Ordinary Heroes

by Joseph Pfeifer

  This was the primary fatal flaw. By not colocating command posts, agencies became hyperfocused on their own tasks.

  Such behavior is strengthened by agencies implicitly thinking of themselves as being the most important. Police and fire department cultures reinforce a sense of belonging to an exceptional group. These organizations call themselves the “Finest” (NYPD) and “Bravest” (FDNY).

  As the intensity of the WTC crisis mounted, police commanders failed to recognize that the reports from helicopters would be of crucial importance to the Fire Department.

  Not only did the NYPD fail to tell us, the FDNY never asked!

  Turning toward one’s own group during a crisis is an inevitable part of the stress response. The brain produces a neurological cocktail of stress hormones, which helps first responders like cops and firefighters do their jobs at critical points in a crisis.

  Adrenaline and cortisol help our minds become more alert and focused and our muscles more energy efficient. These hormones are credited for producing the fight-or-flight response. Police officers who heard transmissions from helicopters that the building might collapse had a stress response of flight and quickly evacuated the North Tower.

  Dopamine assists us in decision making by allowing us to match past experiences and learned knowledge to the present incident. Firefighters quickly scan their memories to see if the present situation relates to the past, thus giving us a clue of what to do, like knowing how to search for trapped people.

  The pilots who saw the South Tower collapse quickly concluded that the same failure could happen to the North Tower. This pattern match led to being hyperfocused on radioing police dispatchers and ESU police officers on the alarming conditions.

  In her book The Upside of Stress, psychologist Kelly McGonigal tells us that the stress response also stimulates the pituitary gland to produce the neurohormone oxytocin.

  “When oxytocin is released as part of the stress response, it’s encouraging you to connect with your support network,” McGonigal says. Under stress, firefighters want to be near other firefighters, and cops want to be near other cops.

  Thus, oxytocin reinforces organizational bias; you turn to your own group so you don’t feel alone and to protect people you care about. It made perfect sense for police pilots and commanders to call for an evacuation to protect their members from imminent collapse.

  As the incident’s stress and complexity increased, it became more difficult for commanders to focus on anything outside their operational world. If only NYPD incident commanders had been standing next to FDNY incident commanders, the stress response would have strengthened the bond between commanders, and there would have been a sense of joint responsibility for all first responders. Instead, the NYPD focused on the urgent evacuation of its own members, thinking someone else would tell the FDNY.

  An NYPD friend whose children were on a swim team with my kids told me he knew one of the helicopter pilots. I asked him if he could arrange for me to speak with the pilot.

  It was an informal call, and he was happy to talk to me. He explained that about five minutes after the collapse of the South Tower, he observed the North Tower from the air and transmitted to NYPD Central Dispatch that it was also in danger of collapse, that “the top fifteen floors are glowing red.” He speculated that it wouldn’t be much longer before the building fell.

  “I assumed it was going to be relayed to the Fire Department,” he told me. “I never thought about calling you guys.” He thought somebody else would warn us, either police dispatch or police command. But that never happened.

  At last, I had figured out that people naturally turn to their own groups under stress, which was the reason why agencies did not talk to each other. But fixing the social force of organizational bias—seemingly hardwired by our stress responses—wouldn’t be so easy.

  * * *

  • • •

  For a while, my aide Ray and I pursued the idea of getting the FDNY helicopters. We’d have our own view of an incident that was not dependent on the NYPD. A cool concept, but financially and politically unfeasible.

  “Why not get news video streams from news helicopters?” Ray suggested. He set up meetings for me with major network TV news stations to discuss a collaborative agreement to supply the FDNY with live video feed directly to our new, high-tech Fire Department Operations Center.

  In return for video, we would explain to the reporters what they were seeing. WPIX and ABC were the first to sign a memorandum of collaboration, followed by the other networks. This was a unique and valued public-private partnership.

  Once we had the news helicopters, we wanted to get the video feeds from police helicopters for major fires or unusual events because they can go into restricted airspace.

  I set up a meeting at JFK Airport between me, the chief of NYPD Aviation, air traffic controllers, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). I had to tread carefully not to alienate anyone.

  I explained how we were getting video from news helicopters and asked the NYPD for the same. To my surprise, they agreed without putting up a fight. I wasn’t sure if the jets taking off in the background reminded them of 9/11, but I was delighted and thanked them.

  However, I also wanted a fire chief in the police helicopter to have, as Ray put it, “eyes in the sky.” The chief of Aviation was blunt. “No, this is a police helicopter and not the place for a fire chief.”

  Ray had done his homework. FAA rules state, “A helicopter can be used as a tool for the fire department during a fire or emergency.” This meant that a helicopter under the control of the FDNY could operate in restricted airspace during an emergency.

  Armed with Ray’s research, I turned to the FAA representative.

  “If I place a fire chief in a news helicopter and make this a tool of FDNY, will the helicopter be allowed to enter the twenty-five-mile restricted airspace in an emergency that only the police helicopter can operate in?”

