On September 11, 2001 until I retired in 2008 as the Director of Procurement.
The first story is about a golf shirt I wore when I made speeches about how our agency recovered. After the WTC collapsed, those PA employees responsible for building maintenance had no jobs. They were assigned to deal with the victims’ families – helping with bereavement counseling, insurance claims, etc – a job they were in no way qualified to do. One employee was so stressed out that he asked for time off, which was denied. On Easter Sunday, his daughter sat on his lap and he collapsed and died. He was not entitled to any benefits as his family couldn’t prove his death was 9/11-related. One PA employee decided to have annual golf tournaments, with the proceeds going to a college fund for this employee’s children. These golf shirts were sold each year. I went all over the country making speeches and sold these shirts as well.
The aftermath was particularly unusual as we could not adopt our disaster recovery plan. Our executive director, Neil Levin, died that day. People didn’t want to come back to work. We didn’t have any computers but imagine having to buy for Ground Zero and replace everything lost with no authority to do anything!
Without a computer system, without staff, and with no formal processes in place, our job directly after 9/11 was to buy things like: rescue and fire fighter vehicles; police vehicles that were destroyed (the PA has its own police department); land rovers and all-terrain vehicles; computers; cell phones; work uniforms (to identify different rescue workers); and office furniture.
On 9/11, I arrived at work on the 63rd floor of building 1 around 7:30 am. At 8:46 am, American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building between the 93rd and 99th floors. I could see things flying outside the windows of my office, but had no idea what I was looking at. All of a sudden I heard a loud noise, and I heard people from the other end of the floor screaming. The ground felt like it was on an angle, and I felt like I was falling. Nobody really understood it was a terrorist attack at that point.
One of my staff who was an environmental contract writer insisted everyone leave the building immediately due to the risk of fire posed by the jet fuel, so I participated in what began as an orderly exit of the North Tower. The stairwells became crowded and ultimately chaotic when the building’s sprinkler system went off, making it difficult to see. Word of a second plane striking the South Tower arrived when I reached the 30th floor. That’s when we knew it wasn’t an accident. People became afraid. It took 50 minutes to exit the building, as I constantly needed to move aside to allow firefighters to enter and exit with injured people. It is important to recognize the kindness of New Yorkers as people risked their own lives to save the lives of strangers.
With so much uncertainty surrounding the day’s events, I actually thought I was going to die, as I started walking away from the WTC with some of my staff. I was unable to contact my family, including my daughters who were in college at the time. I returned to work two days after the attacks and commuted four hours each way from my home in Long Island, N.Y. to a temporary office space in New Jersey where I worked for nine months. In this new office space, there were no phones, no supplies, and no computers. In addition, it was difficult to locate staff and identify who the survivors were. A missing person’s list was prepared – everybody was presumed dead until they called into hotline to get their name off the list. There were memorial services daily.
People came back to work gradually – there was no space for them and some people were so traumatized, they never came back to work.especially with no leadership.
The most important contract I became responsible for was the rebuilding of the PATH train station, a true work of art designed by Santiago Calatrava, a world famous architect. While I signed that contract, I retired well before it was finished.
