Voices from Ground Zero: First Responders and Eyewitnesses Share Their 9/11 Stories

Send us a text

What if you could hear the raw, unfiltered experiences of those who lived through one of the darkest days in American history? In this heart-wrenching episode of Porch and Parish, we are joined by Louie DiVirgilio, a former New York City police officer, and his wife Ambre DiVirgilio, a college student in Manhattan at the time of the 9/11 attacks. Louie recounts his immediate reaction to the news, mobilizing with fellow officers amidst the chaos and dust. Ambre provides a poignant view of the city's transformation from a place of safety to a scene of unimaginable tragedy.

As we journey through their experiences, Louie shares the surreal and haunting moments of navigating through dust clouds, debris, and fire to aid civilians and find fellow officers. Ambre’s reflections on witnessing the attacks from 6th Avenue offer a vivid recount of the confusion and helplessness felt by many. We also hear from Robbie Flynn, a retired American airline stewardess, who shares her experiences and the rapid changes in the airline industry post-9/11, offering a unique perspective on the lasting impacts on her career and life.

The Balance of Gray
God, doubt, and proof walk into a podcast... it goes better than you’d expect!

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Support the show

Episode Transcript

Ambre DeVirgilio (00:00):
Please be advised that the following
episode of Porch and Parish.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
The podcast contains graphic descriptions of
traumatic events.
Listener discretion is advised.

Jen Gennaro (00:14):
Hi everyone.
It's Jen Gennaro with Porch andParish, zachary's community
magazine and podcast.
Today we have a deeply movingand powerful episode in store.
It's been 24 years this weeksince the world changed forever.
Nearly every American remembersexactly where they were on the
morning of September 11, 2001.

(00:34):
A day that forever changed thecourse of history.
But for some, that day was morethan just a turning point in
history.
It was a day of action, courageand unimaginable sacrifice.
It's a day that firstresponders faced head-on,
running toward danger when mostwould flee.
They are the heroes who savedlives, comforted the wounded and

(00:57):
bore witness to one of thedarkest moments in our nation's
history.
Today we're honored to have oneof those heroes with us, a
first responder who was on thefront lines during the attacks
on the World Trade Center.
In this episode we'll hear NewYork native and Zachary resident
, louis DiVirgilio's firsthandaccount of what it was like to

(01:18):
be there on that day and how theevents of 9-11 have shaped his
life and career ever since.
He's joined in the booth by hiswife, district 3 Councilwoman
Amber DiVirgilio, who was a22-year-old college student in
Manhattan and witnessed theattacks in the World Trade
Center.
And later we'll hear fromanother Zachary resident, robbie

(01:39):
Flynn, who was a flightattendant on September 11, 2001.
This is a story of bravery,resilience and humanity in the
face of overwhelming adversity.
It's a story that deserves tobe heard and remembered.
So, without further ado, let'swelcome our first guests, louie
and Amber DiVirgilio, to theshow.

(01:59):
Thank you, jen.

Louie (02:02):
Good morning Jen.

Jen Gennaro (02:03):
Good morning, Louie .
I'm going to start with you.
Can you share a little aboutyour background and what led you
to become a first responder?

Louie (02:11):
I grew up in Manhattan, on the Lower East Side back in
New York in the 70s and 80s, assoon as you were able they would
give out the fire department,sanitation department and police
department test when you wereactually in high school.

(02:31):
Basically everyone took allthree tests because that was the
surest way to wind up getting ajob with one of the agencies
and, uh, in New York and in theneighborhood I grew up with,
that was the fastest way to getinto middle class.

Jen Gennaro (02:52):
And how long had you been a first responder at
that time?

Louie (02:56):
Uh, I um, I was coming up on my fifth year on the force.

Jen Gennaro (03:02):
And Amber, what were you doing in life at that
time?

Ambre DeVirgilio (03:05):
I was, like you said, 22 years old.
I had moved to New York Cityabout a little under 13 months
prior.
I fell in love with everythingabout the winter.
I felt incredibly safe in NewYork and incredibly safe in New
York, and you know, right before, 13 months in the world as I

(03:35):
knew it changed.

Jen Gennaro (03:36):
Lou, where were?

Louie (03:38):
you stationed on the morning of September 11, 2001?
I worked in the 6th Precinct,which was in the West Village in
Manhattan, on the West Side.
It was an election day and inNew York, the New York City
Police Department runs theelections.
When I say run is we set up allthe polls.
We have a cop assigned to eachpolling station all day and we

(04:02):
take back the polling returnsand we enter it into the
computer.
I was one of the people trainedto enter the results in our
computer system, so I had to bethere at three o'clock in the
morning.

Jen Gennaro (04:20):
And what was your official job title in the
department that you worked for?

Louie (04:25):
I was a police officer at the time.

Jen Gennaro (04:27):
Okay.
So, Louie, what were you doingwhen you first heard about the
attacks?
Where were you and what wasyour immediate reaction?

Louie (04:36):
Around.
I think it was a little after 8o'clock when the first plane
hit.
One of the cops came running inand said put on the tv, a plane
just hit the world trade center.
So there was, uh, me and awhole bunch of other guys either

(04:56):
waiting to go to court or hadslept over the night before
because they were going to court.
We jumped up and we kind ofknew what to do.
We just all went to our lockersand started putting our
uniforms on.

Jen Gennaro (05:12):
What did you guys think it was in those first few
minutes?

Louie (05:18):
Well, we just thought it was probably a small plane or
something that crashed into it.
Uh, once we got in uniform, Iwent down with my uh, my friend
mike, who was going to court, uh, and a couple of guys and we we
had a narcotics team in theprecinct, uh, so they were
getting ready to go to court.

(05:38):
So they got uniform, we all gotin the van and one of the guys
was relaying a story to us whichmost of us already knew.
Back in the late forties, a U?
S air force bomber actuallycrashed into the empire state
building.
But it was a really foggy daywhen that happened.

(05:58):
And on that Tuesday there was.
It was.
There was no clouds in sky, itwas just bright blue.

Jen Gennaro (06:06):
So where did you go once you got in the van?

Louie (06:12):
We headed down the West Side Highway to the World Trade
Center In the police department.
When something big like thishappens, it's called a
mobilization and they give you amobilization point.
So as we were trying to drivedown there and they give you a

(06:47):
mobilization point, so as wewere trying to drive down there,
the first mobilization pointthey gave us was the tip of City
Hall Park, which is about ablock away from the World Trade
Center.

Jen Gennaro (06:48):
As we were going down, the second plane hit and
it was almost like snowing outbecause all the papers from both
of the buildings were fallingin the street and even though we
were a block or two away, itwas still coming down over there
.
When did you first lay eyes onthe scene and what did you see?

Louie (06:56):
Well, it took us a few to get to the actual scene because
we went to City Hall.
Like I said, no one was there.
So then so we just took it uponourselves.
We all knew where to go to theWorld Trade Center because after
the bombing in 94, the policedepartment, to prevent another

(07:17):
attack, would assign cops onovertime down at the World Trade
Center.
So we all had posts aroundthere.
We've all been in the WorldTrade Center, so we all had
posts around there.
We've all been in the WorldTrade Center, so we actually
were very familiar with thelayout and everything.
So we figured we would justdrive down to the World Trade
Center, get out, go up into thebuildings and make ourselves

(07:38):
useful.

