists had rerout-ed the plane to Washington, D.C., and knowing they were the only ones who could stop this attack, the passengers took action. The skies above a small, Pennsylva-nia town became the first battleground in the war against terrorism. During the pas-sengers’ attempt to retake control, Flight 93 crashed in a field in Shanksville, a rural town southeast of Pittsburgh.

Forty people lost their lives on Flight 93, but their families, loved ones and many others would see that their sacrifices would always be remembered. Shortly af-ter the tragedy, a permanent memorial was planned for the site.

The National Parks Service was assigned as the lead agency, and the NPS tapped the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to manage the first phase construction, which repre-sented $16 million of the estimated $60 million memorial.

Pittsburgh District has the lead, and af-ter nearly two years of construction, the Flight 93 Memorial is scheduled for dedi-cation Sept. 10-11. The partnership be-tween the district and NPS has been vital to ensuring the first of three construction phases is completed before the dedication ceremony, said Bryan Ciccocioppo. He

and Sara Hillegas, are the construction management team for the memorial.

“The Corps of Engineers was essential in facilitating the permits necessary to be-gin the construction of the memorial, said Keith Newlin, the NPS’ general superin-tendent of Western Pennsylvania Parks. “Their assistance allowed the construc-tion to begin and finish on schedule. As a partner, they brought their expertise and worked with all of the partners to build this memorial on schedule.”

Phase 1 entailed grading the site and building the visitor pavilion, walkways, family parking lot and the Flight Path Wall. The next two phases include tree plantings and construction of a visitor center.

Officials broke ground on the site in late 2009 and construction began in late March 2010. The design required the massive relocation of nearly 500,000 cubic yards of soil. The memorial architect, Paul Murdock of Los Angeles, moved that soil to create a bowl that slopes down to and focuses visitors on the Memorial Wall.

“The topography was always part of the design,” Murdock said. “We reworked the area to get the slope.” The re-arrangement of the landscape required the design and installation of a storm water draining sys-tem, to keep water way from visitor areas.

Due to the amount of construction, the district’s Regulatory Branch had to assist with the permit to allow the installation of four new wetlands to replace the ones that were disturbed or destroyed.

“With a site this large, there was a lot of work involved in the permitting process for our regulatory office,” Ciccocioppo said. “But we have a good team and they walked the entire site to make sure every-thing was done right. The regulatory work was phenomenal.”

According to Murdoch, there were con-

cerns about the weather.“A lot of the parts of the memorial were

designed to be prefabricated off-site. This was done so that work could continue dur-ing the winter,” he said.

The items fabricated off-site include the precast concrete for the Memorial Wall and the marble work for the Flight Path Wall. Other items include the raised pre-cast concrete platforms and the wooden benches that set on top of them.

Once visitors travel down the road and arrive at the memorial, they will enter through a visitor’s shelter. The shelter is built of concrete that was formed to look like hand-hewn hemlock wood to signify that United Flight 93 crashed in a hem-lock grove.

The same concrete pattern lines the back side of the concrete wall along the walkway to the Flight Path Wall where the names of the 40 heroes are inscribed.

The focal point of the memorial is the Flight Path Wall, which is made of Ver-mont Danby white marble.

“The recognition of all 40 names is im-portant,” Murdoch said. “We used the same kind of stone for all the slabs, but each individual has their own slab and each slab is unique.”

In front of the wall, visitors will travel

along granite paving stones that follow the path of the airplane as it crashed into the field.

Funding for the memorial was raised by Flight 93 families and the National Park Foundation’s Flight 93 National Memorial Campaign.

“There is a lot of significance to the com-pletion of the first phase, but we still have a lot of work to do,” Murdoch said.

The next part of the project includes planting 1,600 trees, 40 each for each of the people on Flight 93. The tree planting began July 30. A visitor center will also be built at the site. The work is set to begin in 2012 and be completed in 2014.

Visitors will be able to access the site from Route 30 as a new road will be com-pleted by Sept. 10.

“You see the road and the wall and sometimes you forget about the effort that went into building this memorial. Some-times, when you stop and think about what you’re working on, it can be diffi-cult,” Ciccocioppo said, referring to the sacrifices made by the passengers of Flight 93 and their families.

“The rest of the project is important be-cause it is all part of the memorial experi-ence,” Murdoch said. “It’s always going to be special when you come here.”

(Illustrations courtesy of Pittsburgh District)


Hole in my heart

Photo courtesy of Lou Fioto

Looking straight up at the Twin Towers could be a dizzying experience.

Remembering the World Trade Center and 9-11

By Lou FiotoNorth Atlantic Division

7:00 a.m., 9/11/01My personal assistant arrives to help me get ready for

work.Jimmy, my driver, comes in 8:30 a.m. and packs my

laptop to take to Fort Hamilton. We do this every Mon-day, Tuesday and Thursday, the days I don’t telework. He drives and helps me throughout the day because multiple sclerosis is trying its best to beat me down. But I keep fighting.

