September 12, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, on September 11th, 2001, more people were evacuated from Lower Manhattan than Dunkirk on FDNY fireboats, tugboats, and pleasure boats. Here's the story of that remarkable response.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories and with a
story about nine to eleven. Doctor Mike McGhee is the
author of All Available Boats, which is about Manhattan's trains
and bridges shutting down on nine to eleven and the
heroic evacuation of three hundred thousand people off of the
island by boats that happened to be in the area.
(00:32):
It was a larger evacuation than Dunkirk, and it was
executed by a wide variety of boats that answered the
call for help, from pleasure boats to tugboats. And today
Mike tells us about the Fire Department of New York's
fire boats that bravely served that day.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
One of them was the John J. Harvey, which had
been decommissioned. It was in nineteen thirty one. That's this
most powerful fireboat in the world. It could pump eighteen
thousand gallons a minute, which was just unheard of at
the time. It was named after John J. Harvey, who
had died in a fire on a boat. But the
(01:15):
interesting thing about it is that at the time of
nine to eleven it was completely decommissioned, but it was functional,
and the guy who actually was in charge of the
John J. Harvey was a architectural preservationist who had gotten
(01:39):
interested in saving the John J. Harvey. So this boat,
which is about one hundred and thirty feet long, was
formally preserved and saved beginning in nineteen ninety nine, and
Huntley Gilt was the guy who raised the funds and
coordinated it, and then he became the captain. He was
(02:00):
aided by a former truck mechanic whose name was Tim Ivory,
who became the chief engineer for the boat, and he
just got a kick out of, you know, keeping this
thing functioning. It's a mechanical wonder. And then there was
a third person named Jessica DeLong who happened to be
from Massachusetts and was a maritime historian who had gotten
(02:21):
interested in the boat became one of the crew members
for it. So at the time of the attack, Huntley
Gill was asleep in his Manhattan apartment, Tim Ivory, who
lived on a houseboat in a marina in New Jersey
on the New Jersey side, was having breakfast at a diner,
and Jessica DeLong was writing a freelance article in her
(02:45):
Brooklyn flat. Within hours, the three of them were on
the boat and the boat was on the Hudson heading
south to the disaster, and the first thing they did
when they arrived there was to over a loudspeaker address
(03:07):
the crowd that had gathered to be evacuated. You know,
the most panicky people and those who were injured in
the falling of the towers immediately obviously tried to get
off the south side of the island and they were
all gathered there. So at Pier sixty three on the
Hudson River where the boat originated, it headed south and
(03:27):
the first thing it did was use a loudspeaker to
tell people anybody want to go uptown, and one hundred
and fifty people boarded the fireboat and they took them uptown.
Then they got a call by the time they reached
uptown to discharge these one hundred and fifty people, that
got a call to rush back because the fire trucks
(03:48):
had already run out of water and they needed this
retire John J. Harvey to pump eighteen thousand gallons of
water a minute to fill the trucks that were all
out of water. So that's what they did, and they
stayed in action down there for four days. Now, one
(04:11):
of the boats that was there as well, was the
John D. McKean fireboat. That fireboat was actually in service
at the time, and it was a newer boat. It
wasn't that brand new. It had been commissioned in nineteen
fifty two, again named after a firefighter in nineteen fifty
(04:34):
three actually who had lost his life in a steam
explosion on a boat. The captain, though, ed Metcalf, this
was only his second day as captain of that boat,
so he had just arrived and the second day of
his command, he gets this call to come down immediately
(04:55):
to the seawall at Liberty Street. In fact, this was
right after to the first plane had hit and the
second plane had not yet hit. They were down there
within about five minutes, and Metcalf got off the boat
to go to the command center to see what the
fire department wanted him to do next. He subsequently was
(05:18):
lost in the turmoil and the collapse of the second
building after the second plane hit, which they all saw,
you know, and that's another part of this story. You know,
anyone who witnessed those attacks, or anyone who witness all
of the citizens covered in inches of dust and debris
(05:44):
slowly walking either north out of Manhattan or south to
try to be evacuated by boat. Anyone who witnessed those
images has never really forgotten those images. And when Ed
Matcalf didn't come back immediately, one of his crew members,
Tom Sullivan, went to try to find out where he was,
(06:08):
and Tom ended up in some of the wreckage of
the second building collapsing and nearly lost his life as well.