Jen Gennaro (07:40):
And Amber, tell me what happened when you walked
out of your apartment.

Ambre DeVirgilio (07:45):
So I was 22, a college student fairly new to
New York.
I had still the naivete of acollege student at 22 years old
and I was running late thatmorning for class, which was not
unusual, which was not unusual.

(08:13):
I stepped out and just theworld was so different.
There was no GPS or smartphones, so the World Trade Center
towers were really my compass,so I was just so accustomed to
looking at them every day and Iwalked out onto 6th Avenue and I
saw the first tower on fire andit was about, you know,

(08:35):
probably 9 o'clock, maybe alittle after, and you know there
were people out looking at itand staring at it and I just
thought they'll put it out Like.
I just thought it was just afire, even though it was this

(08:56):
huge billowing cloud, but Icouldn't see the gaping hole
that you know eventually couldbe seen.
I couldn't see any of that.
And the sky was just such abeautiful, bright blue that day
I think anybody who was inManhattan or just New York, any

(09:20):
of the boroughs, that day thesky was almost a royal blue
color and there were no cloudsin the sky at all.
And, um, I stood on the cornerwaiting for um, the traffic
signal to cross and, um, thesecond plane flew over and it

(09:43):
was the United Airlines flightand it was so low and your, your
brain, it was, it startedputting it together and I knew,
I knew what was happening, butthat there there was also just a
protective element.

(10:04):
Mentally, my brain justprotected me.
I did not, you know, freak outor panic.
I actually continued on toschool after I saw, you know,
the United Airlines Flight 175hit and I remember it was,

(10:26):
everything was kind of in slowmotion and, uh, I walked into
class and my professor was thereand most of my classmates and I
said, turn on the TV that we'reunder attack.
And, um, she turned the TV on.
Of course, there was, you know,a lot of fear and excitement

(10:49):
and immediately, you know, a lotof us started trying to call
our family members and you know,we had a flip phone, so there
was no texting or anything likethat, and you would just call
and call and call and youcouldn't get through.
Um, but that was my experience,uh, with the initial part of

(11:15):
9-11.
And then, of course, um, aboutan hour and an hour and a half
later, they both collapsed and Iwatched that from the street as
well.

Jen Gennaro (11:27):
Did you guys stay in class?

Ambre DeVirgilio (11:30):
No, what'd you do?
I remember leaving and you knowI went to the State University
of New York's Fashion Instituteof Technology campus and it's
right in the middle of Chelsea.
I remember we hung out for awhile and then, you know, at 10

(11:56):
o'clock and 10.30, I watched thetowers fall from there In real
time.

Jen Gennaro (12:05):
Right, I watched the towers fall from there and
you In real time right, not onTV, not on TV, From the first
tower from 8th Avenue and thesecond tower from 7th Avenue.

Ambre DeVirgilio (12:18):
What did it sound like?
So, even from 27th and 7th, youcould see people jumping and
you could hear the sirens.
There were military flightsflying over and you know, I had

(12:44):
no family there, I had nowhereto go, but where I was they had
shut down traffic in and out ofManhattan.
I just remember not reallyknowing what to do.
I had never imagined asituation like this or been

(13:04):
through anything like thatremotely before.
Um, I watched the first towerfall from 8th Avenue and I
remember you could um, thisprobably sounds crazy, but I
remember it vividly.
You could hear the creaking.

(13:26):
I mean, they it, it didn't fallon a pancake matter, like
manner it, um it, it was awful.
And I remember just hearinglike the gas on the street and
people falling to their knees.
And you know, then, about halfan hour later, the second tower

(13:49):
fell.

Jen Gennaro (13:53):
And Louie.
Let's go back to you arrivingon the scene.
What were some of the immediatechallenges you and your team
faced upon arriving there?

Louie (14:03):
Well we finally got down to.
We knew a place to get into theworld trade center.
West West Broadway is a streetthat goes right.
It ends right at the worldtrade center and if you get out
you can.
There's a stick, there wasstaircase.
You could climb up and get ontothe mezzanine level, which was

(14:26):
the plaza between the two towers.
So we just pulled up in our van.
We started getting out of thevan to walk up.
Like I said, we knew where wewere going because we've been
there so many times and then allof a sudden some older and I
don't know if he was FBI or someother federal agency.

(14:48):
He had the we call them Rayjackets with the.
You know the letters on them.
It usually says ATF, fbi orwhatever.
He just came running at us aswe were coming out of the van,
waving his arms and he basicallysaid another plane's coming in,
get the F out of the van.
Waving his arms, and hebasically said another plane's
coming in, get the f out of here.
So we didn't have two planesalready hit, so now we think a

(15:13):
third is is coming to hit.
So we just jumped in the van.
Um, the driver uh, we called himdc just put the van in reverse
and it was almost like nothing.
We didn't.
We barely got in the van inreverse and it was almost like
nothing.
We didn't.
We barely got in the van.
All the doors were still open.
He went in reverse about like40, 50 miles an hour.
I can't believe he didn't hitanybody or another car.

(15:35):
So we went in reverse aboutfour blocks and then we got out.
We ditched the van on a sidestreet, got out and at that time
the NYPD has been around 175years now, so they revert to
things that they know.

(15:55):
So there's a mobilization.
We have hundreds of cops downhere.
There's immobilization we havehundreds of cops down here.
So let's just do what we alwaysdo, and what we did was they
started lining us up under theWorld Trade Center and counting
us to see how many cops they had, and then usually what happens

(16:22):
is a sergeant takes eight cops,so now they're giving out detail
rosters.
Takes eight cops, so nowthey're giving out detail
rosters and my sergeant at thetime is writing down all our
names and shield numbers,because then he has to give a
copy to the captain.
So literally we the the.
Both towers were hit and we wereunder the towers, lined up in
formation, being counted andbeing distributed to sergeants.

(16:43):
So as we were doing this, mycounted and being distributed to
sergeants.
So as we were doing this, I wastalking to my friend Mike and
my sergeant comes over to mewith the captain and says hey,
the captain needs two people togo to the roof of this building
because there's a piece of theplane on it and it's going to be
a crime scene.

(17:03):
The plane on it and they, it's,it's going to be a crime scene.
So we come into the buildingand there's all looks like
federal agents in there and myfriend mike uh and and I go hey,
um, where's the staircase?
We got to go check the roof.
So the the agent goes oh, theelevator's over here, and uh.

(17:24):
So we went to the staircase,started walking up.
It was about 20 flights ofstairs, it was a 20-story
building and this is not theWorld Trade Center.
No, this is about yeah, there'sthe World Trade Center, the post
office building and thisbuilding.
So we're walking up the stairsand at the time, back then, the

(17:46):
NYPD didn't have enough radiosfor every cop.
So what you did?
You signed out a radio.
So since I was in early, I hada radio.
Mike didn't have a radio, sohe's in front of me and I'm
trying to listen to the radioand at that time it was chaos.
You know, we were gettingpeople saying people are jumping

(18:07):
off the building.
But then there was also peoplesaying there were people on
rooftops of buildings shootingAK-47s at the building, shooting
RPGs at the building.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Really.

Louie (18:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Who.

