Great Barrington — On September 11, 2001, 2,977 people were victims of multiple terrorist attacks. In New York City, 2,600 people were killed when two airplanes, hijacked by terrorists, separately crashed into the North Tower and South Tower of the World Trade Center. In Arlington County, Va., 125 people were killed when a hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon. A fourth hijacked plane crashed into a field in Stonycreek, Penn., after passengers fought back against the terrorists, with the plane missing the terrorist’s intended target.
Thousands of first responders, including members of police, fire, and emergency departments from all across the country, all rushed to what became known as “Ground Zero,” the former location of the World Trade Center, to help look for survivors amidst the rubble and wreckage. A message written by Attorney General Merrick Garland in a report issued by the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund states that “tens of thousands of responders and survivors have become sick or died because of their exposure” at sites involved in 9/11.
On Wednesday, September 11, 23 years after the terrorist attacks, the town held a commemoration ceremony at the Great Barrington Fire Department.
The event was co-organized by American Legion Post 298 and Veteran of Foreign Wars Adams-Budz Post 8183.
“We gather today to honor the memory of those lost on September 11, 2001,” Selectboard Chair Stephen Bannon said at the beginning of the event. “We acknowledge the bravery of firefighters, police, first responders, service members, and ordinary people who answered cries for help that day. Nearly 25 years later, at a time when our community often feels divided, it is important to recall that, in one of the darkest days in our nation’s history, people came together to protect and support each other.”
John Morris, a former New York City firefighter, was at Ground Zero at the day of the terrorist attacks. Now retired, Morris has lived in Great Barrington for the past five years. At the event, he spoke about his experiences from 23 years ago.
“It’s hard to believe that it was 23 years ago when these attacks occurred,” Morris said. “I was off duty on that day, but I was in New York City when the two airplanes hit the twin towers of the Trade Center. When that happened, and when the word came out [about the attacks], everybody was in mass confusion. Public transportation was stopped, taxi cabs weren’t running, and everybody was near a radio or TV.”
Morris said that word came through that all off duty fire and police department personnel were to report to their units. “I was a friend of mine’s in the city, who was also a firefighter, and we decided to go to our unit in the Bronx,” Morris said. “But that was as far from the Trade Center as you could get but still be in the confines of New York City.”
While at the firehouse with other department members, Morris and the others started to get their gear together as the second tower of the World Trade Center came down. “There was no word from the upper echelon of the fire department [about what to do next],” Morris said. “They were nonexistent because most of them perished in the collapse of the towers. So, we took it on our own. There were about 10 of us who decided to go down to the site to see what was going on.” The group of firefighters commandeered a New York City Transit bus in order to get to lower Manhattan.
“On the way down, you could see the confusion, and you started smelling the smoke, and seeing the ash the closer to downtown that you got,” Morris said. “We reached the location on the Lower West Side of Manhattan that looked like a staging area. All of the rescue personnel were starting to group in there with civilians and people who just wanted to help. While we were waiting for more orders, which never came, our little group and other little groups like us from different firehouses started to march south to the site. As we were marching south, the smoke and ash was getting deeper and thicker as we were walking to the center of the site itself. You could taste it. You could feel it. It was in your eyes. It was burning.”
As the group reached what became known as Ground Zero, Morris said that the smoke and ash continued to get much more intense. “We eventually got to the site, and I remember walking in through a little side street,” Morris said. “It was an incredible thing. Devastation, a pile of rubble, concrete, and steel. There were squads of firefighters, cops, and civilians, but no one knew what to do. All of New York City, all the agencies, never expected something like this to happen.”
After examining the site, groups of people started to climb what Morris described as “mountainous rubble” trying to find victims. “We were looking for holes and voids and trying to find out if there’s a stairwell, an elevator shaft, something where people might have collected and not gotten crushed,” Morris said. “We started on our hands and knees, digging with the hand tools that we brought with us or with some makeshift hand tools that we found on site.”
Morris said that “the area was so vast, it was like 14 and a half acres of rubble and we were like little ants crawling all over.” “Over time, we noticed more civilians coming in [to help],” Morris said. “This is the good part of it, if there is a good part of it: Everybody was starting to come together. The doctors were coming down and setting up shop. Nearby, nurses were there as well, along with other emergency personnel. That was a wonderful sight to see. On the first day, we lacked the personal protective gear that we should have had. There was no masks, no respirators, none of that stuff, but it actually didn’t make a difference to us. I thought I was going to actually pull one of my buddies out of the rubble sooner or later, but that never happened.”
Morris said that he was with the other emergency personnel and volunteers for several days, digging through the rubble in order to find people. “One morning we had to go get cleaned up because we were all fatigued,” Morris said. “We hopped the fire engine back to the Bronx and one of the most remarkable things I’ve seen happened. The people on the street were applauding us, waving American flags and cheering. I didn’t know it was for us, but it was, and in the subsequent days that followed, we were back back and forth until the volunteers kept coming. Then I started meeting people from all over the United States, firefighters from Los Angeles, Chicago, construction workers from Arizona, Baltimore, all over the place, they just never seen a country get together like this.”
“I call 9/11 our generation’s Pearl Harbor,” Morris said. “Our motto is never forget. Not since World War II have we seen this kind of outpouring of love and kindness, but it’s too bad it didn’t last that long.”
