Years Later 10 Gates of Hell


age and the response. As we left and walked north on West Street, Father Mychal Judge, the fi re department’s chaplain, blessed us all.


It was the last time I saw any of those men alive.


One of my detectives, Hector Santiago, had commandeered an offi ce on the corner of Barclay Street and West Broadway for use as a tem- porary command post. We walked from West Street back to that offi ce, where the mayor called the White House. He was told that the vice president would come on the line, but suddenly the mayor hung up and said, “They’re evacuating the White House. They think the Pentagon has just been hit.”


Before I could get my mind around his words, the building we were standing in began to tremble as if a freight train were coming through the side of it. Joe Esposito, the NYPD chief, burst through the door and yelled, “It’s coming down!” and then for the next 10 seconds or so, the south tower of the World Trade Center complex, one of the biggest buildings in the world, crashed to the ground. The street outside and the building we were in were showered with debris and dust.


or nearly 25 minutes, no one knew where we were. We were stuck in a maze of underground hall- ways, until maintenance personnel


F


Landsat 7 satelite’s aerial view of ground zero, Sept. 11, 2001


helped us fi nd our way into the lobby of 100 Church Street. We were now four blocks away from the towers, and as I looked out of the windows, my fi rst thought was that we had suf- fered a nuclear blast. Everything out- side was white and there was nearly an inch of dust on the ground. As we walked outside, what struck me more than anything was that there was no sound. Nothing.


People were walking around in a daze. They looked like plaster stat- ues. Some were crying, and some were mumbling. “It’s down . . . the tower’s completely down.” I told the mayor, “You cannot go back to city hall. It is too dangerous for you there. You have got to get out of here.” I needed to keep him alive. I don’t think he was thinking of it that way, but for me, it was no different than those in the U.S. Secret Service keep- ing the president airborne and out of Washington, D.C., until they could determine further threats. We began walking north. Then came that noise again. People behind us and around us began running and screaming. “It’s coming down,” and within sec- onds, the north tower collapsed. First we went into a hotel and


SHELL SHOCKED Kerik, center, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and President George Bush take in the devastation at ground zero.


then a fi re station. I ultimately rec- ommended that we use the New York City Police Academy as a com- mand center. It was nondescript and out of the way. I met with the press and media outside of the building and told them to keep the location secret. If there were enemies on the ground, I did not want them to know the whereabouts of the mayor, the governor, or the command center. By 12:30 p.m., the mayor, fi re commissioner, nearly every city agency head and I met at the acade- my to manage the crisis. Gov. George


SEPTEMBER 2011 / NEWSMAX / 9|11: A DECADE LATER 59


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