Louie (18:20):
No, that's in the chaos.
That's what just people yeah.
No that's in the chaos, that'swhat just people yeah.
So I said, right before we gotto the roof, I said, mike, pull
out your gun.
And he's like why?
I said, mike, I don't knowPeople coming over the radio
saying you know RPGs and AK-47s.
So we took out our guns, we gotto the landing, kicked open the

(18:44):
door to the roof and of coursethere was nobody there with
ak-47s, rpgs, but we got ontothe roof.
So once we got out we could seepart of the uh, a part of one
of the planes on the far side ofthe building.
But it also gave us a good viewof the world trade center.

(19:06):
So we were looking through atone of the towers and when the
smoke would would blow, youcould actually see daylight
through the tower.
Finally, after a while, I said,mike, let's, let's go just
check this piece of the planeand get off this rooftop.
So what we had to do is, becausethe HVAC pipes were kind of in

(19:27):
front of us, to our right, wehad to turn around and go to our
left and go all the way aroundthe roof.
So when we turned to the right,the ledge of the building was
there and I just happened tolook down to the street which
was West Broadway, and peoplewere running.
So I turned to Mike, I go whyare people running?

(19:48):
And then we both looked up andthe South Tower looked like it
leaned towards us.
So now, we didn't.
At that time we didn't knowthat it was going to fall more
or less straight down.
We thought it was going to fallover onto us.

(20:09):
And you know people have askedme were you scared at that
moment?
And I said no, because it wasat that moment.
I couldn't jump off the roof.
We were never going to make itdown the 20 flights of stairs in
time.
I just thought I was dead andthere was nothing I could do
about it.
So I was fine with it.

(20:29):
So me and Mike just hit thefloor.
We had our riot helmets on, sowe just put our hands behind our
riot helmets and then, the bestway I can describe to you, it
was like being right next to afreight train as it was going by
, because that's how it sounded.

(20:50):
Then, about another 30 secondsto a minute, it was dead silence
and I said Mike, are you okay?
He's like yeah, I go.
Do you still want to check outthe piece of the plane on the
roof and he said let's get the Fout of here.

(21:10):
So we went to the staircase andwe were doing and it was almost
like we were kids again, and Imean kids again because we were
just grabbing onto the handrailings and throwing ourselves
down the stairs.
And throwing ourselves down thestairs because we were just
trying to get out of thatbuilding.
We didn't know if the buildingwas damaged or whatever, we just
wanted to get out of thebuilding.
So we were just literallythrowing ourselves down flights

(21:31):
of stairs.
So we got down there to thestreet level and there was just
still the cloud of dust.
Papers everywhere, fire,helmets, pieces of bodies oh my
God.
Papers everywhere, fire,helmets, pieces of bodies.
People had pulled off theirjackets and blazers and that too

(21:55):
.
So one of the first things wedid, because we couldn't see
that far, was grab one of theblazers.
We ripped it up, cut it up withour knives and put it over our
faces Because of all the dust.
He goes, start looking for deadbirds.
And I'm like why dead birds?
He goes.

(22:15):
You know, we don't know whatwas on those planes.
They could have had gas orsomething.
And the first you know, like inWorld War I they used to keep
birds because the birds would beaffected by the gas first.
So he goes if you start seeingdead birds.
We got to go in the oppositedirection.
So we wound up walking backdown the block and a half to the

(22:37):
World Trade Center to look forour guys, because that's where
we last saw them.
So there was no one there tolook for our guys because that's
where we last saw them.
So there was no one there.
But at the time, like I said, Iwas the only one who had the
radio.
A female cop came over theradio calling for a 1013.
And a 1013 radio code in NYPDmeans officer needs assistance.

(23:00):
So everyone is trying to askher where she was and she's like
I can't see where I am.
I'm here with a whole bunch ofcivilians, firemen.
So people kept asking her giveus a landmark, give us a
landmark where you are.
And she's like I can't, wecan't see anything.
It's pitch black, we can't seeanything.

(23:21):
So I started walking in thedirection.
I kind of thought she was.
But Mike grabs me, goes, wedon't even know where she is.
We got to find our guys first,the female cop I'm speaking of.
We're pretty sure it was MoiraSmith.
Moira wound up dying at theWorld Trade Center.

(23:44):
Moira Smith, moira wound updying at the World Trade Center.
So we started looking for ourguys and walking around.
So because all the dust wefigured, if we walked west, is
the Hudson River and we'll getthe wind from the river and get
out of this dust.
So we started walking west,even though all schools were

(24:08):
closed that day because it'selection day.
There's a school on chamberstreet that I guess had daycare
and all the parents were theretrying to get their kids.
So we kind of, with a wholebunch of other cops and firemen,
just started literally handingkids to parents, putting people

(24:33):
who were coming out of the cloudinto cars to take them to St
Vincent's Hospital, which was onthe west side.
Then we started.
After we did that, we startedtrying to walk east.
Again.
That's when the second towerfell and when we had a whole
bunch.
We had some firemen with us, wehad a whole bunch of these
parents with their kids.

(24:54):
So we got them into this deliand in new york every place has
basements and so we pulled openthe door to the floor of the
basement, got everyone downthere and waited for the dust
cloud to come by us.

Jen Gennaro (25:07):
Okay, so that was at the time that the second
tower fell.

Louie (25:11):
Yeah.

Jen Gennaro (25:12):
Okay, after you came out of the basement, where
did you go?

Louie (25:16):
We were walking around a couple blocks from the world
trade center and then my friendwho worked in the 10th precinct,
angelo, appears in a van out ofnowhere.
So he's like Louie and I'm likeAngelo.
He's like get in, we're lookingfor our guys too.
So we got in the van.

Jen Gennaro (25:34):
And what was the scene in the street at that
moment?

Louie (25:37):
There was very few people on the street, there was all
the fires raging around.
There was other smallerbuildings around the World Trade
Center that all got damaged.
We were just driving around atthis point to try to find where
other cops were or where ourguys were.
At this point the word went outthat Manhattan was closed below

(26:03):
14th Street.
There was going to be notraffic.
And that's when they put on thenews because we were listening
to the radio in the van, the FMradio that everybody off-duty
has been recalled all NYPD, allFD, all EMS and they were

(26:23):
supposed to report to theirprecincts or station houses
forthwith.
So they were actually to getthe guys in from the outer
boroughs.
They were using the ferries toferry them into Manhattan.
We saw that because we weredown by South Street Seaport and

(26:45):
the ferries were just dockingwherever they could dock to drop
off duty well, now, on dutycops and firemen off.
At that point we could seeeverybody leaving Manhattan on
foot via the Manhattan andBrooklyn bridges and by that
time the Air Force jets and theNavy jets were over Manhattan.

(27:09):
And we knew they were overManhattan because some of them
were flying really, really low.
There was one I saw fly betweenthe towers of the Brooklyn
Bridge.
A couple of years later I foundout I met at a 9-11 thing one
of the pilots and he kind oftook it really hard because he

(27:34):
said when they were told toscramble, they didn't tell them
what for and they just revertedto their training.
So their training was that asoviet or russian submarine was
going to shoot missiles fromoffshore, so they went out to
sea looking for missiles andthen they had to go get called

(27:55):
back and they came back onafterburner, uh, to be over the
city.
So he kind of was pretty brokenup about it because he's like,
even though he didn't, he feltlike he failed in some way
Because he went out to sea firstinstead of being over the city.

