20 Years Ago Tomorrow

I shared this with my team today.

Tomorrow is the 20th?anniversary of the September 11 attacks. With the passage of time, the shared experience of this event has shifted.?We have members of Team OEM that were part of the response to the attacks, others who were early in their careers and found a new calling, and others who were in college, high school, grade school, or even pre-school.?

?My experience that day and the months that followed forever changed my career trajectory and my view of what’s possible.?I learned a lot that day. I learned that rank doesn’t matter when people are willing to put egos aside and roll up sleeves, that anyone can lead from where they are. I learned that teamwork can overcome the most adverse conditions and that solutions are only bounded by imagination. I learned that in darkness we can find light and inspiration.

In the few years after September 11, the shared experience was strong and everyone knew where they were and what they were doing when the attacks happened.?For me, I had been working for the State of New Jersey as an emergency management attorney for a few months when the attacks happened.?I remember every moment of that day, although the days and weeks that followed have become a blur with the passage of time.?September 11, 2001 was one of the most beautiful late summer days I can remember. Perfect temperature. Bright blue skies.?Who could imagine the horror that would follow.

Shortly after arriving at the office on September 11, a colleague came down the hall and told us that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers.?As our computers and phones ground to a halt, I wandered down the hall to an office with a television just in time to see the second plane hit. I looked at a colleague, we nodded at each other, and headed to our cars to report to the State Emergency Operations Center.?We weren’t alone, three other attorneys did the same thing and other colleagues stayed at our headquarters to support us remotely. All of the state agency staff just reported as well, there was never a formal activation order sent out. I was the junior attorney who suddenly found my bosses and senior colleagues turning to me for advice and direction. They knew I had emergency response experience as a volunteer firefighter and put their rank and egos aside to pull together for the greater good.?One of my colleagues who later was my boss and friend, put her reputation on the line to tell the Attorney General that I was speaking for the team. He took my summary of recommendations and told us to implement all of them while he told the Governor what we would be doing.

At the time laptops were somewhat of a novelty.?Our team had a single shared laptop with all of our forms and documents on it.?On the morning of September 11 that laptop was two plus hours from the EOC with one of our team at a meeting.?The Governor was requesting an Executive Order declaring an emergency so we could marshal responders to send into NYC.?This was our responsibility, but without the laptop we lacked the forms to quickly accomplish this. Several of our team at HQ jumped on a call with those of us at the EOC and we typed in the Executive Order paragraph by paragraph based on old EOs in our files.?They read the language over the phone and faxed other paragraphs to us.?We each took turns keying in the words and were able to generate the EO in less than an hour. It has some typos, but it did the job.?We huddled in the days after to come up with ideas to enhance our team’s operations going forward and fundamentally changed our business model for the better. We took this outside the box enthusiasm and used it to set up a host of new programs that forever bettered the state including: Detect and Render Safe Task Force, a state-wide bomb detection and deactivation capability; state-wide CRBRN response capability; enhancements to mutual aid; and a host of other new programs.

As I worked the overnight shift from September 11th?into the 12th, I was asked to draft a response to a FOIA request for a list of missing persons from the WTC that lived in New Jersey. Reviewing this list, I spotted on the name of a friend.?Bill had recently got married and had started his ‘dream job’ as an IT professional at the World Trade Center a few months earlier.?For the next few days I checked the list which was growing smaller as people were located, but Bill’s name never came off and ultimately remained on the final list of the missing and presumed deceased.?It was tough to realize I would never see him again.?While I can’t say that his death was the specific motivating factor for me, it definitely impacted me as I went on to fully immerse myself as an emergency management and homeland security professional. I was able to get a Master’s Degree in Homeland Security, served as a committee chair and member of the Board of Directors for the National Emergency Management Association, presented at national conferences on a variety of topics including public health emergency response, joined FEMA, and ultimately joined Interior as Emergency Management Director.

That day stands out in my memories. New Jersey wasn’t ground zero, but we assisted New York for months and years after.?New Jersey Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 1 was the first USAR team into the collapsed buildings. We sent several thousand responders into the city that day and provided New York City with over 800 million dollars of mutual aid over the next several months. We set up aid and reception centers on our side of the river and washed the dust and debris off of thousands of commuters who escaped. We cared for wounded and deceased who were brought across the river by volunteers with boats. We created a Family Assistance Center on the waterfront across from the WTC to provide help to the families and friends of the more than 800 residents who lost their lives that day. We did what we could.

Please take a moment tomorrow to remember those who perished and to celebrate those who came to help.?9/11 taught me a lot. Know that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are in an organization, you can make an impact.