By DIANE S. WILLIAMS, GREGORY N. HEIRES
and ALFREDO ALVARADO

With thousands still missing as terrorists erased the Twin Towers from the skyline, Sept.11 will long be remembered as New York City’s darkest day. But in the mammoth rescue and recovery drive, public employees provided a beacon of light with incredible bravery and round-the-clock work.

Together with Police and Firefighters, District Council 37 members have been at the heart of the effort.

Some are among the missing, and thousands more in scores of municipal jobs and dozens of DC 37 locals played essential roles in the city’s massive cleanup and comeback.

In the worst of times, the public service infrastructure came through for New York City.

“I thought it was the end. It was horrible.”
Alex Loutsky figures he should be dead.

The Emergency Medical Technician was a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center when the first hijacked Boeing 767 plane hit the northern tower. He raced his ambulance to Fulton and Church Streets, across the street from the site. There, he encountered sheer chaos.

“There was a sea of people rushing out with terror on their faces,” Mr. Loutsky said. “We tried to load them up six at a time. Many injured people just kept running.”

Eighteen minutes later, the scene became even wilder as the second plane struck 2 World Trade Center. More panicked and injured people poured into the streets. Sirens blared. Then, suddenly, at 10:29 a.m., the first collapse occurred.

“It was horrible,” Mr. Loutsky said. “You never thought it would collapse. Everyone ran. Everyone was screaming. Then it went black. You couldn’t breathe at all. I didn’t know if I could make it. I thought it was the end.”

He grappled his way out of the darkness, went to a nearby hospital and then returned to the scene to work. “But there wasn’t much to go back to,” Mr. Loutsky said. “I saw a crushed ambulance and spoke to a cop. Then we heard a rumble. The second tower came down.”

Mr. Loutsky and a Firefighter, Alex Santoro, ducked into a candy store as “blackness overwhelmed the place,” Mr. Loutsky said. “We didn’t know if this was the third world war or if we were going to be bombed.” When the smoke and dust settled, they left the store. On Fulton Street, which was covered with three inches of white dust, they helped injured people until they ran into a fire chief, who sent Mr. Loutsky to Battalion 4, where he was mistakenly reported missing and feared dead.

Mr. Loutsky was among the hundreds of members of Emergency Medical Service Employees Local 2507 and EMS Lieutenants & Captains Local 3621 who helped care for the injured and move them to hospitals.

“What people have gone through has been terrible,” said Emergency Medical Technician Ray Simons, a member of Local 2507’s Peer Support Team, which has provided counseling services to help its members cope with the Twin Towers incident.

“There wasn’t enough to do — not enough survivors.”
Philip Holder, a Sr. Nurse’s Aide, began his day in the Operating Room at Bellevue Hospital. But when the second plane hit, hospital staff sprung into full disaster mode and prepared for hundreds of incoming patients.

“About 40 firefighters, 10 police officers and a Port Authority officer were rushed in,” said Mr. Holder, a Local 420 member. “They were all in pretty bad shape.”

Twice the veteran aide and licensed paramedic accompanied one of Bellevue’s 20 cardiac teams to ground zero to save victims’ lives. “When I saw the devastation, I knew we were in trouble,” said Holder, an ex-Navy SEAL medic.

Confesor Arroyo, a Patient Care Associate and Local 420 member, helped prepare the hospital to make room for the expected victims. But Bellevue took in less than 100 WTC victims. “We wanted to do more, but there was not enough to do — not enough survivors,” Mr. Arroyo said.

“This will be etched in my brain forever.”
Some of Local 983’s tow truck operators were deeply shaken by their work at ground zero.

“I was trying to retrieve trucks, but you couldn’t see anything,” said Timothy Aiken, a Traffic Enforcement Officer Level 3. “People were covered in smoke and soot. It was like walking into a wall of smoke.”

Standing by his truck, Farris Coley Sr. witnessed people jumping to their death as fires raged through the towers.

