Saved at the Seawall: Stories From the September 11 Boat Lift by Jessica DuLong

Author:Jessica DuLong [DuLong, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Terrorism, Political Science, Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA), History, United States, Maritime History & Piracy, State & Local
ISBN: 9781501759147
Google: AmgEEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Cornell
Published: 2021-05-15T13:54:05+00:00

“People were used to acting on their own and they

did a lot of that. . . . I did not have the depth of

knowledge to micromanage. And I didn’t pretend

that I did. What I had was a depth of knowledge

of the people I had working for me.”

Harris trusted his people. And that trust trickled down.

So, with grease pencil on a whiteboard, Day, Wilson, other Coast Guard petty officers, and the half-dozen Sandy Hook Pilots crew aboard the New York collaborated to assign and map out drop-off and pick-up spots for tugs and other workboats that didn’t have regular berths or equipment designed for easily on-and offloading passengers. To locate those spots, they referred to the detailed OpSail 2000 plan that Day had thought to grab on his way out the door. Soon evacuees were being funneled to distinct destinations based on where each vessel delivering them could dock. Deck crews began hanging spray-painted signs made of bedsheets and cardboard announcing their destinations. The makeshift ferries were now in service.

“We kind of thought of ourselves as air traffic control in that we were directing specific boats to specific locations throughout the city,” recalled Day. Like his command, Day hoped the Coast Guard’s presence could help expand, organize, and lend a bit of “legitimacy” to rescue efforts already under way.

As the primary regulatory body of the U.S. maritime industry, the Coast Guard devises and administers rules and standards governing every aspect of shipboard life, from the licensure and working conditions of mariners to the guidelines dictating vessel construction and equipment that affect all day-to-day operations of boat crews. The Coast Guard enforces the thousands of pages of rules contained in the multivolume Code of Federal Regulations (CFRs) that stipulate in exacting detail what is and isn’t allowed on the water. As such, relationships between the Coast Guard and the maritime industry can, at times, become strained. Coasties (as they’re called both affectionately and not so affectionately) don’t only rescue mariners in trouble; they can also cause big trouble for boat crews caught in violation of the CFRs. Like restaurant health inspectors showing up unannounced, the sight of a Coastie approaching one’s boat is not always a welcome sight, despite the vital services that the Coast Guard provides.

The choice that commanders made, in the midst of an unprecedented assault on the country that it was charged to defend, to allow mariners to bend rules in order to more readily assist their fellow citizens demonstrated a flexibility to adapt to the situation at hand that was critical to the success of the evacuation. So too was their choice to collaborate with mariners rather than control them.

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