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By Newsweek Editors
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It was around 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday and 1 World Trade Center had just been pierced by a Boeing 767 passenger jet. Deputy Mayor Joe Lhota and other city officials were racing to 7 World Trade Center just across the plaza from the Twin Towers. There, on the 23rd floor, was the city's Emergency Command Center, a state-of-the-art $15 million facility designed to serve as the city's nerve center whenever disaster would strike. Three years ago, when plans for the command center were reported, the project was widely derided-a testament, the critics jeered, to Mayor Rudy Giuliani's bunker mentality. Now, however, there was nothing the city needed more. The only problem: the facility's proximity to the disaster site was about to render it utterly useless.
Minutes after his arrival at the World Trade Center complex, Lhota heard a voice on a police radio: another plane was screaming toward the second tower. Then, a blast. Flames, metal, and glass shot over Lhota and the other city officials there, including Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. "I turned around and I hauled ass," Lhota told NEWSWEEK. Inside 7 World Trade Center, the command post had been activated, according to someone from the city's Office of Emergency Management (OEM) who was there. Now, everyone was abandoning the building. Within hours, the one facility supremely equipped to deal with a disaster of unimaginable proportions would be reduced to rubble.
It makes the story of New York City's emergency response to the World Trade Center attacks all the more gripping. And all the more remarkable, given the vast array of people and equipment that have been marshaled to the city's aid in such short order. For hours, as Mayor Giuliani and other city leaders struggled to find out what had happened and how to respond, they were also wandering in search of a new home. They lost the essential infrastructure that the command center provided-consoles for 50 city, state, and federal agencies, a high-tech computer system that mapped subway and sewer lines, a "red phone" linking the mayor to the White House, backup generators and water supplies, food and beds, all encased in a bulletproof shelter. Instead, Giuliani and his team were forced to make do with walkie-talkies and Nextels (cell phone service was dead), as they hoofed through downtown and the debris swirled. Said Lhota: "We needed to get a sense of control."
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The first stop: a Merrill Lynch office on 75 Barclay Street, just a few blocks north of the World Trade Center. There they found functioning phones. One aide worked on getting the White House on the line. Others struggled to reach key members of the command team. But shortly thereafter, NYPD Chief of Department" Joe Esposito screamed, "Get down! Get down! It's coming down!" The south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed in a thunderous roar. The group fled through an underground tunnel and made its way out to the street. "It was gray, dark, dust, and dirt," Lhota said. "It looked to be a foot deep." The roving command post headed farther north.
Next stop: a fire station in the West Village. The party remained there for close to an hour, as aides manned the phones and assistants arrived with fat Rolodexes. By then, the party had been joined by Richard Sheirer, the director of OEM, which is in charge of the city's emergency response efforts. Soon, Sheirer's two deputies straggled in. One of them "looked like a snowman," shrouded in dust, said Lhota. "His ears were bloody. [They] were stuffed with all the s-- that was blowing around." When the other deputy arrived, he collapsed and was whisked away to the hospital (though now he's back and working).
But without desks and sufficient space at the fire house, the team had to find yet another home. They settled on the Police Academy on 20th Street, where they remained until their move on Saturday to Pier 92. Now, finally, all of the agencies comprising the emergency response team have a base of operations-and a steadily rebuilding infrastructure. Their top priority: to find survivors. (So far, they've found five, as well as 159 bodies.) But they also need to recover evidence, which requires that rubble be cleared methodically and carefully.
Behold the scene at ground zero-the cacophony of heavy equipment, the thousands of workers bustling about-and it's likely to appear disarticulated and chaotic. But there is an order to that frenzied activity. At the command center, OEM gathers and directs resources, everything from gloves to cranes. Scores of government agencies and other groups-ranging from the Fire Department to the Taxi and Limousine Commission-mobilize the equipment, supplies, and workers they have available and move them wherever OEM sees fit, in a continuously recalibrated effort. Down at the wreckage site, the fire department calls the shots on search-and-rescue efforts, according to Jerome Hauer, a former OEM director who designed the city's emergency response protocol. The fire chief tells the OEM's forward command post-now located at Stuyvesant High School, whose students were re-located-what it needs. Then OEM marshals the supplies.
To an extent, the city was ready for such a calamity. Hauer's protocol envisioned hurricanes, biological warfare, and bombings-all severe disasters. To deal with massive numbers of injuries, Hauer explained, the city struck "mutual aid agreements" with surrounding counties and states-agreements that would provide for medical, police, and other assistance. But no one anticipated the magnitude of these attacks. As far as planning goes, said Hauer, "I've seen nothing at all surprising-except the amount of devastation."
And perhaps something else: the amount of volunteer help. Vast numbers of helpers and truckloads of donations have poured into the city entirely unsolicited-and warmed many a heart. But they're starting to get in the way. OEM can't possibly make use of all the people and food and medical supplies that have made their way to the Jacob Javits Convention Center on the West Side. Another problem: not all volunteers arrive with the best intentions. "We have people posing as volunteers to get into the sites," said Comissioner Kerik at a briefing this morning. "And then they are walking around as tourists." He then issued this warning: "If you're not here as a worker in the ground zero area, stay out of the area. You will be arrested for trespassing."
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