Many hours before President George Bush called the air attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon "acts of war" Tuesday night, Hudson County began to mobilize, putting people, equipment and medical services in place that would help victims of the attack recover. Jersey City was where most experts expected to bear the brunt of the New York City disaster.
Francis J. Pizzuta, coordinator for the Hudson County Office of Emergency Management, said an Emergency Operations Center was set up at 715 Summit Ave. just after 9 a.m. Offices in each of the other municipalities from the tip of Bayonne to North Bergen opened within a half-hour.
Pizzuta said local officials didn’t wait to be notified by the state, but had become aware of the disaster through various sources.
"We then got in touch with the state that we had set up the office, and then we began notifying all the local municipalities," Pizzuta said Wednesday. "We were told to expect a large number of injuries."
Jerry Gallo, director of Jersey City OEM, said his office mobilized right after the plane crashed into the first tower of the World Trade Center.
One of the chief tasks was to provide medical assistance. He said doctors were brought in and triage centers set up. The main center, organized by the state, was in Liberty State Park.
"We contacted the Jersey City Medical Center, they were already mobilizing," Gallo said, noting that because of predictions of massive casualty, they prepared for the worst.
Jersey City’s OEM shared offices with the county OEM, making it for easy local communication.
Pizzuta said emergency management offices on a local, county and state level, as well as the state police, were immediately put on notice.
"We started receiving calls to expect to receive hundreds of injured," Gallo said. "They arrived here by ferry, tugboat, even fire boat and most were being dropped at Exchange Place and Hudson Street. We took them all to Liberty State Park by ambulance and – at one point – we even commandeered a New Jersey Transit bus."
In the first few hours after the plane strike and the collapse of the two towers, Liberty State Park doctors treated more than 500 patients, as well as about four dozen police officers and firefighters.
But after the initial flood, the numbers fell to a trickle.
"We didn’t see the amount of injured we first thought we would," Pizzuta said. "Many of the reports that have been circulating simply weren’t true."
Early news reports on Wednesday claimed Liberty Park had handled 1,500 cases. Pizzuta said the figure was more like 500, with many fewer in Hoboken and Weehawken. Official figures, Pizzuta said, did not include people who walked into hospitals on their own.
Gallo also noted that Hudson County was prepared to set up temporary morgues, but had not yet done so. Early reports claimed massive dead had already been transported across to the Hudson County side of the river, but Gallo said this was not true.
Pizzuta said barring any unforeseen situation, the OEM would likely move into the next phase of the operation, which would deal with recovery.
"If anyone needs any type of rescue assistance, we have urban rescue and search teams on standby," he said. "It there is a large number of deaths, we will help set up a temporary morgue."
Dust masks and shelter
After Tuesday’s operation, the OEM counted about 100 deaths in Hudson County hospitals, not all necessarily due to the New York disaster.
After treating the injured Tuesday, the OEM found itself facing another problem.
"Many of the people who came here had no way to return home," Gallo said. "Four shelters were opened at Ferris, Weehawken, Bayonne and Hoboken high schools. We also provided cots, blankets and food."
The OEM also sent dust masks for use by people involved in the rescue effort in New York City, and opened a mobile police post on a barge, which was also sent over to the New York City side of the Hudson River.
Resources flowed through Jersey City from a variety of locations, but all operations were overseen by the state OEM. While the Federal Bureau of Investigation was technically in charge, Gallo said he had only brief contact with them.
To prevent gridlock in the lower city, Mayor Glenn Cunningham called a municipal state of emergency, which allowed the Jersey City OEM to close down many of the streets leading downtown. For a time, even residents had trouble driving in.
"We recommended businesses close in the area. Most did," he said.
Hudson County is also gearing up to supply New York City with heavy equipment and volunteers to help with the rescue effort. The staging area for this is Meadowlands Sports Complex.
Pizzuta said while the city of Jersey City has sent four fire units to New York, the OEM had not yet been asked for assistance.
"We have the public works standing buy for fuel, transportation,." he said. "We have as many as 1,000 vehicles in standing areas. This includes police, fire and ambulances."
According to Jeff Welz, director of North Hudson Regional Fire Department, Hudson county put 20 fire engines and ladders at New York City’s disposal. Two engines, a ladder truck and a rescue unit were sent but never used. These units came from Jersey City, North Hudson and Harrison. Jersey City also provided a truck designed to help refill the Scott Pack units that allow firefighters to breathe while inside the buildings.
Welz said 300 ambulances from around the state and from Pennsylvania were stationed in Hudson County, with 200 of these at Liberty State Park. Thirty ambulances were also stations at each ferry terminal as people flooded out of New York City to escape the tragedy.
Welz noted that Hudson County had planned a disaster drill for next week.
"Everything planned for next Tuesday we did in reality on Thursday," he said.
Supposed to be a drill
Ironically, the Hudson County OEM was scheduled to test its communication system in a terrorist exercise this Tuesday, Sept. 18. This involved an imaginary threat to the Hudson County Juvenile Detention Center in Secaucus as well as a potential chemical or explosive threat to each municipal court.
