It was a crystal clear morning and I was at a Fare Control meeting at an interior conference room at the Journal Square PATH offices. At about 8:50 AM we got word that a plane had crashed into the WTC. My first thought was that it was a small plane, I had been on the 82nd floor of the WTC the previous Friday discussing emergency procedures with the new owner of the WTC and witnessed many small planes flying along the river lower than the 82nd floor.
By the time I got back to my office on the 8th floor, which faced the WTC, we could see smoke bellowing from the north tower, in addition we were watching a TV which was broadcasting the events just as the south tower was hit at 9:03 AM. When the south tower collapsed at 9:59 AM all our power at our WTC substation was lost as well as losing all compressed air that powered our under-river pumps in both tunnels. Even before the north tower collapsed at 10:28 AM we knew we had a major disaster. All available maintenance forces were dispatched to the Exchange Place Station. We isolated the air lines at Exchange place so our other pumps and signal system would not be affected.
We then sent in a self-propelled vehicle in to the tunnels and were able to isolate each airline east of the mid river pumps but it became obvious that a great deal of water was flowing from the WTC together with a large amount of sediment which would soon shut down the pumps. We also had to isolate the 27KV feeders at Exchange Place that came from the WTC. The flooding in our downtown tunnels had to be contained, if left uncontrolled it could flood our uptown tunnel up to 14th Street. We marshaled all our forces at Exchange Place, we placed barriers at the west end on the Station so we could pump the water to the one pump and sump located at the south side of the station.
While this was going on we were also configuring offices at Journal Square to accept the Executive Staff of the Port Authority until more permanent space could be found. A large conference room was also outfitted with desks and phone lines to act as a command center.
At about 6 PM there were rumors that people were trapped in the basement of the WTC and were trying to make contact with their cell phones. The Jersey City EMS wanted to make an attempt to reach the WTC basement via our tunnel. I indicated that they would need an inflatable boat and by 11PM they had a plan in place in conjunction with the PATH Police. We were able to transport them and their boat into the tunnel utilizing the self-propelled vehicle as far as the water level would allow. I told them they had to communicate the distance from the water to the top of the tunnel as they progressed. When the distance reached four feet I indicated they had to turn back because they hadn’t reached the low point of the tunnel and they risked the possibility of getting trapped as the water was continuing to rise. Our Police brought them back to the vehicle and then back to the Exchange Place Station.
Paul Moreno
Superintendent of Way & Structure (2001)
Retired 2005