But in any case, what happened was that this boat,
the John D. Mckeenwhich is one hundred and thirty feet long,
It played a major role in the evacuation and it
(06:31):
was not designed obviously to transport people. In fact, these boats,
the way they're designed, they need a gangplank of about
twelve feet to reach the shoreline, and the shorelines down
there were never designed for multiple purposes at either. I mean,
one of the things that we learned from this event
(06:54):
is that that New York Harbor area was not well
designed for a disaster. You know, the people who run
these boats, they talk about the commercial uses and bringing
in liners and shipping containers over on the New Jersey side,
but in general, it isn't a very good edge between
(07:17):
the water and the land for boarding human beings, not
designed for that at all. So the fact that they
were able to move safely somewhere between three hundred and
fifty thousand and five hundred thousand people off that island
in a short period of time is nothing short of
a miracle. And when they moved the John D. McKean
(07:44):
fireboat and started using it, people were panicked. The towers
had just collapsed. People thought that the entire southern tip
of Manhattan was going to blow up. They didn't know
what was coming next, and they were panicked. And you
had not simply wall streeters covered in dust, but you
had babies and nannies and civilians who lived in the
(08:09):
buildings around this area, all trying to get off the island,
and the John D. McKean fireboat really ran into a
lot of challenges in terms of children. Their deck was
about eight foot down from the loading shores, and they
were literally throwing some of the babies to the open
(08:31):
arms of these firefighters on the boat, and then the
babies were taken down and four babies to a cot
were placed in the firemen. We're taking care of the
babies as they were loading the nannies. In one case,
a lady who was panicked actually jumped in the water
(08:53):
and got trapped between the boat and the shore, and
the firefighters had to actually jump into the water and
save them by throwing a plank ladder down and boosting
them up. One firefighter had to dive under the water
to push an exhausted lady onto the ladder. So this
(09:15):
is a very chaotic situation, and so for the boat captains,
who were not used to doing this kind of work
to remain calm and to as much as possible protect
the safety of people who were inclined to do anything
at that moment to get off the island. One of
(09:37):
the common features of almost everyone that we interviewed was
that when the boats were moving away from the island
and looking back, you could see initially the twin towers
on fire, and then they all witnessed their collapse, and
(09:59):
then they were just gone. The thing that was most
in common in every story was the extreme quietness on
the boat itself that was nothing like they had ever experienced,
the solemnness. Everyone was deep inside themselves.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And he is right about the silence, and that's the
silence in New York and also in Washington, DC. And
I bet it was the quietest time in American history.
People were just shocked. A special thanks to Monte Montgomery
and Alex Cortes for the work. Doctor Mike McGhee, author
of all available boats are nine to eleven. Special here
on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories and with a
story about nine to eleven. Doctor Mike McGhee is the
author of All Available Boats, which is about Manhattan's trains
and bridges shutting down on nine to eleven and the
heroic evacuation of three hundred thousand people off of the
island by boats that happened to be in the area.
(00:32):
It was a larger evacuation than Dunkirk, and it was
executed by a wide variety of boats that answered the
call for help, from pleasure boats to tugboats. And today
Mike tells us about the Fire Department of New York's
fire boats that bravely served that day.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
One of them was the John J. Harvey, which had
been decommissioned. It was in nineteen thirty one. That's this
most powerful fireboat in the world. It could pump eighteen
thousand gallons a minute, which was just unheard of at
the time. It was named after John J. Harvey, who
had died in a fire on a boat. But the
(01:15):
interesting thing about it is that at the time of
nine to eleven it was completely decommissioned, but it was functional,
and the guy who actually was in charge of the
John J. Harvey was a architectural preservationist who had gotten
(01:39):
interested in saving the John J. Harvey. So this boat,
which is about one hundred and thirty feet long, was
formally preserved and saved beginning in nineteen ninety nine, and
Huntley Gilt was the guy who raised the funds and
coordinated it, and then he became the captain. He was
(02:00):
aided by a former truck mechanic whose name was Tim Ivory,
who became the chief engineer for the boat, and he
just got a kick out of, you know, keeping this
thing functioning. It's a mechanical wonder. And then there was
a third person named Jessica DeLong who happened to be
from Massachusetts and was a maritime historian who had gotten
(02:21):
interested in the boat became one of the crew members
for it. So at the time of the attack, Huntley
Gill was asleep in his Manhattan apartment, Tim Ivory, who
lived on a houseboat in a marina in New Jersey
on the New Jersey side, was having breakfast at a diner,
and Jessica DeLong was writing a freelance article in her
(02:45):
Brooklyn flat. Within hours, the three of them were on
the boat and the boat was on the Hudson heading
south to the disaster, and the first thing they did
when they arrived there was to over a loudspeaker address
(03:07):
the crowd that had gathered to be evacuated. You know,
the most panicky people and those who were injured in
the falling of the towers immediately obviously tried to get
off the south side of the island and they were
all gathered there. So at Pier sixty three on the
Hudson River where the boat originated, it headed south and
(03:27):
the first thing it did was use a loudspeaker to
tell people anybody want to go uptown, and one hundred
and fifty people boarded the fireboat and they took them uptown.