Jen Gennaro (28:15):
Amber, where did you go that morning?
Did you just go back to yourapartment by yourself?

Ambre DeVirgilio (28:22):
Yeah.
So after the towers fell I did.
I went back to my apartment andI had been trying to call my
parents but the calls itwouldn't go through.
So you just had to keep callingand calling and calling and
eventually that afternoon I didget in touch with my mom and dad

(28:44):
and you know it felt so good tohear their voice.
But I sat in my apartment for awhile and I watched the news
and I felt really helpless.
And I watched the news and Ifelt really helpless.
So I guess it was probablyaround 2 or 3 o'clock that

(29:09):
afternoon.
I left and I had a case ofwater and I walked it down to
Canal Street, which was thefurthest south that they would
allow me to go, and I just Ibrought it to the officers there
at the barricade and thestreets.

(29:30):
I just remember them being soeerie.
When you think of New York City.
There's people everywhere,almost any time of day or night.
It's really the city that neversleeps.
There's always something open.
Everything was closed and shutdown.
There were no people in thestreet, there were no cabs, no

(29:53):
cars, and Manhattan was sosilent and desolate that you
could hear a pin drop, if itweren't for all the sirens.
There was a caustic smell inthe air like nothing I've ever

(30:15):
smelled before.
I remember the sensory detailspretty vividly the blue of the
sky, the way it smelled, thescreaming.
The sensory details are stillvery strong.

Jen Gennaro (30:32):
Did you know anybody who was killed that day?

Ambre DeVirgilio (30:37):
No, not personally.
Who was killed that day?
No, not personally, Louis.

Jen Gennaro (30:42):
then what happened?
Were you involved in any of therescue efforts?

Louie (30:53):
Yeah for the rest of the day.
We eventually found our guysand my friend Angelo found his
guys around 3 o'clock.
The precinct had me and Mikeactually missing.
So we were on the missing listfor the World Trade Center.
So we went back to the precinctwe kind of washed up a little
bit and then we went back downand basically until about eight

(31:15):
o'clock in the morning the nextday we were down Just making
sure people weren't on thestreet.
So, like I said, we were thereuntil about seven, eight o'clock
on the 12th.
I tell everybody you know a lotof at least a lot of D-Day
veterans say D-Day was longestday of their lives and September

(31:38):
11th was the longest day of mylife into September 12th.
After that they put us on.
We thought we were going to gethit again.
They blocked all the streetsaround the precinct.
We had to have guys on therooftop on overwatch.
We had.

(31:58):
We were still sent.
We lost one of the cops in six,jimmy Leahy.
So we sent guys down every daybecause the first at least two
weeks we thought we were goingto find people.
So every time we went downthere we were digging.
Every time we went down therewe were digging and on the 13th

(32:25):
we were digging off LibertyStreet and one of the we dug
into the pile and there was agood chunk of one of the planes
in the pile and it was just likethe fuselage.
So we were trying to.
It was aluminum, obviously.
So we were trying to pull itback and forth to dislodge it
and it wound up, lost my grip,it whipped back at me and I got

(32:54):
a.
I still have a scar on my armfrom when the aluminum hit me in
the arm.
I probably needed stitches atthe time, but there was
literally, as we were digging,we had teams of doctors, nurses,
ems ready with all triage stuffif we found somebody to pull
them out of the pile.
So I just had them wrap me upinstead of doing stitches and we
kept digging.

(33:15):
So I think I worked, I think,14 days straight down there
until they decided, you know, atthe end of the two weeks is
we're not going to find any morepeople Now it's a recovery
operation.

Jen Gennaro (33:29):
Did you find anybody still alive?

Louie (33:32):
No, there was a couple of people found still alive.
Me personally, I didn't.
We didn't, and my crew didn'tfind anyone still alive.

Jen Gennaro (33:41):
During those long days, were you feeling exhausted
or were you feeling adrenaline?

Louie (33:49):
It was.
It was, I guess, a mixture ofboth.
We just knew we had a job to do.
And you know, like those firsttwo weeks we just wanted to find
people because there was nodoubt in our mind.
We were like we're going tofind people under this and that

(34:09):
kind of slowly went away.
We were working.
When I say they put us on12-hour tours, it wound up being
16 or 18-hour tours until youwere relieved.
So you kind of just try tocatch sleep wherever.
Uh, because a lot of when fdwent down there that day, they
set up all their hoses andeverything.

(34:31):
So when the buildings fell down, all those hoses and water
mains were broken.
So I remember I think it was onthe 13th too we had been
working, digging like 12 hours.
So me and my partner wereexhausted.
So the only place we could finda sleep is in the winter garden

(34:52):
, which was a mall area rightacross the west side highway
from the world trade Center thatwas damaged.
Now the whole place was flooded, like I said, because the water
main breaks.
So the only place we could finddry to take a nap was they had
stacked all the body bags, theempty body bags, waiting to when

(35:17):
they found people.
So we took like a 20, 30 minutenap on top of the body bags
waiting to when they foundpeople.
So we took like a 20, 30-minutenap on top of the body bags.

Ambre DeVirgilio (35:26):
Oh my God, Amber, how long did it take for
things to get back to some senseof normalcy in the city?
I love that you asked me thisbecause I was thinking about
that just yesterday.
Um, new York is a reallyresilient place and I feel,

(35:52):
looking back, life went back.
New York went back almostimmediately and as I lived there
longer, I was a downtown girl.
I never really went above 14thStreet.
I loved downtown.
The financial district was myhappy place, greenwich Village,

(36:15):
where Louie and I met.
I spent almost all my timedowntown and uptown.
You know, northern Manhattan,upper West Side, upper East Side
it was almost like they were ina different world.
I felt like they were able toforget, not forget, but move on

(36:40):
a little sooner.
Because it did happen downtown.
Um, but we, I remember we wentback to school immediately.
I was thinking, over theweekend there was no counseling
for us or support and it was alot for me to process it.

(37:05):
I think you know, even allthese years or two decades later
, it's still a lot to processsometimes and I go through
periods where I honestly I wantto forget and, um, I feel guilty
about that, but I honestlycan't forget what happened.

(37:27):
Um, it really, uh, affected me.
There was, um, you know, I wentthrough a period where I was
really angry that I had to gothrough this, and even, you know

(37:49):
, with my friends and familymembers, you know it was really
hard because I did feel likethey just got to go on.
I had made the choice to live inthis place and my world had
been, and what I thought of theworld, had drastically changed.
I remember feeling like itwasn't fair that I didn't get to

(38:17):
just move on, fair that Ididn't get to just move on, and
um, but it was New York and youwere expected to just move on,

(38:38):
and I think that's also, uh,what has created in me to be a
strong and resilient person, youknow.
But there are some silverlinings and New York is a
transient place and I alsostruggled with the fact that, as
time went on and New Yorkchanged in terms of the people

(38:58):
and my friends, I felt lonelybecause eventually, I was the
only one left who was thereOther than, you know, the native
New Yorkers that I was friendswith, which actually they're
kind of rare.
So when I met Louie, it wasactually on our first date.

Louie (39:24):
We bonded over 9-11.

