9/11 10th Anniversary: South Orange Fire Department Remembers

South Orange Fire Chief Jeff Markey talked about why he puts his life at risk every day.  “I love it. It’s such a rewarding thing with the fire service. We pull up at someone’s door, they’re happy to see us. I counsel career opportunities classes. I tell them the key is finding something you love doing and you’ll never work another day for the rest of your life. That’s what the job is to me.”

It seems to be the standard answer from firemen in South Orange and Maplewood. In a recent interview in conjunction with the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Chief Markey talked about his crew.

“No matter how hard it is, no matter how much they complain to you, they love doing what they’re doing. They want to hear that bell ring, they want to be on that truck, they want to help people. You get such satisfaction in that… there’s no monetary reward that anyone can give you to save a life. “

“My philosophy on the job: just putting on the uniform is an act of bravery and self sacrifice ‘cause there’s a very good possibility you could be hurt or killed on this job. When you sign up you know the risks involved.  It happens to some of us and others are able to go through a career and retire. It’s a chance that you take. The job is interesting, you get to help people every time you come here,” offered 26-year veteran John Shoemaker.

Perhaps that’s what our local emergency responders were thinking on 9/11 when some volunteered their time to distribute water and dig through the rubble at Ground Zero, while others became part of an Essex County task force to help firehouses in New York City in the days after the tragedy. Markey said the rescue squad from South Orange was stationed in Liberty Park, assisting in the Manhattan evacuations of New Jersey residents who were coming across by ferry. County firefighters manned ten engines and five trucks that traveled into the city to help however they could. 

According to Markey, they were welcomed by residents along the route with cheers and applause. “I remember coming into Staten Island, people were lined on the streets thanking everyone. They closed one of the lanes on the Verrazano and it was dedicated to funneling in equipment to New York.”

Kenneth Bomensatt, another 26-year veteran of the SOFD, was one of several firemen who filled in for the missing at a Brooklyn house that lost 11 men when the towers collapsed. “The worst part about it was meeting some of the other guys who were there, just the look on their face. They came in and dropped lists off on the table of who was missing, it was something you really can’t describe. Here’s guys in services and you think that nothing like this would ever happen. Guys just basically broke down. They lost friends. They lost their family. You work with these guys on 24-hour shifts… you lost your brother.”

343 firefighters died on September 11th, 2001. There’s a tradition that when a fireman dies, the firehouse bells ring five times, three successive times. Markey remembered a heartbreaking detail about the bells in the Brooklyn house that night. “Our firefighters were telling me they were hearing that all night long… as the FDNY systems came up… when they had identified additional losses. They would ring the three rounds of five and would say ‘we regret to inform you…that we’ve confirmed…’ and this went on all night long. “

The SOFD men who spent about 35 hours at the Brooklyn house also said there were visitors at many firehouses in the days and weeks after the attacks, who came to show their support.  “All throughout New York, firefighters were coming back to the houses and all kinds of people: family, friends, neighbors… the outpouring from the public was phenomenal,“ said Markey.

Michael Commins, a 15-year veteran in South Orange, had one memory that stuck with him.  As he watched the coverage of activity at Ground Zero, he heard a chilling sound. “We have the ‘PASS’ device—personal alert safety system.  When we go into a building and press the button it activates it…if you don’t move for 30 seconds, it sounds an extremely loud alarm so we can locate where that person is-- even over all the commotion in a fire we can hear that-- and try to find that guy ‘cause we know he’s trapped. We were watching the coverage and all you heard was hundreds of those alarms…and I knew it was those guys’ alarms, they’re gone. “

Several of the South Orange firemen were not on duty when the planes hit but most found their way to the firehouse to see how they could help. “I was off and I remember coming down the avenue and just seeing the cloud of smoke and devastation and it was just amazing to see what took place. Everybody just automatically came to where you were supposed to be, we all came back to the firehouse,” said Bomensatt.

Back in South Orange, Markey said the department reacted to local concerns. “We had to still protect here and we knew there were issues. One of the things that we first realized…this is a commuting center and we anticipated there would be cars sitting in the parking lots at the end of the day.  Two people were killed in the collapse.  We put contingency plans in place for that...It was a busy day finding out what our people needed and logistics of getting them supplies.”

The logistics in an emergency of this magnitude were extremely difficult because the scale of the disaster was so huge. “What it did is it brought our worst fears forward…it strained the entire system. When you sit and plan for major incidents you know that when it happens no matter how hard you anticipated or planned, there will be problems. And there were problems on that morning… there were a lot of communication problems,” Markey said.

All fire departments made changes as a result. “One of the big things that came out of it was radio technology ‘cause police couldn’t talk to fire and fire couldn’t talk to coast guard—nobody could talk to anybody. Now we have interoperability frequencies where any agency in the country can talk to any other agency in the country as long as they are within range of their radios.  We have those frequencies installed in our vehicle radios and portable radios so should something big happen again, we’re able to communicate with NYPD and FDNY and EMS and Emergency Management.  We also found out that some digital radios don’t work very well inside steel buildings --which may have contributed to the firefighter death toll but that’s all been straightened out now. All that technology has been advanced,” Shoemaker explained.

