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Logan.WS / Articles /
Remembering 9/11 /
Down at Ground Zero
Remembering 9/11
By Logan
Down at Ground Zero
On Saturday September 15th Logan was part of a crew that was going down to ground zero to help.
The crew went down in the Sleepy Hollow Fire Department's utility truck, a fixer upper suburban.
They loaded the utility truck, strapped an American flag to the vehicle, and they head off.
Before they made it out of Westchester they had to stop at the side of the road because the
brakes seemed like they were on fire. Apparently the brakes weren't that important because they
continued on. Near the northern part of the city, people lined the roads cheering everyone
going down to the city to help. They had signs and supplies and it was overwhelming. At one
point the utility truck was stuck in the middle of an official looking convoy. No one cared
since the utility truck had its lights on and was decaled with Sleepy Hollow Fire Department
all over.
The crew had some connections down at ground zero that they were able to get past the security
checkpoints. Once close by you could see everything covered in a dust. The normally busy streets
where eerily empty. Every once in a while you would see a car or fire truck that was smashed
by debris from the falling towers. Close by the piles of wreckage was amazing. Even 4 days later
it looked like a war zone. They didn't waste much time and got right into the wreckage.
There were lines formed of mostly firefighters passing out buckets of debris. The buckets
of debris were eventually dumped into trucks that were taking everything out of the area to be
searched and combed later on. The worst part of the experience came to Logan when they passed
out the black garbage bag. The black bags contained bodies or body parts. The bag that
Logan had to pass to the next person supposedly contained part of an arm. the smell was the
worst thing Logan had ever smelled. The only other experience Logan had with the black bags
is when people had carried a full bag out passed them instead of passing it down the chain. It
didn't matter who you were when down there. Whether you were Sleepy Hollow FD or FDNY, you
were there to help. Every once in a while everyone would stop when they would have the
dogs go sniffing for survivors or body parts. The dogs had their paws all wrapped up so
they wouldn't get hurt in all the wreckage.
The crew eventually was able to eat due to the bunch of food sent down to people wanting to help
out. While eating the site of ground zero and the dust covered firefighters, that you could see
have been at work for a long time, were overwhelming. Some of the firefighters looked like they
where in a daze or a trance that would never end until their brothers were found.
The last of the survivors had been found
a couple of days before and as history tells, no other survivors were found.
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