Parents of 9-11 Hero Attend High School Graduation

Parents of 9-11 hero attend high school graduation at school named for son

Last Update: 6/22/2005 2:44:46 PM
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. (AP) - The Jacksonville Beach parents of a Nine Eleven hero have attended the first commencement ceremony for a two-year-old high school in Washington named after their son. Todd Beamer was one of the passengers on Flight 93 who kept it from being used in an attack on Washington, D-C. The plane crashed in Pennsylvania, killing all on board. His last words in a phone call to his wife before passengers attacked the hijackers were "Let's roll." David and Peggy Beamer were featured at last night's ceremony.

Heroes of Sept. 11 Finally Get a Voice

Aug. 13, 2005, 1:50AM
RELIVING THE HORROR
Heroes of Sept. 11 finally get a voice
Under a court order, the New York Fire Department releases crews' recollections

By ROBERT LEE HOTZLos Angeles Times
RESOURCES
Audio:• Emergency services in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. (Large mp3 files)
Reports:• Sept. 11 panel final report • Sept. 11 panel June 17 report (Acrobat Reader required)• Report on Iraq from June 2004 hearings (Acrobat Reader required)• Transcripts from April 2004 hearings • August 2001 report to White House on Osama bin Laden
Other:• 9/11 commission Web siteNEW YORK - Each of these city firefighters was a prisoner of memory.

The weeping paramedic who feared that his wife was among those still inside the inferno; the deputy commissioner who fixated on falling aircraft parts because he could not bear to watch the falling bodies; the fire chief who could not stop a new recruit from staggering back into the collapsing ruins; the firefighter who hid under the car and buried his face in his helmet when the first tower fell.

In the confessional of a closed administrative hearing, 503 New York firefighters and paramedics tried one by one to make sense of the call they answered to the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. For more than three years, their testimony had been secret.
But under a court order on Friday, the New York City Fire Department unwillingly bared its soul.

The department released a massive archive of radio calls and oral histories compiled by the firefighters who rushed into the chaos of the Twin Towers, where 343 of them ultimately died.
Through 12,000 pages of oral history transcripts and recordings of emergency radio traffic that filled 23 compact discs, a day that became a patriotic talisman of national resolve dissolved back into the irreconcilable fragments of carnage, horror and heroism on a September morning when two hours seemed an eternity.

The New York Court of Appeals ordered the edited material made public in response to a lawsuit by The New York Times. The tapes and transcripts were withheld on the direction of the U.S. Attorney's office, which had been prosecuting Zacarias Moussaoui, said Virginia Lam, spokeswoman for the New York Fire Department. Moussaoui pleaded guilty in April to charges in connection with the 9/11 plot.
The department began collecting oral histories in October 2001, when memories were sharp and recriminations raw.

As the firefighters, paramedics and administrators responded to laconic questions from a panel of three department officials, there appeared to be little effort to conduct a postmortem on operational matters.

Instead, each delivered an intimate, often emotional, account of the day's events, as if the department intended only to give its personnel an opportunity to purge themselves of whatever memories might be haunting them.

Often resorting to the cryptic language of emergency management — in which a "1040" is an airplane hitting a building and an "evulsion" is a slashed scalp — the firefighters unburdened themselves.

It was the office workers leaping from the towers to escape the flames that firefighter Maureen McArdle-Schulman could not block from her mind.

"Somebody yelled something was falling. We didn't know if it was desks coming out. It turned out it was people coming out, and they started coming out one after the other."

Emergency medical technician Mary Merced was transfixed. The images remained vivid. "I see debris drop. And I look, and it was people. I could tell you almost every color clothing all the people that I saw fall had on, how they fell, if they tumbled, if they swan-dived."

Merced gripped the hand of a co-worker to keep him from running into the burning tower. "Everything is in like slow motion, like time stood still." Then the south tower collapsed, the first to fall. "It was like in dark hell, like a nuclear blizzard."

Firefighter James Curran remembered that he made it to the 31st floor of the north tower and forced the door open. "You smelled jet fuel right away, so we shut the door." He retreated to the 30th floor with about 60 other firefighters. There, lighted only by the emergency strobes and flashlights, they huddled to catch their breath.

Trying to evacuate a women with a broken leg, FDNY Lt. Spiro Yioras sought shelter underneath a pedestrian overpass. Even so, he was pummeled by debris. "A couple of things hit me ... bricks or wood. But it hurt. It hurt," he recalled.

"We couldn't see anything. We couldn't breathe. I mean, I thought I was going to buy it. I really thought I was going to die in there."

When fire Chief Mark Steffens pulled his car onto West Street adjacent to the site, the destruction stunned him.

"It was just like nothing I have ever seen in my life. All the apparatus, the fire trucks, everything all blown out. The windows were all blown out, body parts lying on the street, mud, soot, people walking around dazed."

Steffens could not shake the memory of a lone probationary fireman he encountered on the street.

