Another year and another acknowledgement of September 11, 2001.
All Americans grieve on this day however in the little town of Maspeth, Queens, New York; where I live we are reminded every day of what happened here and what we as a community lost.
Let me take you on a stroll today to Maspeth, New York..
The only thing you might want to bring is a candle....
I stood outside the firehouse on the night of 9/11/01 and wept with my neighbors and for all we as a country loss that day.
The FDNY lost 343 men when the twin towers fell. And the neighborhood soon would be horrified to learn that 19 of the men from the firehouse on 68th Street who charged into the twin towers would never come back, the largest loss of any fire station in the city that day. Eleven of those men were the among the first to respond that day, Haz Mat 1. These are the men I'd see in the grocery store, at the Town Hall events, our parades, and all over the neighborhood every day. Their kids went to school with my son. We lost more men then any other firehouse in the city of New York that day...hard to believe that.
Even though we can see the skyscrapers of Manhattan across the river, this little part of Queens has a real small town, neighborhood atmosphere to it. We always felt safe here...and then things changed.
On the morning of Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, a band of al-Qaida terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners from several airports in the Atlantic (East Coast) region of the United States. The terrorists flew two of those hijacked aircraft into the two towers of the World Trade Center situated in the heart of Manhattan's financial district downtown. The third plane struck the Pentagon - headquarters of the U.S. military near Washington D.C., while a fourth was intially destine to target either the U.S. Capitol or the White House but the passengers onboard, alerted to the fact that the hijackers intended to use the plane as a weapon fought back forcing the hijackers to crash the plane in a rural field in Pennsylvania, killing all on board.
The New York City Fire Department's Hazardous Materials Company No. 1 responded to the now dual towering inferno at the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan as did thousands of other members of various ranks and units within the FDNY. In fact, the FDNY issued a total recall (the first ever in it's history) requiring all firefighters - whether on-duty or off - to come in to work.
FDNY chiefs responding to the incident were keenly aware of the level of danger going in to this crisis and more than a few were even heard to say, "We're going to lose men on this one." This crisis was unlike any that the FDNY or any other fire department has ever faced.
Thousands were still inside when the towers collapsed. Most of those still inside were office workers but there were also several hundred firefighters as well as several dozen police officers, paramedics, EMTs and other emergency responders fighting fires and trying to evacuate office workers.
The firefighters are fondly remembered by the office workers who were fortunate enough to escape before the towers collapsed as "the men who were going up while everyone else was racing down and out of the buildings to safety."
At least 2,800 people died in the 9/11 attacks, including 343 members of the FDNY. Of that number eleven members of FDNY HAZMAT perished. Those 11 men were inside the South Tower (Tower 2) assisting in the evacuation of people when it collapsed.
Never in history has a HAZMAT team lost so many members in a single incident.
The specialized outfit is based in Maspeth, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens that is a mixed surburban, rural and lightly industrial area. It is from here FDNY HAZMAT responds to incidents at any location in the five boroughs (Queens, Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island) that comprise the 310 square mile entity that is known to the world as New York City.
FDNY HAZMAT shares their quarters with Squad 288. The two often work closely with one another and have a special relationship. Squad 288 which responded alongside with HAZMAT on 9/11 to the World Trade Center lost eight men on that dark day. The 11 men lost in HAZMAT and the eight lost in Squad 288 made a combined total of 19 men lost which gave the Maspeth quarters the dark distinction of having the most number of men lost from a single firehouse in the 9/11 attacks.
A total of 51 children – from teenagers to a 2-week old baby – were left fatherless when the firefighters of HAZMAT and Squad 288 perished.
The unit was absolutely decimated by the tragedy at the World Trade Center and lost a great deal of it's vital resources. The team's main HAZMAT response truck along with a library that included countless MSDS (Material Safery Data Sheets) and other documents as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of high-tech HAZMAT equipment were buried and destroyed under the crush of rubble from the falling towers. Also destroyed were hundreds of other FDNY, NYPD and ambulance apparatus.
Many of the members of HAZMAT wanted to go down to the collapsed ruins of the World Trade Center and work with other FDNY firefighters to unearth the remains of those lost in the elite outfit on that tragic Tuesday morning but city officials refused to allow them to do so. The city (as well as the rest of the nation) was on high alert for another terrorist attack, especially one involving Chemical, Biological, Radiological and/or Nuclear (CBRN) weapons and felt that it would not be a good use of HAZMAT - whose resources were already greatly depleted - to work at the ruins of the World Trade Center unearthing remains. There were already hundreds of FDNY, NYPD and construction workers performing that task, HAZMAT was a rare resource and City Hall wanted it in place to immediately respond to any CBRN attack.
Today, FDNY Hazardous Materials Company No. 1 is a renewed force and continues to provide it's vital services to the women and men of New York City as the city's premier Hazardous Materials Response Team.
Here in Maspeth we've built a memorial for all of these heroes as well as for our civilian neighbors who perished in those buildings that day...among them was my friends' daughter, Jennifer ,who had just started working that summer after graduating college.
Here are some photos of the firehouse that means so much to us who live here
As I drive around my neighborhood the street names have been changed...my son sees the names of the father's of his friends as they are honored and remembered.. Yes and we even have one named for Jennifer...I know he'll never forget, make sure you don't either....