Ambre DeVirgilio (39:30):
And you know, it felt really comforting and
good to be able to talk aboutthat with someone who had gone
through it, and with someone whohad gone through it, and
especially someone who had gonethrough it in the way that he
had.

Jen Gennaro (39:48):
Louie, what sticks in your mind the most Is?
There a particular scene smellsound scene smell sound.

Louie (39:59):
Well, you probably could ask any York City cop or fireman
down there that the smell everyday.
You're never going to get ridof that smell.
And speaking of smells, yorkCity cops have a nose for lack

(40:22):
of a better word dead bodiesBecause we get called to in a
city of 8.5 million.
Now we get called to hundredsin our career DOAs so you get to
know the smell.

(40:43):
So a lot of times when we weredigging after it became a
recovery and we were justlooking for remains so families
could have closure, if theycouldn't get one of the search
dogs down there, they would getcops to just smell because we
could smell it how long did therecovery efforts ensue?

Jen Gennaro (41:03):
like how many months was your life and your
work consumed by this?

Louie (41:08):
site we went to at least may, and then may was of 2002
and then may is when the majoruh construction companies
started using the heavyequipment to take out the beams
and and dig down into the.
The actual the um world tradecenter when it was being built

(41:32):
was built in a bathtub.
They had to dig down do aconcrete bathtub to prevent the
Hudson River from coming in andthen they built the towers
inside that bathtub.
So they had to make sure thatbathtub was still structurally
sound and to reinforce it.
So around May, I would say, iswhen we were completely out of

(41:58):
there, except for a few cops andPort Authority police that kept
security for the site.

Jen Gennaro (42:11):
Is there anything about your experience on 9-11
that you think people oftenoverlook or misunderstand?
You think people often overlookor misunderstand.

Louie (42:26):
You know, I see in more recent times of how people's
attitudes to the police changed.
I mean, when we were everynight we were going down people,
there would be people liningthe West Side Highway just with
signs saying thank you or likecheering us on.
I I don't think that wouldhappen nowadays.

(42:46):
Um, you know, we had peoplebring food to the.
We had more food than we knowwhat to do with because people
would bring food to the prison.
Uh, you know, we had peoplevolunteer to answer phones.
When I say obviously it's acliche, but my life was totally

(43:11):
different before 9-11 than after9-11 for a variety of reasons.
But I don't think peoplerealize that a lot of us, you
know, knowing what we know nowand we have to do it again,
would do exactly the same thingbecause it, you know I don't

(43:36):
want to sound corny, but it wasour job.
You know guys, they're firemen.
I know who I went to schoolwith that got killed.
There were guys that knew theywere going in the tower and they
were going to die.
There was actually a verywell-known, at least to us, fire

(44:00):
captain um, who we have hislast radio transmissions and he
was with his firemen and theywere trying to get people down
and they radioed him and theysaid, ordered him to evacuate
the building and and he toldthem I have too many burned
people here and I'm not going toleave them.

Jen Gennaro (44:29):
Tell me about your career journey after 9-11 and
kind of walk us through whatyou're doing today and how that
day has shaped your career.

Louie (44:43):
Well, after 9-11, I had about 14, 15 more years until I
can retire and I was promotedsergeant.
I went to Brooklyn for a while.
I came back to Manhattan I wasin plain clothes unit I think
everyone who was on 9-11,especially when you became a

(45:04):
supervisor we were extremelyaware of anything that involved
buildings.
I remember we had a couple ofbuilding fires and partial
collapses and I remembersergeants that I worked with as
cops, as sergeants, and webecame really hypersensitive to

(45:32):
even more than we would havebeen of where our cops were,
where in buildings.
They are in fires and New Yorkunfortunately has a lot of
mostly older buildings and I'msaying buildings but like three,

(45:55):
four floor buildings from the1900s and pre-1900s that
collapsed when they doconstruction.
So that thing that stood out tome that everyone became hyper
aware of, you know anything thatmight be another building
collapse, building collapse.

(46:17):
I just I grew up in anapartment building my whole life
and after 9-11, I couldn't waitto get out of it.
I just didn't feel I don't wantto say safe, I just didn't want
to be in a building anymore.
To this day, I fly, but Ireally don't like flying um,

(46:39):
because I feel like it putssomebody, somebody else has
control over me and I don't likenot being in control of where I
can get out of some place or Icould do something to, you know,
affect my, my fate as a cop.
They, they, from yourexperience and training, you
usually try to think of threesteps ahead of everything.

(47:03):
And I'll go over scenarios.
After 9-11, it probably bothersamber because I get, she'll say
something to me and I'll givelike eight different scenarios
and she's like well, that, that,that that's crazy, that's not
going to happen.
And I go yeah, you might.
So like I try to plan foreverything.

(47:27):
Um, I, we went to the empireestate building, uh, on a visit
when Amber's parents visited,and, and I even went all the way
up and I'd been there before,before 9-11.
And I just did not like beingin there because I needed to
know where the exits were.
I needed to know if we had toget down fast from the top of

(47:51):
Empire State Building.
It just felt reallyuncomfortable being up top.

Jen Gennaro (47:58):
We have about five minutes left and I want to hit
these two questions.
Um, Amber, you mentioned to methat Louie has to go back on the
25th for an inquiry.
Um, what's that about?

Ambre DeVirgilio (48:28):
Obviously, louie was greatly exposed to the
dust from Ground Zero for quitea while, in those initial two
weeks and all the way throughMay.
That's another thing I rememberthe dust stayed around for
years and downtown was myfavorite place.
I lived downtown when we weremarried.

(48:51):
We lived downtown and you hadto know what you were looking
for.
But like, for instance, thestairs, the subways, or some of
the stairs to um, some of thepedestrian bridges, like over
the battery tunnel, if youlooked in the corners the dust
was still there um years later.
So you know everyone wasbreathing that in.

(49:11):
So, um, louie unfortunately haslung disease from nine-11, and
he goes up to New York everyyear to be scanned and evaluated
by the 9-11 doctors.
So he has his appointment thismonth, so hopefully we have good

(49:36):
news wow, is there anything youguys want to add as a closing
thought?

Louie (49:46):
uh, I don't want to add on a or end on a on a sad note,
but I just wanted to.
What, like Amber was saying, mybreathing issues, I feel, are
sometimes I feel I'm a littlebetter off than some people,

(50:10):
Like my sergeant Ned Thompson,who was talking about how I went
down.
He's died of 9-11-relatedcancer.
Angelo, who picked me up hedied of 9-11 cancer.
We had probably maybe 200 copsand detectives and civilians in

(50:31):
my precinct.
I know about at least 12, ifnot more who've had various
forms of cancer.
My old radio car partner,because in New York you had a
partner in the car with you onpatrol and in anti-crime.
He has cancer now and we weretogether every day down there,

(50:54):
every day down there.
One more person who was a dearfriend to me and Amber Vincent
Crivelli.
He was a Sergeant at the time.
He's actually in that famouspicture of him carrying the baby
from the world train center.
Vinnie refused to fly after nine11 refused Last March of 23, he

(51:19):
was going.
He finally bought a house inFlorida, drove down as he was
driving back to New York becausehe will not fly.
Well, he refused to fly, he wasdriving on I-95 and got
rear-ended and killed by a18-wheeler, oh my gosh.
So, even though he didn't dieof any 9-11 illnesses, I kind of

(51:45):
feel, and a lot of us who knewhim kind of feel, you know, he's
another 9-11 casualty becausehe refused, refused to fly after
9-11.