FlashbackI started working with New York District in 1974. I

moved to North Atlantic Division (NAD) headquarters at 90 Church St., next door to the World Trade Center (WTC) in 1977. It was my first up-close look at the com-plex. I was so impressed with the Twin Towers. You can’t imagine how tall those buildings were. Looking at them, you understood why the word “skyscraper” was coined.

I worked at 90 Church St. until 1998. I spent at least some part of almost every day in one of the WTC build-ings, or in the plaza, or in the front parking area where the New Jersey farmers came twice a week in the summer. It became part of my daily life.

8:50 a.m., 9/11/01As we leave the apartment, JoAnn, the head housekeep-

er, tells us an airplane has crashed into the World Trade Center. Shocked, we stop at the club room and watch the video on the news.

“Unbelievable,” I said as we watch.“I’ve always said those towers are too damn high,” Jim-

my grumbles as we start to leave the room and head to the car.

Just then another airplane crashes into the South Tower.“We’d better head into the office,” I tell Jimmy. “Some-

thing’s going on and I think we’re going to get real busy real quick!”

FlashbackJoaquin, my neighbor in Staten Island, worked for the

Port Authority in the WTC. We drove to work together for a while, and we had lunch regularly with friends who worked at both buildings.

I married a girl who worked in the Commodities Ex-change, then at 4 World Trade Center. I bought flowers for her once a week at the concourse florist for a year, and became good friends with the sales girl there, who was also an actress.

I was a regular at Hakim’s newsstand.Every year for three years, Arnold Webber and I walked

through the WTC to the World Financial Center to see Don Imus’ radio telethon for sudden infant death syn-drome.

Several times I stood at the base of one of the Twin Tow-ers and looked straight up, which was a totally disorient-ing experience. In the winter, I froze my you-know-what off at the WTC because of the swirling winds there.

9:15 a.m., 9/11/01On the road we listen to radio reports, and I call the

Executive Office at NAD and tell them we are on our way. The secretary tells us to go back home. There is some suspicion that those crashes were not accidents and the government is shutting down all access to the city. There’s no way we are going to get to Fort Hamilton.

As we turn around, tightness grips our stomachs when we hear another report on the radio of a third airplane

crashing into the Pentagon.

FlashbackOn summer days we attended jazz, rock or country

concerts in the WTC Plaza. Many types of cuisine were available from a variety of vendors. People watching was a truly enjoyable experience with the mix of pretty girls, tourists, businesspeople and students.

9:45 a.m., 9/11/01We get back to my apartment complex and watch the

smoke come from the damaged Twin Towers. A few min-utes later we stare in horror as the South Tower collapses. Moments later there is a report of a jetliner crashing in Pennsylvania. Jimmy goes home to be with his family.

FlashbackThere is something disconcerting about standing in a

skyscraper and feeling it sway. I experienced it several times. There is something shocking about shooting up or dropping down 44 stories in an elevator in what seems like half a second. I experienced that TOO many times. There is something exhilarating about standing 110 sto-ries above the ground on a clear day and seeing for miles in every direction. I enjoyed that once.

10:30 a.m., 9/11/01I watched the North Tower collapse. Words cannot

convey the mixture of emotions and memories as this sur-real scene unfolds.

Joaquin…The view from 110 stories…The flower girl…Smooth jazz on the plaza…Fresh strawberries from the farmers…Falling down…falling down…No! No, it’s not real! It

can’t be real! It can’t be…there are tears in my eyes.

FlashbackIn March 1998, NAD moved from 90 Church St. to

Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. Almost everyone hated the move because it took us out of lower Manhattan where there was USACE business, food, drink, entertainment, history, culture, nature, shopping and just about any-thing else within a five or 10 minute walk.

In March 1998, almost everybody cursed the move from 90 Church St. to Brooklyn. On Sept. 12, 2001, everyone said a prayer of thanks for the move.

9/11/01 – 9/12/01Tears, pain, anger, rage!! Our world is turned upside down by 9-11. We sat help-

lessly and watched in shock as the Twin Towers collapsed, as the Pentagon burned, and as the passengers on Flight 93 made the ultimate sacrifice.

America was violated. It was a wakeup call we will nev-er forget. Patriotism soars. Flags fly everywhere. USACE is called into action and we respond as only USACE can. But there is a hole in my heart, and I know I’m not alone.

Flashback

Driving southbound on West Street and seeing the Twin Towers standing majestically in the distance. Driv-ing over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from Staten Island to Brooklyn and seeing the lower New York City skyline. Again, the Twin Towers are front and center, symbols to all New Yorkers. To all Americans.

Today Driving over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from Staten

Island to Brooklyn and seeing the lower New York City skyline. This time there are no Twin Towers. Just a big open space, like the hole in my heart.

They have been gone for a decade. Gone, but not for-gotten.

Documents

U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS Remembering Sept. 11, 2001