September 11, 2001, changed countless lives. For Sal Cassano — who was already a three-star chief with FDNY on the day of the attacks — it also set the course for the rest of his career.
He made a commitment to help ensure the department was better prepared, better equipped and better trained, while continuing to attract strong people and care for the FDNY family.
Over the next 13 years, including during his tenure as commissioner, that commitment helped guide his work as the department rebuilt, adapted and ultimately redesigned many of its systems and practices.
The changes did not stop at FDNY. Lessons around command, communications, accountability, interoperability, training and technology helped influence how fire departments across the country prepared for complex incidents.
FireRescue1 spoke with Cassano five years ago about the lasting impact of Sept. 11. Now, 25 years after the attacks, we returned to that conversation.
FireRescue1: Do you have a different perspective on 9/11 25 years out, particularly as so many people entering the fire service today were not yet born when the attacks occurred?
Cassano: Unfortunately, we have lost so many of our members — it has really exponentially increased in the five years since the 20th anniversary. Right now, more than 450 people have died from illnesses related to their work at the World Trade Center. That is more than 450 families in addition to the 343 families that suffered a loss because of September 11. We let them know they are part of the FDNY family. We still honor their losses and their loved ones.
We also have to remind the newest members coming on the job what this history means. I see the graduating classes — just unbelievable kids. I meet probies and I see how enthusiastic they are about the job. We’re attracting such great talent.
We had a Tunnel to Towers Foundation Steel Across America event, and I was fortunate enough to speak to many probies about why they were there. I could look at their faces and know that they got it. They understood.
It is amazing that people who came into the department after September 11 are now leading the department. They understood from the beginning that they were standing on the shoulders of giants who made the ultimate sacrifice for our department, our city and our country.
Additionally, before a fire or EMS class graduates, they go to the World Trade Center to pay their respects. They visit the memorial and museum and learn what happened that day. The latest class is the last one to graduate before the 25th anniversary. Those young EMTs and paramedics get it. You can see that they understand why they are there, why they took the oath and what is expected of them.
In the days and months after September 11, as the department began moving from grief into operational change, what were you personally focused on fixing first?
Cassano: After every major fire we do an after-action report, but I knew we were too emotionally attached to this event to do it justice ourselves. I recommended to the commissioner and chief that we bring in someone from outside, and we brought in McKinsey & Company to give us a blueprint: What did we do right? What did we not do right? What did we need to improve?
My concerns were communications, training and equipment. We had radios that worked, but no radio worked as well as it could in a high-rise building. I also knew we had to increase training, and we did that across every rank. We expanded training for lieutenants, created a captain’s course and expanded courses for battalion chiefs, deputy chiefs and staff chiefs. We also knew we needed the best equipment available. [Read the McKinsey Report]
There is an old expression in the fire service: Never let progress get in the way of tradition. We turned that around. We were not going to let tradition get in the way of progress. We kept the good traditions, but we embraced technology, new procedures and different equipment.
We also changed our recall procedure. On September 11 we had a total recall, but if everybody is recalled at once, who relieves the people at the scene? Now the department can recall specific specialties or types of companies based on what is needed.
Was there anything in the McKinsey report that surprised you?
Cassano: Not really. One recommendation was to build up our hazmat capability because we lost Hazmat 1. But only having two units didn’t make sense to me, so what we did is we increased our hazmat capabilities for engine companies. We have five HazTech engines that can back up the squads, and we have chemical protective clothing for our ladder companies. We decentralize our hazmat capabilities so that if there are multiple events going on, we can handle them better than with two hazmat units — and they do, especially now with this lithium-ion battery proliferation of fires.
Family assistance and counseling also became major parts of the department’s response. How did those programs evolve?
Cassano: McKinsey recommended family assistance, which we were going to do anyway, of course, and it became one of the most important recommendations. Handling one line-of-duty death is horrific. We were dealing with 343 deaths at once, and then years of additional World Trade Center-related deaths. We created a Family Assistance Unit to help take care of those families, and that work remains critical.