According to Chief Markey, firefighters are constantly advancing their training in response to emergencies and 9/11 set a new bar. “We reinforced existing procedures... took a look at the experience and lessons learned from 9/11…the difficulties they faced…and they were incorporated in every aspect of what we do. We do that with all fires. We take a look after and see what worked well…and we address the difficulties as best we can.”

But with the weak economy, fire departments—like all services—have had budget cuts that the firefighters say can threaten their ability to do the job right. “Unfortunately since 9/11 with the economy, the finances, we have seen major reductions in our staff,” said Markey. “(New York City mayor) Bloomberg talks about reducing five man companies to four and closing houses…to some extent you can do that if you do it very carefully and you analyze it in great depth and follow some long hard fast rules…but the reality of it is they’re stretched thin again and everyone here’s stretched thin and if there were another tragedy we’d probably see the strains put on us.”

Commins –who is president of his firefighter union-- agreed.  “The way we’re broken up, we’re going to be responding to calls with a lot less staffing. We’re not meeting any safety standards or even coming close these days. I understand after an event like that there’s going to be an outpouring of sympathy for you but to have it go away so fast and have every thing come down to a political or monetary thing… that’s pretty disappointing. “

Firefighters and their families always worry about the possibility of getting hurt or killed on the job but as firefighter Richard Walsh noted, the events of 9/11 took those concerns to a new level. “It made you rethink the job. Before you were dealing with natural disasters like lightning or something…you’re dealing with a refrigerator malfunctioning, you’re dealing with human error causing a fire. Now you’re dealing with someone attacking you, and every call that you go to, you have something in the back of your mind: ‘is this a regular standard call or is somebody screwing with us or setting a trap?’ So it’s changed the way you approach the job. There’s another aspect that when you took the job wasn’t there…you knew the other things were going to happen, you didn’t think this was going to happen.”

The families of these men also bear a new burden. “I’m sure our families have second thoughts also. They put themselves in the places of the widows and the orphaned children and I know my wife and I had a long discussion. She and my kids voiced their concerns about what I do and our proximity to New York and I tried to explain to them it’s part of the job and if there’s an emergency we’re going to go… I’ll be as careful as I can,” said Shoemaker.

Markey echoed the thought. “My wife didn’t tell me for years that when I worked at night she was very apprehensive. She never said a word to me. She knew I loved doing what I was doing. But I know now after being married 36 years, she worried a lot...She was sitting with me when the second one got hit and collapsed and I said ‘oh my god, we just lost a lot of people’ and it had a profound effect on her. And that’s when we talked about over the years how she had worried. She never let me know…she always let me do what I wanted to do. I’m sure the wives and kids of every firefighter, their life changed for them. A lot of talking was done in private. That was a very common thing. “

The stress of losing a victim in a fire or participating in the recovery after a harrowing event like 9/11 takes a toll on firefighters. But the fire service has counselors to help those affected get through the experience. “We have critical incidents stress debriefings done when you have very traumatic emergencies. You don’t want anyone to leave the house before they participate in those sessions. We had a fire —we lost five residents in two fires that year (2001.) One was at Seton Hall and I wouldn’t let anyone go without bringing in critical incidents people because… especially if it’s a child, you think of your child, you hold your kids tighter when you go home. The stress that comes with that….it may manifest itself in any number of ways. Everyone reacts differently to a loss. I’m sure there are thousands of debriefers (dealing with 9/11 survivors) to this day…it never goes away.”

The large number of firefighters who died while saving thousands of people in the towers put a spotlight on firemen, particularly in tri-state area communities. “We lost 343 firefighters that morning. We lose-- on average every year-- more than 100 firefighters nationwide. But people don’t really see that and when they do it gets lost for a lot of people. With the loss of the FDNY guys people really reached out and the fire service was held in great esteem…and to some extent that feeling is still there by most of the public.”

Commins is not so sure. “It lasted maybe six months to a year…the community was more aware but then that faded out pretty quickly.”

“The town is supportive,” said Markey, “…we’re in difficult times… there’s a cost to keep the public safe and it’s extremely difficult in these financial situations to…deal with emergencies that may come up. It’s challenging. The public is very supportive of firefighters.”

The department is expecting a good turnout at this year’s 9/11 memorial service.   They mark the day every year so no one forgets the sacrifice of all the victims.  “We did a memorial the year after the first anniversary here and it was highly attended and I said ‘these firefighters did what they loved doing. Don’t mourn them. ‘There were in excess of 25,000 people rescued on that morning and I’m sure those firefighters that gave their lives are up there and pleased about what they did. We should mourn for their families and we need to support their families and never, never forget their families.”

Shoemaker concurred. “The guys that sacrificed their lives, there’s nothing we can do for them except remember them.  It’s the families that we can support. FDNY has a super support system… for the families of the guys who lost their lives. The fire service as a whole is a family…whether you’re a volunteer or a professional we do the same job and we can relate to each other. We try to stick together and help each other. If we are called on to do something like that here, we would step up to the plate too. It comes back to family. “