“I looked up and I saw both buildings in flames. I saw groups of people in threes jump. They hit the ground and there were blood baths,” he said.

Mr. Coley and coworkers narrowly avoided injury when the buildings collapsed. Tow truck operators spent days at ground zero clearing out crushed and abandoned fire trucks, ambulances, police cars and other vehicles.

Since the attack, Mr. Coley has had trouble sleeping. He has nightmares, flashbacks and difficulty communicating his experience to his wife and family. He plans to seek counseling to cope with his stress and trauma. “The thunderstorm two days later terrified me,” Mr. Coley said. “It sounded like the building coming down.”

Mr. Aiken said he was especially affected by his work at Bellevue Hospital, where he was sent Sept. 12 to ensure access for tractor-trailer trucks bringing body bags to the morgue. While there, Mr. Aiken saw the charred remains of victims of the attack. “I will never forget it as long as I live,” Mr. Aiken said. “It’s going to be etched in my brain forever.”

“It'll take people long to cope.”
Certified Social Worker Helen Wilson of SSEU Local 371 mobilized volunteers to help survivors and witnesses cope with the intense emotional fallout after the tragedy of Sept. 11. She set up shop at the local’s headquarters near Union Square to provide free counseling.

“This is a real difficult process. People are going to take a long time to come to grips with what happened,” she said after completing a lengthy session with a city employee who worked on Williams Street and saw people jumping from the World Trade Center. Ms. Wilson also provided a package of information on dealing with trauma and depression. “The most important thing is to talk to people who have gone through this like your neighbors or coworkers,” advised Ms. Wilson. “They don’t have to be mental health professionals.”

Among her colleagues who assisted was retired Social Worker Tambra Chisolm, who came all the way from Baltimore to help.

“We worked nonstop all night.”
The city’s emergency Family Assistance Center on Pier 94 on the Hudson River houses more than a dozen agencies, from social service to the American Red Cross to the FBI. Families of the victims of the trade center disaster file into the site to get legal assistance, worker’s compensation or simply a hot meal and a cup of coffee.

The size of two football fields, the center handles clients efficiently, thanks to computers installed by a team that included Computer Technician Patrick Luc and other members of Local 2627. In 24 hours, they set up 300 computers and installed the software that gave them access to the necessary data bases.

“We worked nonstop through the night,” said Mr. Luc, whose brother lost a friend at the World Trade Center. “When you think about this tragedy, there wasn’t any time to get tired.” Now, three shifts of computer experts are providing technical support on the pier. Mr. Luc works the afternoon shift then returns to his regular job at Human Resources Administration.

Rivera helped handle a record number of 911 calls. “When I grasped what was going on, I didn't get emotional,” Ms. James said. “I had to keep doing my job.”

“Lives depended on me. I had to be calm.”
At 8:48 a.m. Sept. 11, the first of the two hijacked planes smashed into the World Trade Center. In the 13 minutes that followed, Police Communications Technicians at the 911 Emergency Call Center received a record 3,000 calls.

Local 1549’s Gladys Mitchell was one of the first to respond. “I looked up and the board went red,” she said. In the first few seconds, the numbers of incoming calls jumped from 10 to 400 — all from people still inside the World Trade Center and uniformed officers. E911 Techs answer calls and get information that dispatchers feed to police officers in the field.

“I had to remain calm,” she said. “I knew I had a lot of lives in my hands.” Two other dispatchers, including Cheryl James, seven months pregnant, were also on duty. In disaster mode they could not leave their posts. Off-duty techs were called in and some, like Shirlon Griffith, walked several miles to get to work. Around 1,200 Local 1549 members were on duty. “The calls kept coming and I continued typing,” Ms. James said. “I had to keep doing my job.”

For too many who called 911 that day, the Technicians were the last contact outside the WTC. Many of the Firefighters, EMS workers and Police Officers who reached the center were never heard from again, said George Rivera, a Supervising PCT. “We tried to reach them on the radio,” he said. “We sat with tears in our eyes.”