Our counseling program evolved as well. In October 2001, we met with Ron Siarnicki and his team from the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation to talk about how they could help, and they have been a huge supporter of our counseling unit ever since. We realized that after these events, we were going to write the book on counseling — and they did. It’s being used now in colleges for trauma. The counseling unit eventually developed a trauma program that became a model for others.
The biggest change was peer support. At first there was a lot of pushback. People did not want to talk to someone from outside. The counseling unit realized we needed peers — people who had done the job, sat in that kitchen and grieved. That really turned the program around. Those peer counselors were welcomed into the firehouses because they were one of us, and people could open up to them.
Beyond the formal recommendations, how did you get members at different ranks involved in rebuilding the department?
Cassano: We brought in focus groups from every rank and asked them what they needed. People in the field know things that those of us at headquarters do not. Once we made changes, we had the support of the people who had helped develop them. That made a difference because the changes were not simply forced on people.
We did not just rebuild what existed before September 11. We redesigned the department around the kinds of incidents we believed we had to be ready for.
How did the new operations center and borough command structure change the way FDNY manages major incidents?
Cassano: The operations center gives senior leadership a broader picture of what is happening than people at any one scene may have. When Captain Sully Sullenberger landed the plane — the “Miracle on the Hudson” — instead of everyone in senior leadership responding to the scene, I went to the operations center. From there I knew when everyone was off the plane, where patients had been transported and when we could end the rescue effort. We would not have had that level of information before.
After September 11, we also moved toward borough command so that, if there were multiple attacks or incidents, we could decentralize command. I believe that started around September 2002. Instead of relying only on division-level command, we put a two- or three-star borough commander over each borough who reported up through the chief of operations and chief of department.
That structure paid off during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Different boroughs were facing very different problems at the same time — flooding, fires and other emergencies. The borough commanders could manage those conditions locally while still reporting into the larger command structure. That approach was born out of September 11.
How did 9/11 change interoperability, especially for large metropolitan departments?
Cassano: Interoperability starts long before the incident. It starts when you meet your counterparts, develop plans, drill together, review the plans and keep improving them. That is where interoperability really begins — and we did that here in spades.
Before September 11, our drilling with the NYPD was not where it needed to be, but after 9/11, we blew it out of the water. We constantly drill with them, the Office of Emergency Management, state agencies, federal agencies and mutual-aid partners in Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and New Jersey.
No more silos. Forget the silos. Now we spread our wings and we constantly train with so many different organizations. There’s a multi-agency drill going on every week. Know your counterparts. The first time you see somebody should not be at a fire or a collapse. It’s at a tabletop exercise or a full-scale drill.
People often hear “interoperability” and immediately think about radios. Radios matter, but if commanders have not talked about the plan, their roles and how they will help each other, interoperable radios alone do not solve the problem.
You mentioned communications. What changed with FDNY radios after 9/11, and where does that stand today?
Cassano: It’s funny because I was actually offline on September 11 working to get some digital radios back into operation. Then 9/11 happened.
We reconvened in February 2002 and put together a great team to get the radios back in service. They were much improved, more powerful radios. We had a couple of channels that were interoperable. The department is now on a later generation of radios that is far more advanced, although high-rise communications will always present challenges.
We’re constantly working on improving radio communications. It’s much better now — 1,000% better now.
Did firefighter accountability change just as dramatically?
Cassano: Yes. We developed the Electronic Fire Ground Accountability System (EFAS). Riding lists are transmitted electronically so we know who is working and which companies are at the scene. That is a much better fireground accountability system than what we had before.
What we still want is more precise location data inside buildings. You can get horizontal location information, but the challenge is the Z-axis — knowing not just the building or general location, but the floor and potentially the room.
Was the accountability problem on 9/11 mainly a flaw in the old system, or was the incident simply beyond what any system at the time could handle?
Cassano: Our accountability was based on riding lists kept on the apparatus and by the officer. When the apparatus was destroyed and officers were missing, that system failed. We had to go back to the firehouses and get riding lists from the chalkboards — what we’ve been doing since probably 1865. We knew which companies had responded from dispatch records, then had to reconstruct who was with those companies.
