 New York's firefighters have good reason to despise Rudolph Giuliani.
As mayor of New York, he made the absolutely ridiculous decision to locate the command center for emergency response inside World Trade Center 7, a decision he made just months after the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, just before he took office ... Giuliani's decision was apparently made for his own convenience -- to locate the command center close to City Hall, rather than in Brooklyn, a place Giuliani was loathe to go (too many Black people, you know...)
He failed to make sure that firefighters, like his cherished New York police, had the most modern radios, leading to tragedy on September 11, 2001, when New York City's bravest failed to get the radio message that the towers were going to collapse -- something Giuliani knew in advance, but that the firefighters did not. As a result of the confusion on that day, most of the police officers who were, heroically, working to evacuate people from the towers got out alive. Scores of firefighters did not (a total of 343 firefighters and paramedics, along with 23 NYPD officers and 37 Port Authority Police officers lost their lives, including 200 firefighters who never got the order to evacuate.) A PBS account of that morning tells the chilling story: 8:46 a.m.
American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center.
8:47
Eighteen fire companies begin responding to a fifth alarm, setting up a command post in the lobby of the north tower when they arrive.
9:03
United Airlines Flight 175 crashes into the south tower of the WTC. Another command post is set up in south tower, as a second fifth alarm is broadcast. ...
... 9:10
Over thirty more companies have arrived, and a third interior command post is set up inside the Marriott Hotel, located by the base of the north tower. Meanwhile, an exterior command center has been set up on West Street. Top-level fire chiefs send units into the towers from here. ...
... 9:45
Battalion Chief Orio J. Palmer and Fire Marshal Ronald P. Bucca have reached the impact zone on the 78th floor of the south tower. Palmer radios to Chief Edward Geraghty that they are sending a group of injured survivors to the tower's only working elevator on the 41st floor.
9:57
Dozens of firefighters near the south tower command post are still waiting in the lobby for orders to go up into the tower.
A warning about the towers' instability is issued from the Fire Vehicle Staging Area, where emergency vehicles from Brooklyn have gathered and wait for orders.
9:59
On the 35th floor of the north tower, some firefighters hear a cry of "mayday! Evacuate the building" over the radio, and four companies begin to descend. Around the 28th or 30th floor, a crowd of resting firefighters is told to evacuate.
Meanwhile, the south tower collapses.
10:00
Battalion Chief Joseph Pfeifer radios an evacuation order that is received by some chiefs in the north tower, but not all.
A firefighter on the 65th floor radios that a nearby floor has collapsed. This is the highest floor a firefighter is known to have reached in the north tower.
10:15
Firefighters, court officers, and other witnesses find group of firefighters, according to some estimates as many as a hundred, catching their breath on the 19th floor. Most in the north tower are not aware that the south tower has already collapsed. Told to evacuate, many of the firefighters say they'll come down "in a minute."
10:29
The north tower collapses, bringing down the Marriott Hotel as well. Over a third of the firefighters lost were in the north tower, and some were still in the lobby of the Marriott directing evacuations. Some two weeks after the September 11 attacks, on September 30, Mayor Giuliani was informed that a c ache of silver, gold and precious metals, including $200 million worth of gold bullion deposited in the vaults of the Bank of Nova Scotia -- a cache worth several hundred millions of dollars -- had been located beneath World Trade Center building 4. The next day, Giuliani ordered the recovery of remains -- including those of still missing firefighters, to halt, and instead, called for a mass excavation of soil from the site which was transported to Fresh Kills landfill -- a dump. Remains of many firefighters and other victims of the World Trade Center attacks and collapse are believed to still be in that rubble, at that garbage dump.
After September 11, Giuliani proceeded to use the attacks, not as a platform to try and heal the nation, or the city he himself had torn apart during his stormy mayoral term, but rather, to enrich himself, literally trading on the memories of murdered Americans and others, and on the deaths of the same firefighters he couldn't be bothered to recover from the field where they had fallen. Giuliani has become filthy rich making speeches, and taking on clients for his security consulting business, all while burnishing a phony image, greased by a pliant, sycophant American media, as " America's mayor."
The International Association of Firefighters has launched a blistering video attack on Giuliani's "urban legend." It's a must watch. Here's the link.
Labels: 2008, presidential candidates, Rudy Giuliani |
