NOTES OF A USED AND OUT-OF-PRINT BOOK DEALER

Part II, Issue 13. September 21, 2001.

Continental Books publishes this biweekly free email newsletter for customers and interested others. This issue is in two separate parts.

In the next essay a U.S. Coast Guard officer stationed a quarter mile south of ground zero at time zero describes his actions and observations during the following 17 hours. A debriefing for the rest of us, written immediately after the experience. The copyright is reserved for Commander Seebald. Our thanks to him for permission to reprint here. My only editing is a few spelling adjustments.

ED SEEBALD'S DAY, September 11, 2001

It started out a beautiful day in New York, the harbor was flat, zero humidity and sunny out. I got up at 0700 and headed for the showers. Meditated while waiting for the shower to warm up. Got back to my office and was working on my computer in my gym shorts, made some calls and at about 9 AM heard this bang and someone screaming, I was so used to the Staten Island Ferry banging into the slip next door I stuck my head out of the window and saw the ferry and figured that someone fell between the ship and the pier. I sat back down in my chair and started to type, I heard another scream and went out into my office and one of my petty officers said, they're all dead, they're coming after us...........We calmed her in my office and I looked up and saw the Towers on fire and smoking. Needless to say I went and put on my uniform, got a hold of all of the chiefs in the buildings and locked down the building. five minutes later another howl and the words "they are falling down" (meaning the Trade Towers). I got everyone in the building down in the conference room, some of the folks were starting to loose it so we buddied them up and I told everyone that no one is going anywhere until things settle down.

Sealed the front of the building, had some great chiefs and Auxiliaries in the office that help take control. When the two Towers came down, the ash was like I saw in the film about Mt St Helena or in some of the film after the Hiroshima bombs went off, huge clouds of Ash. People on lower Manhattan were starting to panic and a crowd of about 2000 were packed near the Battery and ferry terminal. Since the city closed all access in and out of the city (and) Staten Island, when the second Tower went down and the ash cloud (this was really cement dust from the collapsed buildings) people could not breathe. They started trying to kick in the front door of the Battery building and climb the razor wire at the gate. People actually were jumping in the water and climbing along the sea wall to try and escape the ash cloud. I moved all people in building to the third floor and locked down floors 1 and 2, only the Blue Suiters (Coast Guard active duty) were allowed on the first two floors. I went to my office and took all of my clean tee-shirts and underwear and we cut them up and passed them out through the gate for people to put over their faces, we put a hose out the gate for water and it was much appreciated. Then Liberty 4 the Liberty Island boat started dumping people on the pier, I put all National Park Service personnel in the conference room and one guard was having a stress attack. got that settled and while the CG folks were having a prayer meeting on the third floor, I made my way to the main gate. And first comes a guy they let through the gate, he looks like a snow man, I say who is this guy, sir can I see some ID, he pulls off his white breathing mask and says Ed, I say who are you and do you have any ID. As he dusts off his face it is Admiral Larrabbee, my old boss, I know his offices are in Trade Tower One, his eyes look a little buggy, so I take him up, the chiefs have the gate under control. I took Admiral Larrabbee up to my office and got him some shorts and a sweatshirt and sent him to the showers in his old office. All phones were grid locked cell and land line. When the admiral told me what happened he is lucky to be standing in front of me. He was in Tower One when the first plane hit, he was on the 62nd floor and they evacuated down the stairs and moved over to the hotel in Tower 2. When Tower 2 collapsed he said that all that he could see was a light and a firefighter saying follow me, they got outside and still could not see anything because of the dust. He made his way down to the Battery and that is where I checked his ID. You see we didn't know how many bombs were about the city.

While the Adm. is getting cleaned up two FBI and one Secret Service guy are in my office. It turns out that hundreds of forensic experts are on the way in and I can not communicate with anyone so I set them up and told them that they can use the pier for their loading point. Set the FBI up in my office and went back to the front gate, the Chiefs, rightly so, let in a couple with an infant and a little boy, I stopped them in the entry and the guy can barely speak English, I ask for ID, I did not think the baby had anything in the diapers so I did not check, probably poor security on my part. When my Chief started to look in the backpack of the guy, he started getting agitated until his wife said something in German, like, they think you are a terrorist and he was very helpful. Well we got them to the second floor and got the kids taken care of and they became wards of Seebald. More on this later.

Outside the wind shifted, the Staten Island ferry started taking off some of the people and we only had one injured bleeding civilian that we had to take care of. I talked many of the Park Service people into taking the Staten Island Ferry and getting home from there instead of waiting it out in the police state of Manhattan.

Well Paul Gerrick from Activities showed up and was great assistance in getting Adm. Larrabbee off of the Island and over to his CRISES action center in New Jersey because the Port Authority Offices in the World Trade Towers was gone. Now I only had 2 FBI agents and 5 Secret Service Agents in my lounge eating all of my snacks and drinking all of my coffee........seriously they were great and a pleasure to work with, they had a boat pick them up and bring them back to their staging spaces on Ellis Island. Well then my new best Buddy Special Agent Dr. George Bauris II , Coordinator of Forensic Evidence for the FBI, asked a favor to borrow a car to bring the Deputy Superintendent of the NJ State Police, the Secretary of State of NJ and the Col. of the NJ National Guard up to One Police Plaza.....No problem now I un the motor pool. So off they go..........................

