From Professional Mariner #61
Dec/Jan 2002

A shining light in our darkest hour

by Richard O. Aichele

PUSCGC Tahoma takes station between Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. The Coast Guard deployed numerous and patrol vessels after the terrorist attacks to provide security for the city.

As fire and heavy, black smoke were seen spewing from the 110-floor North Tower skyscraper at the World Trade Center (WTC), without instruction or guidance from authorities, vessels from tugboats to ferries in the harbor area that witnessed the incident changed their courses and headed directly for the closest docking areas to the WTC: the Battery, Pier 11 at the foot of Wall Street, and North Cove.

Some people had seen a jet passenger aircraft crash into one of the two WTC towers at 0843 on Sept. 11, 2001. "In the harbor, every single boat dropped what they were doing and headed to the Battery," said Glen Miller, president of Miller's Launch Service, Staten Island, N.Y. "Everybody seemed to understand this was going to be a very big disaster."

Some in the maritime community were immediately aware of the catastrophe. In Jersey City, N. J., across the Hudson River from the WTC, Fox Navigation's catamaran Sassacus had just tied up at the Liberty Landing Marina after dropping off passengers at Pier 11 from Glen Cove, N.Y. Capt. Robert Theofield, scheduled to attend a morning commercial ferry operators' meeting in lower Manhattan, changed into his business suit, went on deck and saw the explosion in One World Trade Center. Miller was on Staten Island driving to his office at 0843 when, at a turn in the road, he saw the first aircraft crash into the North Tower, and within minutes he was aboard one of the company's launches, headed across New York Bay toward Manhattan. En route to the city for a meeting of the Port of New York and New Jersey Harbor Safety Committee, Sandy Hook pilot, Capt. Andy McGovern, saw the WTC flames from his car while traveling to Manhattan on the Belt Parkway. McGovern immediately changed his destination and headed to the special traffic center at the Staten Island U.S. Coast Guard station to help coordinate the maritime community's response. A few miles north, Arthur E. Imperatore Jr., president of NY Waterway, based in Weehawken, N.J., said he had dropped his kids off at school and was driving to his office when he saw the second aircraft hit the other WTC tower. "From my car I could see both towers burning. The first thing I did was hop on a [NY Waterways] ferry to head downtown, and as I was doing that, the South Tower collapsed," he said.

When the South Tower collapsed at 0950, almost the entire high command of New York City's fire and emergency services were killed while in their command center, along with the firemen, policemen and other emergency personnel working to get people out of the building. Forty minutes later, at 1030, similarly weakened by the raging jet-fuel-fed fires, the WTC's 110-floor North Tower suddenly collapsed, killing those WTC workers and emergency personnel still in the building. When the North Tower collapsed, only 107 minutes had elapsed since the first plane crashed into it, but almost 6,000 people were missing and most presumed dead in the burning rubble of the WTC's twin towers.

	Smoke continues to rise from the rubble of the World Trade Center's North and South towers as USCGC Tahoma patrols off the southern tip of Manhattan. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks led to a spontaneous mobilization of the city's maritime community to move people out and supplies in.

A change of the Port of New York Harbor Safety Committee meeting schedule may have saved McGovern and other members of the port community. The meeting time had been changed from 0900 to 1000 and the location moved to the Coast Guard building at the Battery, since a conference room was not available at the WTC on Sept. 11. "I guess we were kind of lucky," McGovern said.

Survivors of the WTC complex struggled through the thick clouds of smoke, ash and concrete dust to escape the burning sites of the two buildings. As the choking clouds of dust settled, they walked through ash and dust, up to 6 inches deep on some streets, for blocks around the WTC site. Some started to walk north uptown. Others that escaped on the south side of the WTC complex began heading for the nearby waterfront, looking for a way to escape Manhattan.

"It was like Dunkirk"

Responding almost immediately after the first tower was hit at 0843, ferries already in the lower Manhattan area shifted from bringing in commuters to evacuating commuters and residents.

According to Imperatore, "We were there and on the scene. There was no one in charge yet, no central authority coordinating efforts at that time, so we just went ahead and did it." NY Waterway, the largest private ferry operator in the port, with 24 vessels, was making the regular morning commuter runs on the river at the time of the attack. Some boats were at the Hudson River ferry landing close to the Financial Center with others minutes away on the river or at New Jersey terminals. NY Waterway crews just started moving people out of Manhattan. Initially, the ferry captains, "picked up people at our terminals and also nosed their boats into the seawalls letting people jump over the railings onto the boats," Imperatore said, noting his time that morning was spent in lower Manhattan helping to evacuate the people. Recalling the many boats from various maritime companies that converged on the lower Manhattan waterfront and picked up everyone, Imperatore said, "It was extraordinary. It was like Dunkirk."

Navigating at the waterfront was risky for the first of the vessels moving to lower Manhattan's shoreline because of the fires raging in the WTC towers and resultant smoke. Said Capt. Russell J. Bostock, of NY Fast Ferry's high-speed catamaran Finest and the company's general manager: "When we docked at Pier 11, it was completely black from the smoke. There was no visibility. We came in by radar, and the radio communications with other vessels obviously was critical."

The maritime community worked from numerous points on Manhattan evacuating survivors and delivering supplies.

While en route to Manhattan, Bostock said, "We saw the smoke, and I called the other crew in New York on the VHF to stand by and await further directions. Most likely we would have to evacuate people." NY Fast Ferry's other catamaran, Bravest, had completed its morning run from the New Jersey Highlands across Lower New York Bay and through the Narrows to its pier near the South Street Seaport in Manhattan. NY Fast Ferry quickly went into the evacuation mode as people converged on the piers. "Some people had no shoes because they had run out of them. Some had no shirts or were using them to breathe through. We brought some people down to the Highlands that were actually going to North Jersey, but when they boarded in New York, they just wanted to get the heck off of Manhattan," Bostock recalled.

SeaStreak, another high-speed ferry operator between the Atlantic Highlands and Manhattan, also found its vessels located close by to provide almost immediate evacuation assistance. By 0840, the catamaran ferry SeaStreak New York had almost completed its run to New York and was heading up the East River. As it passed Pier 16 on the East River, the captain radioed the home office, "that he saw a plane hit the WTC. He continued up to East 34th Street, did the drop off and pick up, and while on the way back, again near Pier 16, he saw the second plane hit the other tower," said Joanne Conroy, marketing director of SeaStreak. A second SeaStreak ferry was ready to dock at Pier 11 with a load of New York-bound passengers. Instead, its crew found "people running to the pier. When the boat docked they came on, filling the boat, so it headed back to New Jersey," she said.

At about the time the second plane hit the South Tower, the New York Fire Department called Circle Line Statue of Liberty Inc., at the Battery, with instructions to hold their two sightseeing boats, with a capacity of 1,834 passengers, at the dock for possible evacuation of injured people. One boat, Miss Circle Line, had already boarded passengers for the first trip to the Statue of Liberty. "It did not sail, and we refunded the passengers' money. The two boats remained moored until early evening at the Battery, waiting for the injured," said Hal Clancy, the company's general manager.

On the two Fox Navigation ferries across the river at Liberty Landing Marina, Theofield and Capt. John Tragert were concerned that the wind might shift the heavy smoke in their direction, possibly trapping the ferries Tatoban and Sassacus there. "Captain Tragert and I conferred. At that point you couldn't even see the tip of the Battery. We decided to head out in the river and move as close as possible to the Battery until we could see the docks and help evacuate," Theofield said. Within a short time the smoke impediment was compounded with the huge cloud of cement dust when the buildings collapsed. "It was pretty horrible," he said. "People were just running."

Read more articles...