Sept. 11 Bravest hero a Texas danger ranger
WE were delivering supplies to Beaumont, Texas, on Thursday afternoon when we saw a line of cars six miles long trying to evacuate. They were cut off by a section of road flooded with water too deep to pass on one side. The rain had stopped, but water was still everywhere.
The drivers who had made it around the flood were in shock. Numb. They were probably wondering, “What now? Will I ever return home?”
The faces on the other side, of the ones who had yet to pass, were filled with adrenaline and determination.
I’ve been a fireman for 19 years. I worked on Hurricane Sandy disaster recovery, and on 9/11, I was a firefighter with Ladder 170 in Brooklyn. The looks I’ve seen in my five days in Texas I can recall seeing only in the worst of the worst disasters.
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to them.
We drove by the line of cars at 1:30 p.m. When we returned from delivering supplies to a relief center, it was nighttime. But the cars were still there.
People just don’t know where to go. Last night, a woman driving a U-Haul and towing a car stopped to ask us where she and her mother could find food and shelter. It was getting dark, and they were considering heading in a direction where the state of the roads was unknown.
She had that shake. Almost like she was on something, but I knew it was the nerves.
Just outside Beaumont, I saw an elderly woman wading through three feet of water and trying to open her front door with a stick. She was wearing a nightgown. It looked like she was still living there.
I witnessed another woman sobbing inside a gas station into the phone. “I’ve lost everything,” she kept saying. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
She must have just found dry land, because the adrenaline was gone from her face. She had that look. It’s like a soldier in war, and once he comes off the battlefield and knows he’s no longer in danger, the reality of what went on comes back to him.
We were traveling with a convoy of Texas state troopers and 30 tractor-trailers filled with supplies when we passed a cow in chest-deep water. Its hooves must have been stuck in the mud, because it was thrashing its tail and looked distressed. The rest of the herd watched from dry land.
I’ve found some of the greatest dangers are the ones we can’t see.
One gas station was halfflooded, but the lights were still on — a recipe for a deadly cocktail of electric current and water.
We delivered supplies to a mosque serving as a recovery center. When we walked in, the natural-gas smell hit me and my partner, FDNY Lt. Anthony Pasquin, immediately. Back in the kitchen, we found a leaking pilot valve. We went into fire-department mode and turned the gas off.
There are some areas you can’t get to by vehicle or train. Tracks have just completely been washed out. In those places, we have to use Black Hawk helicopters.
As of Friday, I’m stationed with 68 other FDNY members at the Academy Sports + Outdoors headquarters in Katy. They shut the place down and have turned it into a relief center and supply warehouse.
Most stores are closed, and I have seen hundreds lined up outside of ones that are open. People need everything right now. That’s what’s hard. When someone is letting you know everything is lost and you can’t just go in your pocket and hand them a load of money.
The saddest part is people have yet to feel what will happen in the aftermath. We’ll be here at least until Sept. 11th helping with recovery.
I’ve told a couple of Texas state troopers that’s what will be the real shock. We know this from Sandy. The water will recede, but their lives will be upside down for the longest time.