"I saw one proby — he had 'proby' on the helmet — by himself, walking by himself. I tried to get him to come with us. He said: 'No, no, I've got to go back.' We washed his eyes. I gave him something to clean his face. Then he turned and went back into the cloud. I never saw him again."
"Do you recall his name?" a member of the administrative panel asked.
"No, young, young guy. I didn't want him to go back, and he wouldn't listen to me," Steffens said. "He just walked back into that big black cloud."

Sept. 11 Archives Show Heroism Amid Chaos

By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press WriterSun Aug 14, 4:20 AM ET

Radio communication broke down. Commanders lost contact with their squads. Noise and dust obscured the senses. One paramedic likened it to being in an infantry unit overrun by enemy troops. Yet, in the confusion at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, firefighters and emergency medical technicians improvised, and kept working.

Without direction from superiors and no plan to guide their actions, they followed their instincts and extinguished blazes, triaged casualties and comforted the injured, at a time when they could have surrendered to panic.

More details of their rescue efforts that day have emerged in an archive of interviews and audiotapes released by the city this week as a result of a court order.

Among the hundreds of pages of transcripts are scores of instances where trained rescuers realized they were on their own.

Frank Pastor, an EMT who lost his helmet and his equipment running for his life as one of the towers collapsed, recalled finding himself in the lobby of a building surrounded by hundreds of survivors crying, "Help me! We can't breathe," in the cloud of dust.

"I'm looking around to see what I can do," he said. "I remember opening up this door. There was a slop sink. There was clothes hanging. I took the clothes and I started soaking the clothes, wetting them, started cutting out strips, giving it to kids, giving it to the mothers."

Firefighter Tiernach Cassidy dusted himself off after the second tower collapsed and found a command post.

"At first we started asking, 'What are we doing? What are we doing?'" he said. "Nobody really had a specific answer."
He salvaged rope and some tools from parked emergency vehicles and began looking for ways into the mountain of rubble.

After hours of searching, he and a companion lowered themselves into a deep pit, where they found a pocket of trapped civilians, firefighters and a Port Authority police officer who had survived.

Cassidy described who he used his body as a bridge to help the dazed officer climb up to a girder and reach clear skies.

"He gets up on my leg and then my shoulder, and he's up on the girder," Cassidy said. "He lies there on top of the girder and he gives me the biggest hug and he starts crying.

"For me, it was like, 'All right. No time for sentiment. You've got to get going."

The failures of the day were apparent in the transcripts and radio calls, released as the result of a lawsuit by some of the victims' families and The New York Times.

Several city EMTs complained about their inability to communicate with the private ambulance corps. Some firefighters said they never heard the evacuation order. Many described difficulty keeping in touch with commanders or members of their own units.

But the chaos didn't stop rescuers from acting.
Fire Captain Bruce Lindahl recalled realizing, amid all the confusion, that someone needed to put water on the Trade Center's smoldering remains.

EMT Fermin Merrero described walking down the street, treating wounded people as they passed.

"Nobody was in charge," he said. "I know what they teach you at the academy about we're going to triage, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. One thing about it, everybody kept their head. Everybody worked as a team."

Paramedic Camille Marroncelli said that for many, the decision to keep going in the face of chaos came naturally.

"You react because it's second nature on this job and that's the only reason why people — a lot of people rose to the occasion, because it is second nature," Marroncelli said. "If you stood there and really had to think about what you had to do, you would have been more paralyzed than you were."

