The Freedom Tower

Part V

Queens firefighter Tom Dunn gave a first hand account of the events of that day on the Firefighter Exchange, a website for firemen. Dunn was working a 24 hour shift that morning when the alarm at his firehouse sounded.

He said the night tour was still working at his Brooklyn firehouse when it was announced over the loud speaker Flight 587 had gone down in Rockaway.

“I remember standing there and just thinking this can not be happening again. It had been only 2 months since the Trade Center and all the old feelings came racing back again. I just thought to myself, ‘Well, here we go again.’

“We ran downstairs and all gathered around the TV just like during the Trade Center. It was all too familiar. The TV was showing a picture of a plume of smoke rising over an area that we all knew too well. Eddie and Tom Ryan both have family that live in that area and we have all been there at one time or another for either funerals or bars or friends’ houses.

“Unlike the Trade Center, where terrorism was the last thing on my mind, I thought for sure this was another attack, seeing as this was Veteran’s day. We watched the TV for a couple minutes and discussed how we hoped they would send us so we could do our part. The scenario played out almost the same as the Trade Center. The computer went off and it was for the chief, but this time he was only getting relocated to cover the 49 Battalion’s area. Then I started to think, “Oh, man, I hope they don’t just relocate us to cover someone else’s area,” because everyone knows that the hardest thing to do when something big is going on is to sit and watch it on TV.

“The red phone began to go off announcing that a second alarm had been transmitted. And then almost immediately it went to a third alarm and the computer went off ENGINE! and the two tone noise that means we have an alarm. We all ran out to see if we were going. On the ticket it read that we were the 4th engine in on the 3rd alarm. The run was acknowledged the bell rang and the doors opened. We gathered our gear and got on the rig. We were on the road in seconds flat. I got dressed and checked to make sure I had everything. Helmet, hood, gloves, flashlight all right were they should be and we made our way to Flatbush Ave.

Missing that morning from the company was battalion Chief John Moran of the 49. He perished on 9/11 but Moran was from Belle Harbor where his company and Stecs, along with scores of others were now racing to fight a jet fuel fire.