  “In the case you described,” the senior official said, “the helicopter is a tool of the FDNY and would be allowed in the restricted airspace.”

  I knew the NYPD did not want news helicopters flying into what they considered “their airspace.” Maybe the prospect of sharing airspace with us would prompt them to share their helicopters instead.

  The chief of NYPD Aviation stared at me in disbelief, then agreed that a fire chief would be allowed in an NYPD helicopter at major fires and emergencies. Having multiple eyes in the sky would provide greater situational awareness to both agencies. He just needed to take the facts to his bosses. We negotiated an agreement for video and stipulated that a battalion chief would be assigned to the NYPD helicopter at every third-alarm fire or unusual incident, which became a joint operating procedure.

  Another of Ray’s ideas that I pushed forward was creating the Command Tactical Unit. He and Ralph Bernard, head of the department’s Audio Visual Unit, used firefighters responding with an old ambulance to take video footage from the rear of burning buildings—areas that a chief cannot see from the street. Later, the FDNY acquired drones that now provide images from above.

  Change was taking place between the FDNY and NYPD. We had to connect, collaborate, and coordinate with each other before thinking about command and control of an incident. In September 2004, right after the 9/11 Commission Report was released, I created FDNY’s Center for Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness (CTDP), which focused on bringing diverse agencies together to prepare for extreme events. We shared intelligence reports, developed emergency response plans, and exercised response procedures to terrorism and disasters.

  * * *

  • • •

  Building this network of partners took months. We followed an old French recipe from Jules’s grandmother for building trust: “Start with cooking and sharing a meal together.”

  Before planning meetings at the CTDP, members of the agencies w
ould first sit down and have a hearty firehouse-cooked lunch. Now as FDNY’s first Chief of Counterterrorism and Emergency Preparedness, I developed close partnerships with OEM, NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau and Special Operations Bureau, including ESU. But would this French recipe make a difference at the next big event?

  On January 15, 2009, we got a chance to find out. In the famous “Miracle on the Hudson,” Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and copilot Jeff Skiles crash-landed their disabled Airbus A320, carrying 155 passengers and crew, into the icy cold waters of the Hudson River just south of the George Washington Bridge connecting New York and New Jersey. With the US Airways plane floating downriver, passengers scrambled onto its wings and into lifeboats.

  Almost immediately, we received the “crash box” from LaGuardia Airport and multiple 911 calls reporting a plane crash in the Hudson River.

  Instead of racing to the scene, I remained at headquarters to command the FDOC. Sal Cassano, now chief of department, arrived and wanted a briefing before running off to the scene. We didn’t know geese had caused the crash; we were still trying to rule out a terrorist attack. I grabbed Cassano by the arm. “Sal, you need to stay here in case there are other planes.” Reluctantly, he remained at the FDOC.

  Within minutes of people standing on the wings of the plane, a NY Waterway ferry pulled up alongside the floating aircraft and took off fifty-six people. FDNY’s Marine Unit 1A rescued twenty passengers. Two small boats from the U.S. Coast Guard and six other NY Waterway ferries removed the rest. Meanwhile, NYPD divers and FDNY’s Cold Water Rescue Unit searched the sinking plane to make sure no one had been left behind.

  As the various boats arrived at piers in New York and New Jersey, forty-five passengers and five crew members were taken to ten different hospitals, while 105 shivering passengers in wet clothes were treated for hypothermia with blankets at the scene by EMS and the Red Cross. Our EMS personnel recorded all these patient contacts. The urgent question was how to know if everyone was accounted for, including two nonticketed small children.

  While all this was occurring, agency incident commanders set up a unified command post at Pier 81. As the plane drifted down the river at about five knots per hour, a second CP was established at Chelsea Piers. Incident commanders were chasing the damaged plane down the river.

  Inside the FDOC, we received live-feed video images from police and news helicopters. The FDNY provided information to first responders, hospitals, law enforcement, and emergency operations centers. Overall, we had more situational awareness than the chiefs at the scene, so we transmitted what we knew to them as soon as possible.

  But the greatest value of being at the FDOC was to collect information about who was on the plane. In a small conference room, we compared on two large-screen smart TVs the manifest from LaGuardia Airport of passengers and crew on the plane with the list from our EMS of people who came off the plane.

  Within fifteen minutes, the EMS officers emerged and told Chief Cassano and me that everyone on board was accounted for.

  “Go back and check the data one more time,” I said. When they returned, their ranking officer told me, “Chief, all 155 passengers and crew are alive and rescued.” Cassano immediately notified the fire commissioner, who informed the mayor.

  I had one of my lieutenants sign into the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN), a federal government platform for information sharing with local, state, tribal, and territorial authorities: “FDNY confirms that all 155 passengers and crew of US Airways Flight 1549 are alive and rescued.”

  Within a minute, I got a call from the Department of Homeland Security’s undersecretary of Intelligence and Analysis, Charles Allen, asking if the information was accurate. I said, “Yes, sir, it is correct.” He called the DHS secretary, Michael Chertoff, who then called the White House Situation Room. It was amazing to think there were only two or three degrees of separation between the president of the United States and me.