Ambre DeVirgilio (51:57):
I think that's something that isn't talked
about a lot.
Obviously, when I married Louie, I also say that I married into
the NYPD and they were like myfamily and there is PTSD that
was not addressed at the timeand we they do relive it and

(52:28):
we've lost a lot of friends toillness and we continue to lose
people to 9-11 with variousdiseases.

Jen Gennaro (52:44):
Well, you are certainly in our thoughts and
prayers for good outcome foryour upcoming appointment, and I
think I speak for everyone whenI say thank you, not only for
sharing your story with us today, but thank you for being there,
thank you for your service toour country, and we're just so

(53:04):
happy to have you here today.
You two are a tremendous assetto the community, and this is a
story that I think many peoplewill be surprised to hear.
So, thank you guys, thanks forbeing here.

Ambre DeVirgilio (53:18):
Thank you to hear so, thank you guys, thanks
for being here.

Jen Gennaro (53:21):
Thank you, jen.
Thank you, jen.
All right, and when we comeback, we're going to be joined
by Robbie Flynn, a retiredAmerican airline stewardess, who
was flying that very day.
Welcome back, Robbie.
Thank you so much for beinghere with us.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Thank you.

Jen Gennaro (53:38):
All right.
So tell us the back story.
How long had you been a pilot,not a pilot, I wish Sorry.
Okay, starting over.
All right, robbie, thank you somuch for joining us here today.
Give us the back story.
What made you go into theindustry that you chose?

Speaker 2 (53:55):
I went to work for American in 1990, when my oldest
was going to college.
I had been a stay-at-home mombefore then and I decided when
she went to college that Iwanted to pursue a career.

Jen Gennaro (54:07):
Wow, now, prior to September 11, 2001, what had
been the biggest in-flightemergency that you had dealt
with biggest in-flight emergencythat you had dealt with.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
I had to give oxygen one time to a person Thought he
was having a heart attack.
It was a panic attack?

Jen Gennaro (54:25):
Yeah, but nothing just the regular air sickness
and things like that.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Now, did any of your training prepare you for that
day?
Well, I was in the air.
I was flying that day, I hadbeen in Seattle the night before
and was supposed to fly fromSeattle back to Dallas.
That was all the day was goingto be over.
So the flight left Seattle at 7o'clock in the morning, which
would have been 9 o'clock inDallas and we were in the air
about 40 minutes and passengersactually started saying

(55:01):
something's wrong.
We're.
They were getting messages fromfriends on the ground, so how,
though?
I mean that was beforesmartphones, yeah they actually
smartphones were in existence,but I think even at takeoff they
were hearing rumblings.
Oh, so I went up into thecockpit.

(55:23):
They called.
Well, the first class flighttenant called me up there and we
went up there and the captaintold us that the towers had been
hit and that we were turningaround, going back to Seattle
and he would make anannouncement.
So he did and it was a verycalm, controlled.
He was very good at what he didand he kept everybody real calm

(55:45):
.
There was another pilot and hiswife were sitting in the first
row of main cabin and he got upand went into the cockpit
because at that time the cockpitwas an open door.
You didn't have keys oranything.
So he got up and went in thereto see if he could be of help.
Um, we went back.

(56:07):
They had already closed theairport down when we got back
what was the information thaty'all were given at that time?

Jen Gennaro (56:13):
that that two planes had hit the Twin Towers,
and based on that information,you were pretty certain that it
was terrorism, not some sort offluke, right?

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Well, the FAA grounded the whole.
I mean there wasn't any planein the air.
They put the second plane.
When the second plane hit thetowers, the FAA put everybody on
the ground.
So no planes were flying,except George Bush.
They flew him to Shreveportactually, oh wow, from Florida.

Jen Gennaro (56:44):
So so the plane lands back in Seattle, and then
what?

Speaker 2 (56:49):
we walked to the outside of the airport because
they wouldn't let anybody, eventhe hotel, pickup.
They wouldn't let them come tothe airport and get us, so we
walked to the perimeter.

Jen Gennaro (56:59):
You and the pilots, or you and the whole, all the
passengers there were threeflight tenants, no just the
pilots and the flight tenants.
What did they do with thepassengers?

Speaker 2 (57:07):
The agents took care of them.
We left yeah, just the groundpersonnel there had to deal with
them.
So we got back to the hotel andit was just a lot of confusion,
but we were, we were in Seattlefor five days before we got to

(57:28):
fly back home.
So both of my pilots were, uh,retired or former not retired
former military and they took ontheir military mode which I
guess they taught them in themilitary to maintain normalcy.

(57:52):
So every morning we got up andwe would go to the gym, work out
, get dressed, we'd walks, wedid the underground tour, we
went to bookstores, we had lunch, just maintained normalcy until
the company called us back.
Different people reacteddifferent ways.
One of the flight attendantsdidn't want to be with anyone.
One of the flight attendantshad a friend that she went and

(58:16):
stayed with, a friend in seattlethat she went and stayed with.
So I just remember my firstwhen I got back on the ground,
my first thought was to call mymom because I knew if she heard
about it she'd just be in apanic, like my husband knew
where I was.
What about your kids?
My kids?
They called me.
Yeah, as soon as they heardthey called me.

(58:39):
And that was my most importantthing was to let my mom know I
was okay, because everybody else, they would learn I was okay.
But I just knew she would besitting over here in Zachary on
that little house, scared todeath, you know so anyway, yeah,
it was the um when, when thepilots said to create a

(59:00):
situation where we maintainnormalcy, I had actually taken
some handwork with me.
So I had a section of my roomthat was my craft area and I had
a section that was my readingarea, so I just didn't sit and
watch TV all day long.

Jen Gennaro (59:17):
Right, because that yeah yeah area, you know.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
So I just didn't sit and watch tv all day long, right
, because yeah, yeah, yeah sohow do you feel like your
reaction to the events of 9-11was unique, given your
profession?
It changed the industrycompletely.
I mean now you have to gothrough the TSA when you fly.

(59:38):
We used to just, for instance,my husband many times took me to
work and picked me up.
He would meet me at the gate.
He'd be at the gate when I gotoff the plane Then that ended
there?

Jen Gennaro (59:54):
Was it just the surrealism that it could have
been you, it could have beenyour flight, it could have?

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Yes, yes, it could have been.
Seattle to Dallas politicallyis not the hot spot though,
right.
You know New York DC.
The East Coast is where theywanted to hit.

Jen Gennaro (01:00:19):
Tell me about this magazine that you brought, that
you were showing me just beforewe went on air.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
It's the crew members of the two American Airlines
flights that died.
There was a wide body and anarrow body, so the narrow body
had four flight attendants.
The wide body had, I think,seven.

Jen Gennaro (01:00:37):
And who is Betty.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Betty Ong was based in New York and she called
flight service.
Now she would have been at theback of the airplane back in the
galley area and she was workingin the back.
But she saw what was happeningat the front and I mean it's

(01:00:59):
pretty graphic.
I can tell you what she saw.