The Man Who Predicted 9-11 - Rick Rescorla

Press Release Source: The History Channel The History Channel(R) PresentsMonday August 8, 2:08 pm ET BROTHERHOOD OF TERROR (9/10 7pm ET/PT) THE 9/11 HIJACKERS: INSIDE THE HAMBURG CELL (9/10 8pm ET/PT) OSAMA'S HIDEOUTS (9/11 7pm ET/PT) THE MAN WHO PREDICTED 9/11 (9/11 8pm ET/PT) GROUNDED ON 9/11 (9/11 9pm ET/PT) WORLD PREMIERES Saturday, September 10th and Sunday, September 11th 7 p.m.-10 p.m. ET/PT NEW YORK, Aug. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- September 11, 2001 now serves as the infamousreference point for the climate of terrorist-induced fear that has become ahallmark of the modern world. A wave of Islamic fundamentalist anger that hadgained momentum for decades crashed upon the United States on that day fouryears ago, and the reverberations are still felt today and will be for yearscome. In five world premiere programs, The History Channel looks at the roots oftoday's Islamic Fundamentalist movement, the men behind 9/11 --- including Osamabin Laden and the hysteria and heroism that marked the most chaotic moments ofthe 9/11 catastrophe. ADVERTISEMENT BROTHERHOOD OF TERROR (WORLD PREMIERE Saturday, September 10th at 7pm ET/PT) For many Americans, the morning of September 11, 2001 made the threat of IslamicFundamentalism a grave reality. But long before al Qaeda, the roots of thisdanger grew from an organization called the Muslim Brotherhood. Journey to Cairo, Egypt where the Brotherhood was born in the late 1920s. Learnhow Brotherhood members passed radical ideologies to legions of followers,including Ayman Zawahiri, who would become Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man. Today, some experts claim that the Brotherhood has put an end to their violentways, while others believe that its dark history makes this movement one thatcan never be trusted. Executive Producer for The History Channel is Marc Etkind. Produced for TheHistory Channel by Towers Productions. THE 9/11 HIJACKERS: INSIDE THE HAMBURG CELL (WORLD PREMIERE Saturday, September10 at 8pm ET/PT) For years, they remained nearly invisible, a small group of dedicated menwaiting for the perfect chance to strike. Then, on September 11, 2001, aftermeticulous preparations, they took action. The men's full stories and thedetails of their ambitious plan have now come to light. THE 9/11 HIJACKERS:INSIDE THE HAMBURG CELL tracks the progress of this unlikely group of young menwho grew from unassuming college students into religious martyrs. The leaders ofthe Hamburg Cell were responsible for the cultivation of the al-Qaeda plotcode-named "the planes operation." The group's leaders were four well-educatedMuslim men who shared a common belief in radical Islam. Though Mohamed Atta,Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and Ramzi Binalshibh hailed from differentcountries, a spirit of brotherhood prevailed among them. In time, they committedto a singular purpose -- to translate their religious fanaticism intocatastrophic action. Executive Producer for The History Channel is Marc Etkind. Produced for TheHistory Channel by Towers Productions. OSAMA'S HIDEOUTS (WORLD PREMIERE Sunday, September 11 at 7pm ET/PT) The hunt for Osama bin Laden continues, but the leader of al Qaeda remains anelusive target. For over 25 years, Osama bin Laden has been in hiding --sometimes by choice, often out of necessity. As a result, he has lived most ofhis adult life like a bandit, moving from one hideout to another in locations asfar flung as Pakistan to the Sudan. Along the way, his terrorist organizationhas constructed guesthouses, bases and camps to train fighters. Using 3Dgraphics, this hour will examine the bin Laden hideouts, put into context howthe world's most wanted terrorist has stayed one step ahead of his pursuers forso long, and examine where he may be hiding today. Executive Producer for The History Channel is Dolores Gavin. Produced for TheHistory Channel by CBS Productions. THE MAN WHO PREDICTED 9/11 (WORLD PREMIERE Sunday, September 11 at 8pm ET/PT) In 2001, Rick Rescorla was the 62-year-old head of security at the MorganStanley Bank situated high up in the South Tower at the World Trade Center. For6 years Rescorla was convinced that terrorists would use jet planes to try anddestroy the World Trade Center. Long before September 11th, he developed anevacuation plan for the bank, unpopular amongst some city whiz kids who workedthere who thought he was mad. His evacuation plan however ultimately saved 2,700lives. Rescorla's evacuation plan was put into effect after the first jet hit the NorthTower. When the second jet hit the South Tower, he averted panic and organized arapid evacuation of Morgan Stanley staff. Rescorla sang Cornish folk songs tocalm nerves while thousands trooped down the stair wells. Rescorla went backinside to help those injured and trapped get out. He was still inside when thebuilding collapsed. His body was never found. THE MAN WHO PREDICTED 9/11 tells Rescorla's extraordinary story from his Englishchildhood, to his heroics in Vietnam to his work as a/the security officer atthe World Trade Center where he became convinced that an attack was imminent. Itfollows the dramatic timeline of what happened to Rick between 8:45 a.m. whenthe first plane hit Tower 1 and 9:58 a.m. when Tower 2 -- and 500,000 tons ofsteel and concrete -- collapsed on top of him. It features interviews with hisbiographer, Pulitzer Prize winning author James Stewart, his wife Susan, many ofthe men and women whose lives he saved that day, and footage of Rescorla makinghis predictions. Executive Producer for The History Channel is Marc Etkind. Produced for TheHistory Channel by Testimony Productions. GROUNDED ON 9/11 (WORLD PREMIERE Sunday, September 11 9pm ET/PT) In response to the attacks on September 11, 2001, the FAA orders all planes outof the air. U.S. and Canadian air traffic controllers face a calamity of epicproportions-how to safely re-route and land close to 5,000 planes carrying closeto a million people. GROUNDED ON 9/11 tells the story of the how the Air TrafficControl System works and how it handled the events of September 11th. For individual air traffic controllers, the work is chaotic, intense, anddeceptively simple: pick a new route for each flight; radio instructions toturn; listen for pilot confirmation; hold traffic to keep airways fromovercrowding. From Cleveland, Ohio to Gander, Newfoundland, to Anchorage,Alaska, controllers searched for alternate airports to land large jets even astheir traumatized colleagues stream back from break rooms after watching theattacks on TV. Executive Producer for The History Channel is Marc Etkind. Produced for TheHistory Channel by BellaSwartz Productions. Now reaching more than 88 million Nielsen subscribers, The History Channel®,"Where the Past Comes Alive®," brings history to life in a powerful manner andprovides an inviting place where people experience history personally andconnect their own lives to the great lives and events of the past. In 2004, TheHistory Channel earned five News and Documentary Emmy® Awards and previouslyreceived the prestigious Governor's Award from the Academy of Television Arts &Sciences for the network's "Save Our History®" campaign dedicated to historicpreservation and history education. The History Channel web site is located athttp://www.HistoryChannel.com .