Editor’s note: The following excerpt is from Chapter 2: September 11, 2001, detailing what it was like at the moment of the South Tower collapse. Find Weisberg’s book, From the Grey Tunnel to the Green Tunnel” on Amazon.
There were people who showed up at the firehouse because they did not know where else to go. I told them to go to the kitchen at the back of the firehouse. Many people listened, which was great since I figured they were now in a safe place, and they were not in the way while the EMTs and I were trying to treat the injured. I used those who stayed in front of the firehouse as my eyes to the outside. At one point, my “eyes” started screaming “Their jumping!” At first, I started making my way to the front of the firehouse to see what they were talking about. Then I realized they meant people were jumping out of the windows from the higher floors of the 110 story Towers since leaping to their deaths seemed to be the better option than burning from the tremendous heat from the flames they were facing. I stopped myself from getting any closer. I knew I did not need to see what was happening outside and I could not help any of these people when they landed on the concrete sidewalk below. Having those images in my head for the rest of my life was something I just did not need.
Shortly after, the search team the captain assembled headed across the street to the Towers. I remember watching those 8 guys leave the firehouse still thinking that I wished I were going with them. About 5 minutes later, my “eyes” started screaming again, but this time they also came running inside the firehouse. “It’s coming down!” I asked them, “What’s coming down? The plane?” They frantically shouted back, “No, the building!” Immediately, everyone in the firehouse started running to the back of the firehouse towards the kitchen. As Smith was passing Fu, Smith dragged Fu further into the firehouse while Fu maintained his vice-like grip on his briefcase. After several seconds of the loudest sound anyone could ever try to imagine, we were wrapped in complete darkness and silence, suffocating from the grey dust cloud that used to be the South Tower. We were trapped in the firehouse and the entire search team that I so wanted to be on was dead.
I quickly realized I was being crushed in the panic-filled firehouse. I was caught between those in the kitchen and the injured in front of me, and my “eyes” behind me. I could not understand why people were not going out the door in the rear of the firehouse. In the complete darkness while I was still holding my breath so I would not breathe in the dust-filled air, I first pushed those behind me off my back. I could not hold my breath any longer. I gulped in the dry dust which coated the inside of my mouth and throat and filled my lungs. It was so difficult to breathe with all that dust clogging my respiratory system I started gagging and dry heaving. I wished I could have puked just so it would have given my mouth and throat some form of moisture. Once I was no longer literally being crushed, I started moving those in front of me out of my way. Fortunately, I had enough time in the firehouse before the collapse to create a map in my head. As I worked my way forward, getting past the people in front of me, my right hand was on the right wall of the hallway leading to the back of the firehouse. I had a pretty good idea where I was since I found my telephone alcove and tv room landmarks. When I made it to the doorway at the end of the hallway, I tried to push the door forward to gain access to the street behind the firehouse. I could not understand why the door would not open. Then, like muscle memory, my training kicked in and I felt around the sides of the doorway. Hinges! The hinges that I felt told me that the door did not open away from me as I had expected it to do. The door needed to be pulled towards me to open it. A storm door was placed in front of an emergency exit door in a firehouse of all places! Problem solved, right? Well, not exactly. There was so much debris on the other side of the door that I could not open it at first. After slamming my shoulder into it a few times, I was finally able to open it.
From the Grey Tunnel to the Green Tunnel: A 9/11 Firefighter’s Journey from Despair to Hope
January 2025
Self-published