If our command posts had not been destroyed, we would have had a better picture. But the command posts were destroyed, apparatus was destroyed and officers carrying riding lists were missing. It was a perfect storm. We had to rebuild accountability from the firehouses and dispatch records.
Of all the changes after September 11, which were the hardest to implement operationally or culturally?
Cassano: One of the hardest changes in the upper ranks was stopping everybody from responding to the same incident. At the World Trade Center, we sent everybody, and we lost the chief of department, the first deputy fire commissioner and other senior chiefs. Afterward, we changed that. Some senior leaders would respond to the scene, and others would operate from the operations center. That was a hard sell because the instinct of fire service leaders is to go to the incident.
Another difficult change was limiting who could ride on the apparatus. On 9/11, because it was around a change of tours, people getting off duty and people coming on duty both responded. Afterward, if you were not working, you could not simply get on the apparatus and respond. That was very difficult culturally. You are telling firefighters, “This is the most important thing you do,” and then telling them they cannot go. But we made the change because we did not want the same thing to happen again.
Which changes have had the biggest impact on firefighter safety?
Cassano: The equipment and technology changes have been enormous. Better bunker gear matters, but technology has also changed how we assess hazards. A drone can go into a collapse zone and give us information without sending a firefighter into that danger. We have used drones to examine unstable buildings and parking-garage collapses. Robotic systems can also enter hazardous areas, such as a subway, take readings and send that information back without immediately putting a hazmat team in the hazard zone.
I think that technology will continue to change the fire service. In wildland incidents, for example, an incident commander can receive a live drone feed showing how the fire is spreading instead of waiting for that information through more traditional means. That kind of immediate situational awareness is a major safety improvement.
How has the fire academy changed to support that broader training mission?
Cassano: The academy now has far more realistic training environments than we had before: high-rise, shipboard, aircraft, subway and collapse simulators. The sounds, conditions and complexity make the training much closer to what members may actually face. Other departments come to train with us and take ideas back home. We have always tried to pay that forward. Actor Denis Leary and the FDNY Foundation were involved in helping secure funding for some of the academy improvements.
When you see other departments adopting changes that followed September 11, which FDNY lessons do you think had the greatest influence nationally?
Cassano: High-rise training and communications are certainly part of it, but I think the biggest influence is the amount of training we do. Departments come to the academy, see what we built and take those ideas home. We used federal grant money to develop capabilities here with the understanding that the work could benefit the rest of the country.
That was always part of the case we made: Help us develop it, and we will pay it forward. Other departments may not have the personnel or resources to build the same thing from scratch, but they can study what works here and adapt it. In some cases, it may not be one city adopting the model; it could be a state building a training resource that departments from across the state can use.
Training is still the foundation. We increased it across every level, including teaching our newest members more about hazmat because they may be the first people to encounter a hazmat incident.
But we also cannot separate the operational changes from the long-term human impact. The Family Assistance Unit has been essential as the number of World Trade Center-related deaths has continued to grow. In the early days, people would work at the site, go back to the firehouse and work, then return to the site without going home. We eventually had to make sure people had time away. Many are paying the price for that work now.
What has the World Trade Center Health Program meant to you personally?
Cassano: FDNY set up medical monitoring very early. Dr. Kerry Kelly and Dr. David Prezant were two of the chief medical officers involved, and we were taking baseline medicals by October 2001. I still go for my annual World Trade Center medical. I receive extensive testing, care and medication because of illnesses connected to our work at the World Trade Center.
I was not sure I would be here 25 years later to talk about what happened. I am, and I believe wholeheartedly that the World Trade Center program is one reason why. The amount of testing and treatment has been tremendous. And it is not about rank. I see firefighters who worked for me getting the same care. Everybody is getting that care.
There are continuing concerns about funding. Dr. Prezant is out there fighting for us, and at the time of this interview, the funding issues had not affected the care I was receiving through the program.
Additional resources
- FDNY World Trade Center Health Program: Health Impacts on FDNY Rescue/Recovery Workers 2001-2021
- How the WTC Health Program continues to support 9/11 responders — interview with Rear Admiral Lisa Delaney