Jen Gennaro (01:01:01):
Yeah, you can say.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
The last passengers.
One of the last two men to geton sat in the first row of first
class A and B.
Right in front of the purser,who is on a wide-body airplane,
is the boss.
He's in charge of the flighttenants.
So the purser sits facing theback of the aircraft and the
passengers sit facing the front.

(01:01:25):
And it was right after takeoffI mean right after takeoff that
they got up and they slit histhroat with the box cutter and
broke into the cockpit.
She saw it happening and shecalled flight service, which was
our bosses.
She was still low enough thatshe could get transmission and

(01:01:50):
she called them and she toldthem what seats the two guys
were.
in that way, they were able toimmediately find out who did it
oh yeah wow, and did you knowany of these crew members?
I did not know that American atthe time I retired, had 20,000

(01:02:12):
flight attendants, 4,000 inDallas, so you rarely worked
with the same crew ever.

Jen Gennaro (01:02:18):
You may go a year or two and go, hey yeah, right,
um, so you were in Seattle forfive days, and then was it
business as usual pretty much wehad to come back home.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Um, they caught we living in Dallas.
Yeah well, we flew back todallas.
We were the first flight backback to dallas, actually from.
They called us, they, we werecontrolled by a group called
crew schedule and crew trackingand they work for the company
and they are the ones who, um,create the schedule, what you're
going to fly, when you're goingto fly, and then, after you

(01:02:55):
leave on a trip, crew trackingtakes over and they track where
you are.
So crew schedule called andtold us we need to go to work.
So we took an all-nighter back.
Actually, we left at midnightand came back to Dallas in a
Chicago flight at the same time.

(01:03:16):
We did so we were the first twoflights to leave out of Seattle
, one to Chicago, one to Dallas.

Jen Gennaro (01:03:23):
What, excuse me, was there anything different?
I mean, I guess protocol hadnot been put in place yet.
What were the immediate theyhad initiated security.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
For instance, I had a little sewing needle, I mean
sewing scissors.
They took them away from me.
Everything changed.
The passengers were on edge.
Yeah, edge, yeah, a little bit.

Jen Gennaro (01:03:51):
Did you guys do or say anything to put the
passengers at ease, like wasthere any training as to the
captain usually did somethinglike that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
So the captain made the pa about you know, going
home and I'm just in trainingflightants were.
It's one of the things?
Key things maintain a pleasantfacial expression.

(01:04:23):
That's what it was.
Yeah, we were trained so likeif you hear a bump or something
that doesn't sound right in theair, you're not supposed to go.
Oh my gosh, what is that.
Because you're maintaining apleasant facial expression.
So I guess that would have been, you know, in our training,
just to create a comfortableenvironment and make everyone

(01:04:46):
feel confident.
The passengers feel confidentthat we're going home,
everything's going to be finethis time.

Jen Gennaro (01:04:51):
The passengers feel confident that we're going home
, everything's going to be fine.
This time Was there an uptick?
You mentioned the panic attackearlier.
Did you see any sort ofincrease?

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Just anxiety, generalized anxiety over the
whole change in the securitysystem and you know, and some,
actually there were passengersthat grumbled about it.
You know, I mean, but that'slife.

Jen Gennaro (01:05:19):
Were you guys offered any sort of?
I mean, if something like thiswere to happen nowadays,
everybody would be in therapy.
It would be paid for by all thecompanies you know it.
Was there anything like that?
Wow, no, not really.
Did you fly to New York on yourroutes?
Yeah, what was your first tripback there?
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
We went to ground zero.
The crew did how long afterGosh?
The cleanup was major.
I mean it was mostly done bythe time we went.
But we went as a crew to GroundZero and I remember that we had
our badges on and that'ssomething we had to start
wearing a badge.

(01:06:01):
Before that we didn't have towear a badge, just our name tag.
But then, from then on, we hadto wear a badge.
But we went as a crew and theygave us, um, because we had our
badges on, they gave us firstresponder tickets.
Oh, wow, yeah, and let's tellmy brother about this morning.
And he said and you weren't afirst responder?

(01:06:21):
And I said oh, yeah and I amnot downplaying the lives that
were lost are the people whosacrificed their lives, the
firemen, the policemen, thebystanders, but those flight
attendants on that airplane.
When she called flight serviceand identified the guy who used
the box cutter, she was thefirst responder.

(01:06:45):
She was a hero, yeah, she was.

Jen Gennaro (01:06:51):
Did you think about quitting no?

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
Really I loved my job .

Jen Gennaro (01:06:59):
Did you have any long-term physical, mental,
emotional damage Damage?

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
No, it's interesting that the next time I felt such
an emotional process for me wasKatrina, really Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I still was living inTexas, yeah, but my brother
worked at LSU, my nephew playedfootball for LSU and they were

(01:07:31):
in the middle of the triage thatwas bringing the football
players were bringing mattressesin and the Hueys were landing
on the track, and so that thatbrought it back up the awareness
of how quickly our lives canchange, you know um.

Jen Gennaro (01:07:50):
After the events of 9-11, how did your camaraderie
among fellow flight attendantschange?
Did it strengthen your bonds?

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
I would say yes, but they've always.
It's a family, I mean, itreally is there's.
I can't quote the numbers, butworldwide it's a very small
percentage of the worldpopulation that are flight
attendants.
They told us in training Ican't remember it was like whoa,
but yeah, it's always you cansit down on the jump seat and by

(01:08:25):
the end of the three-day tripor a two-day trip, you know, or
even just a turn, you know howmany kids they have and what
foods they like, right, yeah,trip, you know, or even just a
turn, you know you know how manykids they have, and you know
what they're, what foods theylike.

Jen Gennaro (01:08:39):
Right, yeah, so you went on to serve as a flight
attendant for um what?

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
how many years after that?
10, 15?

Jen Gennaro (01:08:44):
I started in 90 and retired in 13, so I flew 23
years, wow so and what didamerican do to um, honor the
memory of 9-11, honor thosewhose lives were lost?
Well, you have the pens here,yeah they.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
They did the commemorative book and the pins,
but a flight attendant took itupon.
A group of flight attendantstook it upon themselves to raise
the funds to build a.
It's in Grapevine, not far fromthe DFW airport, a beautiful
sculpture honoring the flightattendants that lost their lives

(01:09:29):
honoring the flight attendantsthat lost their lives.

Jen Gennaro (01:09:36):
Tell me about the changes that went into effect
after 9-11 and how it affectedyour job.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
It became such a normal thing so quickly.

Jen Gennaro (01:09:47):
Was any specialized change.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
You just had a heightened awareness of watching
any person that got on theplane that might be considered
suspicious.

Jen Gennaro (01:10:07):
Did you ever have to make that call, any kind of
difficult decisions where youwere unsure about a passenger?

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
It wasn't a terrorist threat.
I did have to.
We had the law meet a flighttwo times, but it was passenger
disturbances.

Jen Gennaro (01:10:28):
That was the what.
Two times it was a passengerdisturbance?

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
Yeah, it was just somebody being.

Jen Gennaro (01:10:38):
Yeah, looking back, is there anything about your
experience of 9-11 and the day,the events as a whole that you
feel like is misunderstood oroverlooked?

