By Dave Walker
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
Copyright 2006 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
One of a dozen New York City firefighters to survive the collapse of the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Lt. Mickey Kross emerged without a scratch from the stairwell that somehow save his life.
He had less luck in post-Katrina New Orleans.
In the last fire he put out in New Orleans, “a piece of the building hit me in the head,” said Kross, who was here in late September as part of a New York Fire Department deployment to back up local firefighters. “The building was fully involved, burning. Something must’ve got loose.
“I had a helmet on, but I got hurt more in New Orleans than I did in 9/11.”
Kross’ earlier better luck is documented in “The Miracle of Stairway B,” a new History Channel film debuting next week. Now retired, Kross was working at Engine 16 on 29th Street when the call came in about a high-floors fire in the WTC towers. Jumpers were hitting the ground when he arrived on the scene.
Kross and a crew had made it to the 21st floor of the North Tower when the other tower fell. An evacuation order sent everybody back downstairs. Kross had managed to descend to the second story when the floors above him began to pancake. He pulled his helmet tight to his head and fell into fetal position.
He lived. How? See the title.
After about an hour, Kross and a few other survivors trapped in the rubble were able to make radio contact with outside rescuers. A little while later, they followed a shaft of light and emerged on top of the pile that had been a skyscraper.
During a recent meeting with TV critics in Los Angeles, Kross was asked about survivor’s guilt.
“It’s something that comes into play every once in a while,” he said. “Talking to some of the guys from my unit that were trapped with us, they battle it from time to time.”
Still, Kross was quick to volunteer when the call came for crews to go to New Orleans. He was in the third wave of FDNY volunteers to come here, for a 15-day hitch.
“I just like to go and see things,” he said. “I have an adventurous spirit, I guess. I enjoy rewarding work, and I felt like that was very rewarding.
“We landed at the airport and they took us out on these old broken-down buses. I guess that’s all they had available. I wasn’t expecting a limousine, so I wasn’t surprised.”
Kross’ first job here was “basic firefighting out of New Orleans firehouses,” he said.
Kross also worked on Operation Chainsaw, which organized cleanup teams.
He and others from the FDNY bunked in a West Bank college chapel.
“I sent home my address as Station of the Cross No. 9,” he said. “It was tough work.
“I’ve seen a lot of destruction in my life, but not the vastness. The extent of it really boggled my mind.”
Kross said he’s often asked to compare Sept. 11 with the damage wrought by post-Katrina levee failures.
“It’s horrible in a different way,” he said. “Equally horrible, but in a much different way. 9/11 is very small area. In New Orleans, it was endless.
“At one point, we had a fire way at the edge of the city. There we were on a highway in a caravan going at a pretty good clip, firetrucks and water trucks. We were traveling and traveling and traveling and all I saw around me was devastation.”
Kross returned to the city during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival with his girlfriend to reunite with some of the people he’d met here earlier.
“It’s the best time I had in a long time,” he said, though he couldn’t recall a specific favorite performance. “I don’t remember and I don’t care. I just was out with the people sitting in the mud, drinking beer and having a good time.”
TV columnist Dave Walker can be reached at or (504) 826-3429.
_________________________
“The Miracle of Stairway B”
Monday 7 p.m.
History Channel