In late August, OEM and public officials had gathered in Secaucus Municipal Building for an orientation meeting to discuss various aspects of the exercise. In early September, various people from OEM and other emergency services again gathered in Secaucus OEM headquarters for what is called "A tabletop exercise", each person going through the scenario as to what would be done first, second and so on. They were gearing up for the functional exercise on Sept. 18 that would test the system of communication, calling various public safety units as if it were an actual emergency.
"A functional exercise goes through everything, make all the phone calls, but will not send the units to the location," Pizzuta said.
"That would be a full-blown exercise," said Vincent Massaro Sr., coordinator for the Secaucus OEM.
And as if fate had played its deadly hand before anyone could stop it, a full-blown exercise was expected to take place next year involving the Port Authority, the agency that handles operations on the PATH and the World Trade Center.
Because this was a terrorist situation, the FBI became the lead agency handling the disaster. It was the FBI that ordered the closing of the tunnels and bridges, as well as the closing of Route 3.
"They shut down everything and wouldn’t let anyone move, not even the state police," he said.
The report of a suspicious truck parked at the Sheraton Hotel in East Rutherford caused the FBI to shut down the highway for the second time on Tuesday night.
All Hudson County courts have been closed until further notice as part of the security arrangements. Call your local courthouse to determine if it has opened back up.
What followed the 1993 attack
According to a national report done for the U.S. Congress after the 1993 World Trade Center disaster, terrorists with weapons of mass destruction could overwhelm the capabilities of towns, counties or states. The report stated that the United States would likely face increased threats in the future. After the first World Trade Center disaster, President Bill Clinton issued a directive that required the nation to take steps to prevent and deal with the consequence of such an attack. Congress enacted the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act in 1996 that would improve the capabilities of state and local emergency response agencies to prevent and respond to such incidents on a national and local level. Procedures for these are detailed out in 1998 Federal Response Plan.
A study conducted last year to help the National Guard throughout the United States said it is important for every agency at every level to understand its role and responsibilities in a crisis. Actions taken in response to a terrorist situation are divided into two areas: Incident response and incident recovery. Those who respond first to a situation, such as the police and fire, have certain responsibilities, while those who come later have others. Local OEM officials can oversee both aspects. q
Keeping on despite personal concerns
Most of those in the Secaucus Office of Emergency Management who stumbled, shocked, into their office on Paterson Plank Road Tuesday had deep down believed they would only be responding to more mundane disasters in the future, such as hurricanes or snowstorms. Indeed, Secaucus and other municipal and county OEM members had done just that in the past, helping find shelter for people stranded as result of blizzards, and in two cases, aiding those who had suffered the ill effects of two train crashes.
But on Sept. 11, each man who came into the Secaucus OEM knew this was a real attack, that four planes had been hijacked, two had struck the two towers of the World Trade Center, a third had had struck the Pentagon and a fourth had crashed in Pennsylvania. Even as the members geared up for the emergency, they looked out the window and saw F-16 fighter planes streaking across the sky.
Reports on the TV didn’t help, as they talked mainly of other planes and other possible targets. Information, even through official communication channels, didn’t always present the big picture.
The lack of knowledge also haunted each person’s private life. Joe Griffo, an OEM volunteer, had numerous family members in the area of the World Trade Center, one of whom worked in the building and who had not reported in over the first few hours.
"We just don’t know what happened to her," he said, as he picked up his radio and prepared to do his job as part of the Secaucus team.
Meanwhile, Mike Gonnelli, the supervisor of the Department of Public Works and a member of the OEM, thought about his cousin, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 100th floor of the World Trade Center. Early reports said the entire office had been destroyed.
"We found out later he had called in sick," said Gonnelli’s wife, Linda. "He had flown out to Denver to see the New York Giants game."
Worried about the plane
Mayor Dennis Elwell, the technical head of the OEM, had just driven back from Newark Airport after seeing his wife and daughter off on a plane to Florida. One of the four planes used in the attack, he later learned, had been hijacked from Newark, and he had no way of knowing if his family was on that plane.
"Later, they called when they landed in Florida," he said.
As they watched the TV set, several seasoned firefighters and police officers began to cry. They – who had seen disaster close at hand before – knew exactly the breadth of the human tragedy they were witnessing on TV.
As of Thursday morning, at least four Secaucus residents were known to have died in the disaster. Their names were not released at press time.
Locally, the OEM struggled to help. Robert Kickey found a pregnant woman walking along the highway. She was stunned from the disaster. She had walked all the way from Liberty State Park.
Vincent Massaro Sr. found a confused elderly man on the side of Route 3. The man did not know how to speak English.
Jim Sheridan and Anthony Iacono found a Pennsylvania woman whose car was trapped in a traffic jam. She had two children with her: A one-month-old and a 2-year-old. She had driven to North Jersey to find news of her missing husband. The OEM not only pulled her and her children from the traffic jam and fed them, but found her husband, who was stranded in Hoboken.
As with OEM people elsewhere in the county, the Secaucus staff helped people to shelters, to make telephone calls and to find food.
"It was," as one weary OEM worker put it, "the least we could do."