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
I don't think that the general public realizes that
, and I know that there will bethat bad flight, that you will
not be treated correctly, butmost employee personnel are
there because they enjoy people,they love people and they like

(01:11:22):
to serve.
I will say that it changed thedynamic of flying.
It's more it used to be you puton your Sunday clothes and went
to fly.

Jen Gennaro (01:11:34):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
And now you put on your pajamas, basically Right,
it changed that way.
But initially, when we wentback to work, initially there
was a lot of thank yous.
People thanked us for comingback to work and thanked us for
being there.
That wore off pretty quickly.

(01:11:55):
But I think, safety andsecurity I still travel with
flight attendants.
Well, I went to Italy, rememberwe did that.
Those three women there's fourof us and one of the girls still
flies.
The other three of us retired,but one girl still flies.
She's been flying for 37 years.

(01:12:17):
It's a career that people keepfor a long time.

Jen Gennaro (01:12:21):
Do you miss it?

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
I miss the camaraderie.

Jen Gennaro (01:12:24):
Do you still get free flights or what kind of
perks are there?
Yeah, wherever you want to go,yeah.
Where are you going next?
Wherever you want to go yeah.
Where are you going next?

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
I'm going to California next week.
I just got back from WashingtonState last week.
Wow, my husband and I one yearI was looking at the flights and
I said, Tim, the flights toParis are empty.
You want to go to Paris?
We had friends that were livingthere.
So he went, yeah.
So I texted my friends and I'mlike, hey, the flights to Paris

(01:12:55):
are empty, you want some company.
So we just got on a plane andflew to Paris.

Jen Gennaro (01:12:59):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
How fun Stayed with them, wow, yeah.

Jen Gennaro (01:13:06):
So, it wasn't very difficult for you to stay
motivated than to remain aflight attendant.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Yeah, it's it's a great job.
It's a great career becauseit's the.
It spools you to any other jobbecause it's not a 40 hour work
week.
Average month is 12 to 15 days.
If you want to work less, youcan.
If you want to work less, youcan.

Jen Gennaro (01:13:35):
If you want to work ?

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
more you can.
So an average month is when Iwas working I think it probably
still is is 70 hours, and that'sin the air.
Oh wow, that's not on the gate,that's not hanging coats or
doing pre-departures, that's not.
You're not paid for that.
It's when you're in the airwheels up.
That's when the pay begins.
I think they're in negotiationsfor that right now.

(01:13:59):
Yeah, right, um, but it's soflexible.
I actually used it.
I paid a company that, a bidservice.
Uh, I would tell bobby I needthese days off and I need these
many hours, and they had a baseof like 500 flight attendants in
Dallas that they would tradeeverybody's trips around and

(01:14:24):
then you got the schedule youwanted.

Jen Gennaro (01:14:26):
That's not bad.
Yeah, did you have any friendsor colleagues that quit, either
as pilots or as flightattendants, following 9-11?

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
Yes, yes, flight attendants.

Jen Gennaro (01:14:39):
Yeah, just didn't want a chance anymore, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A good friend of mine.
Actually she was a neighborbehind me in Texas.
She had flown for Delta for, ohgosh, 30-something years.
She just hung it up.

Jen Gennaro (01:14:53):
Wow, yeah, I can see after 30-something years,
that being a catalyst to not dothat anymore.
What is this?
Red, white and blue.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
Oh, it's what I had.
It's the lanyard that mydaughter had that made for me
after 9-11.
So we had to have something towear.
Our badge had to be visible, soshe had that made for me after
9-11.
So we had to have something towear.
Our badge had to be visible.
So she had that made for me andwhat else did?

Jen Gennaro (01:15:17):
you bring.
Those are your wings.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
That's the wings I had on that day and then the,
the pin that they had made, andthen they had a pin made at the
20-year anniversary sent to ushave us?

Jen Gennaro (01:15:31):
Have you gone to any sort of reunions or anything
like that following retirement?

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
No, they have an organization called Kiwis that
meet occasionally, but mostlyjust the friends I have, like
Washington.
When I was in Washington Statelast week I was seeing a friend
of mine that still flies.
She and her husband.
They lived in Dallas.
They went to Washington Stateon vacation.

(01:16:02):
They fell in love with it andthey built a house and moved
there she.
So she's a commuter they call acommuter, so she drives two
hours to Seattle and gets on anairplane and flies four hours
and then goes to work.

Jen Gennaro (01:16:17):
Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
Yeah.

Jen Gennaro (01:16:19):
That's so strange and interesting the train's
rolling by.
In case you hear that in thebackground everyone the train
derailed my train of thought onmy next question for you.
Let me let it pass.
We'll cut this part out.

(01:16:39):
Is there anything else that youwanted to share about?
Oh, I know what I wanted to askyou In hearing all the details
of what happened on that flight,those flights, did you put

(01:17:00):
yourself in those flightattendant's shoes?
Did you think about what?
If it were me, what would Ihave done?
What do you feel like couldhave been done differently?
I think they did the best theycould.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
You know, we have been trained In training.
You're trained in safety andsecurity, but we have been
taught like hijacking.
They wanted the plane to takethem somewhere.
You know how you would dealwith that.

(01:17:31):
I don't know if it's still thecase because, like I said, I've
been retired 10 years, but inour training the male flight
attendants were told just totake a seat.
Yeah, because the terroristwould be nicer to the female
Interesting.
I don't know if that's stillthe case, right, but yeah.

(01:17:54):
Then we were like wait time out, yeah, right.

Jen Gennaro (01:17:58):
So I'm the human shield here right On a similar
note sidebar.
Do you follow the case of thatMalaysian Airlines?
What is it?
Flight 327?
Do you have your speculations?
I don't.
I went on a deep dive aboutthat not too long ago, did you?
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Strange stuff yeah, it is anyway um.

Jen Gennaro (01:18:23):
Is there anything else you want to add about your
experiences that day?

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
I just certainly appreciated the way that, you
know, the captain took charge ofhis crew.
You felt safe, yeah, veryconfident that I wasn't there
alone.

Jen Gennaro (01:18:44):
Yeah, yeah, did you look around and you know when
information was so scarce youguys didn't know what was going
on Did you look around and belike, is it going to happen to
me?
Is it somebody on this flight?

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
Right.
We all thought that until welanded, we didn't know where the
next hit was going to come from.
At that point, we didn't knowwho did it.

Jen Gennaro (01:19:06):
What did you think?
What was your immediatereaction when you saw the
footage and realized exactlywhat was going on?
Think what was your immediatereaction when you saw the
footage and realized exactlywhat was going on.

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):
I watched a replay.
My husband watched it when itactually happened.
I just watched the replays butit was like it's just not really
happening, like this can't behappening, not in our country.
This, not our country, thiscan't be happening, not in our
country.
This, not our country, thiscan't be happening.

(01:19:35):
And yet it did so.
I think we always have to bevigilant well.

Jen Gennaro (01:19:42):
Thank you for sharing your stories.
Um, it's crazy to me that thereare kids being born whose
parents weren't even alive atthat time.
So it's so important that wecontinue to remember and
continue to honor those liveslost and the people who were
heroes and first responders thatday, in whatever capacity.

Ambre DeVirgilio (01:20:02):
So thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
Thank you for sharing your story with us.

Jen Gennaro (01:20:05):
You're welcome, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
America, america.