Then they got a call by the time they reached
uptown to discharge these one hundred and fifty people, that
got a call to rush back because the fire trucks
(03:48):
had already run out of water and they needed this
retire John J. Harvey to pump eighteen thousand gallons of
water a minute to fill the trucks that were all
out of water. So that's what they did, and they
stayed in action down there for four days. Now, one
(04:11):
of the boats that was there as well, was the
John D. McKean fireboat. That fireboat was actually in service
at the time, and it was a newer boat. It
wasn't that brand new. It had been commissioned in nineteen
fifty two, again named after a firefighter in nineteen fifty
(04:34):
three actually who had lost his life in a steam
explosion on a boat. The captain, though, ed Metcalf, this
was only his second day as captain of that boat,
so he had just arrived and the second day of
his command, he gets this call to come down immediately
(04:55):
to the seawall at Liberty Street. In fact, this was
right after to the first plane had hit and the
second plane had not yet hit. They were down there
within about five minutes, and Metcalf got off the boat
to go to the command center to see what the
fire department wanted him to do next. He subsequently was
(05:18):
lost in the turmoil and the collapse of the second
building after the second plane hit, which they all saw,
you know, and that's another part of this story. You know,
anyone who witnessed those attacks, or anyone who witness all
of the citizens covered in inches of dust and debris
(05:44):
slowly walking either north out of Manhattan or south to
try to be evacuated by boat. Anyone who witnessed those
images has never really forgotten those images. And when Ed
Matcalf didn't come back immediately, one of his crew members,
Tom Sullivan, went to try to find out where he was,
(06:08):
and Tom ended up in some of the wreckage of
the second building collapsing and nearly lost his life as well.
But in any case, what happened was that this boat,
the John D. Mckeenwhich is one hundred and thirty feet long,
It played a major role in the evacuation and it
(06:31):
was not designed obviously to transport people. In fact, these boats,
the way they're designed, they need a gangplank of about
twelve feet to reach the shoreline, and the shorelines down
there were never designed for multiple purposes at either. I mean,
one of the things that we learned from this event
(06:54):
is that that New York Harbor area was not well
designed for a disaster. You know, the people who run
these boats, they talk about the commercial uses and bringing
in liners and shipping containers over on the New Jersey side,
but in general, it isn't a very good edge between
(07:17):
the water and the land for boarding human beings, not
designed for that at all. So the fact that they
were able to move safely somewhere between three hundred and
fifty thousand and five hundred thousand people off that island
in a short period of time is nothing short of
a miracle. And when they moved the John D. McKean
(07:44):
fireboat and started using it, people were panicked. The towers
had just collapsed. People thought that the entire southern tip
of Manhattan was going to blow up. They didn't know
what was coming next, and they were panicked. And you
had not simply wall streeters covered in dust, but you
had babies and nannies and civilians who lived in the
(08:09):
buildings around this area, all trying to get off the island,
and the John D. McKean fireboat really ran into a
lot of challenges in terms of children. Their deck was
about eight foot down from the loading shores, and they
were literally throwing some of the babies to the open
(08:31):
arms of these firefighters on the boat, and then the
babies were taken down and four babies to a cot
were placed in the firemen. We're taking care of the
babies as they were loading the nannies. In one case,
a lady who was panicked actually jumped in the water
(08:53):
and got trapped between the boat and the shore, and
the firefighters had to actually jump into the water and
save them by throwing a plank ladder down and boosting
them up. One firefighter had to dive under the water
to push an exhausted lady onto the ladder. So this
(09:15):
is a very chaotic situation, and so for the boat captains,
who were not used to doing this kind of work
to remain calm and to as much as possible protect
the safety of people who were inclined to do anything
at that moment to get off the island. One of
(09:37):
the common features of almost everyone that we interviewed was
that when the boats were moving away from the island
and looking back, you could see initially the twin towers
on fire, and then they all witnessed their collapse, and
(09:59):
then they were just gone. The thing that was most
in common in every story was the extreme quietness on
the boat itself that was nothing like they had ever experienced,
the solemnness. Everyone was deep inside themselves.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
And he is right about the silence, and that's the
silence in New York and also in Washington, DC. And
I bet it was the quietest time in American history.
People were just shocked. A special thanks to Monte Montgomery
and Alex Cortes for the work. Doctor Mike McGhee, author
of all available boats are nine to eleven. Special here
on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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