Nine Months at Ground Zero by Glenn Stout Charles Vitchers & Robert Gray

Author:Glenn Stout, Charles Vitchers & Robert Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

One reason why Charlie Vitchers was able to command the attention and respect of such disparate groups as FDNY and PAPD and tradesmen and contractors, was that he gave the emotional needs on the site the same weight as he gave the logistical demands. He made certain everyone knew that he considered recovery their most important task. But he also was keenly aware of what impact the process of recovery had on everyone.

CHARLIE VITCHERS

Some days Sammy, Steve, or Mike Banker would come in and just sit at the table and have their heads down, and I’d ask, “You guys all right?” They wouldn’t say anything. You’d know they just found two of their guys last night, the guy that Mike Banker worked with for three years, and the guy Steve Rasweiler knew for twenty years. They’d spent the whole night digging their buddies out and going to visit their family, but they made it back for the meeting in the morning.

People’s emotions changed every day based on what affected them down there. You couldn’t take anything for granted, things changed every day. John Ryan of PAPD would come in with tears in his eyes—they just found his buddy. You knew John was consoling some guy’s widow last night, but he still came back to the meeting the next day. As much as we had our little nit-picking differences, at the end of the day the guys were attached to the site emotionally. I didn’t realize how much until I started thinking about it after I left the site. There were many days when the firemen and cops were attending funerals and memorial services during the day and then coming back to the site at night. My own superintendents were having problems because they weren’t at home. The outside world had no clue what the guys in the pit and in the trailer were dealing with, what we were collectively doing every day.

I started every meeting by asking how many recoveries there had been on the previous shift. I never stopped asking that question. Recovery was the most important thing. It was always there, it was never going to go away until the last truck was off that site.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.