On 9/11/01, I was working at the Holland Tunnel Control room, when I received a police report that a plane had struck the WTC. I pointed the Vent Building cameras at the WTC and saw the smoke. At that time it wasn't yet being reported on the news, and we did not know what kind of plane it was (we all assumed it was a small aircraft). Shortly afterwards it started to get reported. Less than an hour later, as we continued watching the cameras, we saw a quick glimpse of something hitting one side of the WTC and exploding out the other. At first I thought it may have been an explosion from the first plane, but we quickly realized it wasn’t.
That was when we had the first idea of what was going on. My coworker Scott Wolfe said, “we’re under attack!”, chills ran down my spine. I was instructed via radio transmission to shut the Holland Tunnel down to all traffic. As we monitored the radio and cameras, we watched both buildings fall. I’ll never forget the radio transmission that came over the air from a PAPD Officer saying “the WTC was gone”
Throughout the morning I tried to get in touch with my wife Tara. At the time she worked for JP Morgan Chase. I called her office for hours. Finally one of her co-workers picked up the phone and told me that Tara was working “downtown” that day. I was terrified. For hours I did not know if she was dead or alive. Thankfully I found out much later that she was able to get on the Staten Island Ferry (although she was nearly trampled as people fled in terror as the first tower fell).
Although cell phones were not as prevalent in 2001, I remember that most service was out, however for some reason the cheap carrier that I used at the time (Omnipoint) was still working. I remember everyone asking me to borrow my phone to try to call their loved ones.
Later that day, maintenance put a rescue team together and headed out. When we came through the tunnel into NYC it was the scene out of a nuclear holocaust movie. There was no traffic and EVERYTHING was covered in inches of dust and debris. Our “rallying point” was Manhattan Community College where we would check in and out. The gymnasium was full of supplies that were donated. That’s where I was when 7 WTC fell. It shook the ground and felt like an earth quake!!
As we made our way around Ground Zero and the fallen Towers, I remember seeing a fireman walking around by himself in a daze. I asked him if he was alright. He told me his whole squad ran into the building right before it fell, and they were all gone. He said that he was getting something off the truck and got delayed otherwise he would have been with them. We hugged for a minute then moved on with the rescue. Our team dug through the night and the next few days in "bucket bragades" digging, and passing debris down the line.
While I was there, we were not able to find anyone.
I'll never forget that night sleeping in my car in the parking lot of the Holland Tunnel, looking up through my moon roof and watching and listening to fighter jets circle the city. I thought to myself at that time that our lives will never be the same again and they haven’t been.
