Feature
September 11 — 20 Years Later
There’s a storm brewing. Unfortunately, I am not referring to a tropical cyclone or the development of a Dr. David Greene line of supercells. I am referring to an incident that is vile. One that is incomprehensible. One that will have a tremendous loss of life and will claim the lives of firefighters. You are reading this after the 20year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2011. However, I am typing this before the anniversary date. It is human nature to lose memories as time goes on. Add to that the fact, that we are now hiring firefighters who were born after the September 11th attacks occurred, and it is easy to understand how it is harder to remember.The lack of a major terrorist attack over the last 20 years has lulled us into a false sense of security. Let me remind you. On September 11, 2001, two commercial airliners hit the World Trade Center in New York City. Another hit the Pentagon in Washington, DC and a fourth crashed in Shanksville, PA while passengers fought terrorists for control of the plane. In New York City, a radio transmission was recorded early in the incident from the field communications unit to the FDNY communications center.“George, have them mobilize the Army. We need the Army in Manhattan.” How many of us have been the Incident Commander at a call where we have considered needing the Army to successfully prosecute the incident.Try to imagine that. In response to 9/11, many of us focused our training on specialized types of responses. My department sent firefighters to radiological training in Nevada, nerve agent training in Alabama, initial response to terrorist bombing training in New Mexico, and hazardous materials life
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support training in Arizona, just to name a few. However, that was years ago. Although it is possible that our brewing storm will evolve in the form of one of these incidents, it is also possible, and perhaps more likely, that our “storm” incident will involve a simpler means of attack. It could be an active shooter incident, a truck that strikes multiple people, or even a knife attack. From the perspective of someone who wants to cause us harm, firearms and knives are much easier to acquire than radiological sources and nerve agents. This is not to say that we do not need to prepare for a nerve agent
attack, but we should also prepare for mass casualty incidents caused by means that are easier to employ. Moreover, we should prepare for a combination of attacks. Shortly after 9/11, we were warned that a plan was discovered to use crop dusters with organophosphates laced with radium. The results of such an attack would yield a group of individuals showing signs of nerve agent exposure, as a result of the organophosphate. It would be a secondary thought to pull the radiation detectors off the hazmat truck, to identify the presence of radium. It is not enough that we train for
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and consider what our brewing storm will look like. We also need something else.There are countless reports of what the FDNY firefighters faced when they arrived at the World Trade Center. Although 343 FDNY firefighters made the ultimate sacrifice that day, there were countless others that survived, despite thinking that they were going to die as well. Fighting such a welldeveloped fire so high above the ground with the structural damage that had occurred was not something any of them had experienced. In one instance, an engine crew shook hands, acknowledged the honor it was to serve alongside each other, and said goodbye.They then proceeded into one of the towers to help rescue civilians and all of them believed they would perish while doing so.This is the “something else” that we will need. Courage. We need courage not just to prosecute the incident when it occurs, but we need courage to stand up against the nay-sayers. Make no mistake, we will have people that wonder why we need to purchase a nerve agent detector. We will have people wonder why we have to buy a ballistic vest for every firefighter. We will have firefighters wondering why we are “wasting our time” training on nerve agents or radiological sources. We must have the courage to remind any doubters, that we must not forget why the training and equipment is important. Why is it important? Several years ago, I was fortunate enough to visit the 9/11 memorial in New York City. I anticipated an emotional experience having watched the incident unfold
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