  Late that afternoon, Mayor Bloomberg held a press briefing describing the passengers’ ordeal and praising the crew and first responders, including the private ferries, for their fast and brave rescue of passengers. He also said the unified command had contributed to saving everyone.

  Interoperability for voice, video, and data was critical for connecting first responders. However, as Cassano said, “If radios are interoperable, but you don’t talk to each other, you might as well throw the radios in the water.”

  Having the technology is only part of the equation. The Miracle on the Hudson was a success story for interagency cooperation in rescuing everyone aboard US Airways Flight 1549. And it highlighted the quick thinking and bravery of two ordinary heroes, Sullenberger and Skiles.

  * * *

  • • •

  Understanding why first responders act the way they do enabled us to overcome organizational bias that hampered response on 9/11. Police, fire, and other agencies were working together and trusting each other. But just around the corner, we would face new challenges.

  On May 10, 2010, Faisal Shahzad, a homegrown terrorist, drove his car into Manhattan and stopped it at the center of the intersection of 45th Street and 7th Avenue. He hoped to explode a powerful car bomb as a terrorist act in the middle of Times Square. After he attempted to ignite the charge to set off the bomb, something went wrong and smoke started to emanate from the car. An alert pedestrian pointed the car out to a mounted police officer. Initially, the police officer, thinking this was routine, notified the Fire Department of a car fire. Engine Company 54 and Ladder Company 4 responded.

  The SUV was still running, but the owner was nowhere to be found. White smoke poured from the vehicle, rather than the usual black smoke found in car fires. An FDNY handheld thermal-imaging camera showed that the engine and brakes, as would be expected, were hot. The rest of the car exhibited no sign of heat or fire, just an odor of fireworks emanating from the rear of the vehicle. One fire lieutenant realized that “something did not look right.” Instead of continuing with routine operations, the fire officers asked a police officer to run the license plate. When the police officer came back and reported the plate was not registered to that vehicle, both fire and police officers—now aware of possible terrorist scenarios—suspected an improvised explosive device and immediately evacuated the area, potentially saving hundreds of people.

  I was both relieved that we had averted a tragedy and excited that the FDNY and NYPD were sharing information and beginning to work together. With the success of our French recipe and experiences, we created a city protocol that requires incident commanders to be within “arm’s distance” of each other at a unified command post. Yet I couldn’t help but wonder what the next extreme event would be.

  21

  SMOLDERING EMBERS

  After extinguishing any blaze, firefighters search for remaining pockets of hidden flames so they can put them out. Otherwise, the embers will grow into another inferno. The situation on 9/11 was no different. The deadly smoldering embers of 9/11 continued to burn long after the event.

  I could not bear to think of history repeating itself. I owed it to my firefighters to understand how these buildings, made of thick steel and concrete, had crumpled so fast and so completely. What would fire chiefs need to know to make decisions about sending firefighters into skyscrapers that come under attack?

  Many people assumed that the impact of the planes caused the buildings to fall. In fact, it was the fires that brought down the World Trade Center. Fire, one of the world’s most ancient weapons, was used against our modern metropolis.

  Leslie Robertson, the chief WTC engineer at the time of its construction, told journalists that he had considered the possibility of a Boeing 707, among the largest commercial aircraft at the time, hitting the building. However, he did not design for thousands of gallons of fuel being released into the building and the potential damage fire would cause. Such omission was another ex
ample of a failure of imagination.

  The National Institute of Standards and Technology began its engineering investigation into the unprecedented collapses of the three WTC buildings around the same time as the 9/11 Commission.

  I had many discussions with Dr. Shyam Sunder, the lead investigator for NIST, during the examination of the collapse of the Twin Towers. “The Towers withstood the impact,” he said, “and would have remained standing were it not for the dislodged insulation [fireproofing] and the subsequent multiple-floor fires.” Much of the jet fuel burned off on impact but ignited fires on multiple floors. The high-temperature fires weakened the columns that were not severed to the point of buckling, causing a progressive collapse.

  In 2008, NIST finished its investigation of WTC-7, the forty-seven-story office building whose occupants had included the CIA, the Secret Service, and New York City’s Office of Emergency Management. I invited Dr. Sunder to brief me, Fire Commissioner Scoppetta, and Chief of Department Cassano on why WTC-7, which was not hit by a plane, collapsed at 5:20 p.m. that evening.

  He explained that, when the North Tower collapsed, the debris started fires on multiple floors in WTC-7. Fueled by ordinary office furnishings, the fire quickly spread to numerous floors. As windows broke from the heat, fresh air rushed in and intensified the flames. Without water for the sprinkler system, we decided not to send firefighters into the building, and the fire raged out of control. Those elements, combined with fire-induced thermal expansion of steel girders and the particular building design, created a “perfect storm” that triggered the collapse.

  Sunder dispelled conspiracy theories that had started to flourish by definitively stating that fire caused the collapse. This would make Osama bin Laden the world’s most wanted arsonist.