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History. Politics. Nonfiction. HTML: What would make someone rush into a towering inferno and dash up stairs toward danger against a flow of human beings running in the opposite direction? Only someone who's been there can tell us. In this first book-length account of the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center, retired New York City firefighter Dennis Smith gives a remarkable eyewitness account of perhaps the most heroic and desperate collaborative disaster effort in recent history. Smith arrived on the scene shortly after the attacks on September 11 and stayed for weeks. He stretched hoses, picked up bodies, and talked with police, firefighters, and emergency workers who had rushed downtown to confront a spectacle no rescue worker had ever faced before. In Report from Ground Zero, Smith gives us the stories of some of the 343 firefighters who were reported missing or dead, including; Captain Pat Brown from Ladder Company 3, who was a personal friend; a father and son; the department's beloved chaplain; commanders; rookies; and entire companies that were lost. Smith pays tribute to the dozens of police and emergency workers who dies, as well as those who undertook an urgent search and rescue mission and, finally, the grim and daunting task of massive clean up. Smith's rare blend of superb writing skills and up-close firefighting experience drop us into the psyche of a firefighter, which sheds light on what would make someone rush into a flaming building: it's called heroism..… (more)
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On Sept. 11, 2001, he showed up at Ground Zero, where the help of this retired but experienced firefighter (along with many other retired firefighters who volunteered their skills) was accepted in the rescue and recovery efforts. Early on, he determined to write a book, dedicated to the first responders who died that day -- and whose names are all listed in the dedication. While the book recognizes the fact of the civilian deaths, it is about the uniformed personnel, especially firefighters, who perished and their brothers (and a few sisters) in service who sought to bring them home.
The first section of the book (exactly half of the book) deals with the actual day September 11. It is comprised primarily of first-person accounts collected from those who responded to the alarms on that fateful day. There are a few exceptions: a few accounts from famly members of first responders; some accounts by Smith providing background about responders who perished and whose fate is recounted in subsequent stories by rescue personnel. These accounts are amazingly straightforward. While aware of the magnitude of the disaster, the danger to themselves, and the losses which were taking place around them, they remained, in large part, focused on the job they had to do. There is no melodrama in the telling of these stories, and not an ounce of self-pity -- but, then, there is plenty of drama in the straight facts. Some of these folks survived being buried alive -- and then, freed from the rubble, eventually went on to search for others.
The second half of the book details. day by day, the rescue and recovery efforts which followed the initial disaster. While the first half of the book had a goodly representation of police voices (NYPD and Port Authority), this half is almost exclusively a firefighter's story. We see the family nature of firefighting in New York City; many of the elder firefighters searching so faithfully at Ground Zero are searching for their missing sons. Public service, you see, seems to run in the blood; several families lost multiple members -- in one case two brothers, a firefighter and a police officer.
The book also chronicles the growing tension as operations morphed from rescue to recovery to clean-up. Firefighters have a strong ethic that none of their own shall ever be left behind at the scene of a tragedy. But the painstaking sifting of rubble for remains was a slow process; there were great pressures, economic and psychological, to get things cleaned up faster than a thorough recovery of remains allowed.
And through it all, the funerals and memorial services continued, as firefighters honored their fallen comrades -- facing the painful decisions regarding whose funerals to attend in the wake of so much death.
It is impossible for anyone who wasn't there to really, really grasp the reality of Ground Zero on 9/11 and the days that followed. But this book gave me a clearer glimpse than I've ever had before. It takes us into the heart and soul of the disaster at Ground Zero and of those on its front lines. It is painful, yet strangely uplifting to see the courage and integrity that these brave souls bring to their life's work. Recommended.
The author takes us inside the
Then, the author carefully describes the aftermath and the people buried beneath the tons of fallen debris. There is one story of a number of men, working round the clock to carefully remove fallen panels that were crushing the legs of a survivor. The man was rescued after a most admirable and grueling effort.
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