Now things are settling down, so back to my German Family with the babies. I get them settled, they are here for a one week vacation and he is Italian, she is German, they work for a company on the 43rd floor of the Tower 2, they are staying in a luxury apartment in Battery City, (which now is a ghost town) So he has no ID, no credit cards but has a little cash. ($2K) So I have my staff make some calls to my old friends at the navy lodge, secure a room under my name with my gov. credit card and put them on a ferry and have my SK1 pick them up on the other side, take them to the Navy Lodge before all of the FBI get the rooms and I tell him please pay cash......................off they go, I know the babies will sleep well tonight.

OK.....my feet hurt, every time I take off my shirt some one comes in and I have to get dressed and get official deal with the problem. So I commandeered all of the navy vehicles so I have now 2 vans and 1 sedan. A boat pulls up to the pier and they say we have donated supplies to give but no one will take them. I said dump them here and my trusty Auxiliaries and Trusty Warrant. I says to myself.....get the vans. so we load up the vans and go to ground zero and start distributing food and ice to the firefighters and the cops. By this time I have a whole group of cops out front fed and happy and my new best friends. Well then the next thing happens two giant Poland Spring trucks show up and they can not get up town....so bada bing bada boom I own two trucks full of water, my vans are shuttling water up to the front and we really feel like we are contributing. The drivers ask if they can help in the vans loading at the front lines, I say sure, pull your trucks behind my building and go in the vans with my CWO and my Auxiliaries and go see the front. Now I own the trucks...............

They come back and off they go back to Brooklyn saying Ed if you need anything call we will be there...........good guys.

Now it is my turn to take a spin through the combat zone, we load up with face masks and water and off we go. Now you have to kind of imagine nighttime in Manhattan with no lights, we go up Broadway past the Bull, dust 2 inches deep and paper everywhere, it is a ghost town, as we pull in front of Trinity Church we get blocked, we are handing out six packs of Poland Spring water to firefighters going to the rear. I look to my left and on the tombstones of Trinity the dust in 3 to 6 inches deep like snow, but this is eerie...........we go cut off so we work our way down past Alexander Hamilton's grave and I just look at it and nod........we are doing the right thing. Jeff Bradbury is driving. He is my new CWO, he has been in NY for less than 2 weeks, (Welcome to NY) We work our way down toward ground zero, the firefighters and the triage folks are real happy for the water, we get down to the Hudson river and start driving up the board walk, cops let us through because we are the good guys, we get as far North as the fire boats pumping the Hudson river and there are so many hoses feeding the firefighters that we stop. There is a group of firefighters from Brooklyn laying about exhausted that just got relieved, we empty our van and one guy comes up to me and says where are you heading, I asked for his ID....just kidding......I told him down to the Battery, and he said could you go to the Brooklyn Bridge......I said sure (I am in a navy van and no one knows the difference) They huddle, one of their bosses says we have to check out, could I wait 5 minutes............I say no I have some very important Auxiliary paper work to do................of course we wait, I start talking to the tug captains, Jeff Bradbury picks up a couple of pieces of paper, the place is scary, he reads the paper and says this is someone's law suit, there are millions of pieces of paper all over lower Manhattan, (50,000) people worked and visited the Trade Towers a day. I am standing in about 6 inches of ash, cement dust.........The firefighters return, they have permission to go hope, we pack 8 firefighters and all of their equipment into the back of the van and off we go, after running over curbs, hills bumps though the combat zone, my trusty assistant and bos'nsmate Jeff, gets us to the Manhattan Bridge. We drop off the firefighters on the Brooklyn side and it looks like a scene from that Bruce Willis movie about the army taking over NY. Hundreds of Cops, they let us back in and we get lost in Chinatown, we finally get back to the Battery. LCDR Paul Gerrick, has the building secure, Jon Finnegan from CGI has all of his guys back and we settle in for the night. Now I must tell you, the CGI agents and everyone in this building pulled together to help where we could, it really hurts to sit here when you know others are risking their lives 5 blocks away. Please say a prayer for those still alive in the rubble that we get to them before they die.

It is 2:30 in the morning but I felt that I had to give you a picture of my world on this day that will be seared into our hearts live and history. I am exhausted but I know that my friends are safe, yet hurting and at least I will live to fight another day.

I love you all, pray for the survivors, thank God my family is safe. The real shock will hit the world later today

ed

This is my thoughts and view and I am exhausted so please forgive the spelling ....Yada yada Yada

EDITOR'S NOTE.

Remember that the United States has already imposed defeats upon Al Qaeda: The arrests of the Millenium attackers in Washington State; the arrest of the gang who previously attacked the WTC; the arrest of the gang planning the attack on the UN; and so on. And the thwarting of the thugs in the fourth plane, that fell in Pennsylvania, by the aroused passengers though at a dreadful price.

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Salute

Copyright Alvin Katz 2001

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