Although I was only in seventh grade at the time, I remember that experience to this day, and it flashed through my mind the instant I laid eyes on the massive scene of destruction before me. It looked like a B-rated Japanese horror movie; this just couldn’t be real, I told myself.
Countless firefighters were on “the pile,” as we came to call it: a jumble of smoldering junk that once was a complex of skyscrapers that ruled the economy of the world while guarding the gold and secrets of who knew how many nations below. The fire deep beneath that pile burned for nearly six months without cease.
But above, far above, everyone was in a race against time – or so we thought. Rescue workers were dropping lines down into cracks in the pile, to see if someone would yank on them. Others were hauling concrete chunks off, slowly trying to clear away rubble. Some were working with the K-9 dog unit, trying to sniff out any sign of life under the pile. Still others were making cell phone calls to numbers from a list they were given.
I was hauling concrete, handing out face masks and persuading firefighters to come in to the clinics set up on the perimeter. Most of them refused to leave the pile, of course; who wanted to abandon a buddy? But many had been working double shifts and were in terrible physical condition – they needed to be seen.
Few realized when I called to them from the edge of the pile what I had in mind. “Hi, can I talk to you for a minute?” I called to my target. The firefighter, exhausted, only saw a relatively small woman who seemed to be looking for information. Of course, he was there to help. And he came right over.
And I moved away towards the corner of a perimeter, telling him I couldn’t hear with all the roaring from the swaying buildings around, and the pick axes and such. He moved right with me, until we were close enough to the clinic for me to tell him that he needed to be checked out before he could go back to searching for his buddies. “You won’t do anyone any good if you collapse there on the pile, and you know it as well as I do,” I said. “Stop the garbage and go get that [eye / scratch, mouth / bruise / etc…] seen to right now. You know better.” My background helped a great deal. One can sometimes bluster a social worker; one cannot bluster another firefighter.
Another issue I dealt with involved making sure the guys on the pile kept their face masks on. I would sidle up to a firefighter and ask him sweetly whether he had a face mask, all innocence. “Face mask? Um.. Yeah,” I would hear. “They gave us one. I have it, sure. Why? Do you need one?”
“No, you need one,” I would snap back. “Put it on! You know what we’re breathing here as well as I do! Don’t be stupid. Do you want to be sick and lose hours?”
One of the hardest things I ever did was conduct an interfaith service for the friends and families of firefighters who were lost there at Ground Zero, together with a Roman Catholic priest and a Protestant minister, both serving the municipal fire and police departments. Because I was known to firefighters they asked me to serve for the Jewish population. I was hesitant at first because I am no rabbi, but I asked Orthodox rabbinic authorities and was given a green light, within certain parameters. Even within the limitations, hearing Psalms in Hebrew seemed to be a balm to Jewish families who had lost a central pillar in their lives.