9/11 Downtown Section 3rd Platoon

Bob's 9pm show.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Good evening, I'm Bob Lonsbury, and from the banks of
the mighty Genesee in Rochester, New York, this is Downtown
Section 3rd Platoon. Today is a milestone anniversary. 25 years
ago today, the world changed for an awful lot of
people in an awful lot of ways, and it has
not gone back to normal for many of us. A
lot of people experienced a lot of things that day.

(00:25):
Some had a whole lot closer view than others of us.
To that end, we're honored to be joined by Well,
the veteran officer of the Rochester Police Department, the president
of the Rochester Police Locust Club currently, and a member
of the Monroe County Legislature, the Honorable Paul Dondorfer. Sir,
good evening. Welcome to the broadcast.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hi, Bob.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
September 11, 2001, as you got up that morning, what
were you doing in life?

Speaker 3 (00:55):
At that moment, I was sleeping. I had worked nights
at the time, so I worked 8 at night until
4 o'clock in the morning. And a very close friend
of mine who is a firefighter up in Rochester here
called me when the first plane hit. And, you know,
I remember turning on the TV just like everybody else
did and thinking to myself, some idiot sightseeing plane got

(01:16):
too close. And, you know, It looked like it did
a lot of damage, and then as I continued to
watch like everybody else did, we watched the second plane hit,
and I said, we've got a problem here because that
one was no accident. So I got dressed, got ready
to go, and started heading into work.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
What did you do for a living back then?

Speaker 3 (01:37):
I was a police officer with the NYPD.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Where did you grow up? What's your backstory, please, sir?

Speaker 3 (01:43):
I grew up here in Rochester. Okay. You know, at
that time, it was a very sought-after job, and, you know,
8,000 people used to take the test up here for
30 positions, and the NYPD was on a big hiring spree,
so I had taken the test a couple years before that.
I got processed and hired down in New York City,
so I moved down there to become a police officer.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
How would you come to feel about that community? I mean,
as you were, you know, policing the streets far from
this home, but did, I mean, did you come to
care about that place and those people?

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh, absolutely. Uh, you know, I know there's a lot
of songs and a lot of, a lot of things
that the city that never sleeps, but man, it, uh,
it is something. And 24 hours a day, there's, there's
always something going on there. Uh, and I loved it.
I love the hustle and bustle about it. I loved, uh,
you know, there's always something to do. There's always someplace
to go. Uh, so yeah, I mean, I really, I

(02:36):
fell in love with the city. I fell in love
with the lifestyle down there and, um, You know, I
was proud to be a member of the NYPD, and
I still am proud that I was a member of
the NYPD.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Paul Dondorfer, again, currently a Rochester police officer and a
Monroe County legislator. So grab your gear and go. What
was it like going into work? What did you do?
Where did you go? How did you respond, please, sir?

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Well, you know, as officers that were off duty started
trickling in, You know, we loaded up into a van
and got headed, started heading down to what we now
know is Ground Zero. And, you know, there was no
specific task until you got down there. And that was
kind of a let's see what you got going on
and let's see what we're going to do. And, you know,

(03:23):
for the first 36 hours or so, it was pretty
much grab a stone, grab a boulder and move it.
And let's try and pick through here and see if
we could find people that are trapped.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
You were looking for survivors.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
We sure were, and we had high hopes that there
were air pockets of people that were hunkered down, and
we were going to get them out and get them
to help. We all know now, but we never found those,
and they weren't there.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
This is Monroe County Legislator Paul Dondorfer. He's also a
member of the Rochester Police Department. Twenty-five years ago today,
he was a young officer in New York City. As
you're going in there, you saw the second one on TV.
There's the smoke. Everything's horrible. What are you thinking and

(04:17):
feeling as you're going down there and disembarking and starting
to work?

Speaker 3 (04:21):
What's next? You know, you always train in the academy,
and you find one gun, you look for a second one.
In this scenario, two planes hit two of the tallest
buildings in the world. What's next? There are incendiary devices
that are waiting to go off. Are they luring us
all down there? Obviously, they know every police officer, every firefighter,

(04:42):
every EMS personnel is going to start going down to
that area. Is there a third attack that's going to
come and wipe us all out? So that was obviously
a huge concern for everybody that was down there. Fortunately,
that didn't happen, but that was on the forefront of
everybody's mind.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
As you are approaching what we now call Ground Zero,
Were there, did you see people? Were there injured individuals?
Did you see the people covered in dust? What was
the circumstance, please?

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, I mean, it was one of the most eerie sounds,
or eerie sights that you can ever see. You know,
there's dust, there's debris all over the place. It was smoky, cloudy,
and people were just, I mean, it looked like zombies
walking through the streets. People were still in shock. You know,
I didn't get down there for, you know, a couple

(05:37):
hours after the building fell. The building fell, and, you know,
people were still just walking around in absolute disbelief of
what was going on. And it's just hard to describe, Bob.
It's hard to describe. You know, everyone always asks what
it smelled like, and there's nothing I can ever compare
to what it smelled like. I could tell you what

(05:59):
an orange smells like, right? We all can. If I
tell you that it smelled like an orange, you would
have that distinct thought in your mind, in your process thought.
There's just nothing that you could compare that to. And
just another thing is how quiet it was. For all
the hustle and bustle that was going on around the area,
all the running around, all the firemen responding, all the

(06:21):
police responding, all the construction workers and steel workers coming
down to lend a hand, it wasn't New York City's noise.
It was just an eerie silence. No one was talking
that didn't need to be talking. And it was just
a very, very strange silence in the city that never sleeps.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Paul Dondorfer was a New York City police officer 25
years ago today. He's now a Monroe County legislator and
a veteran member of the Rochester Police Department. We'll be
back with him in just a moment. This is Downtown Section,
3rd Platoon on NewsRadio WHAM 1180. Welcome back. This is
Downtown Section, 3rd Platoon. We're talking to Paul Dondorfer, whose
name you probably recognize. He's, I think, the interim president

(07:08):
of the Locust Club, the police union. He's also a
veteran member of the Rochester Police Department, and he's also
a member of the Monroe County Legislature. And 25 years
ago today, he was a New York City police officer,
came in from off duty, and immediately, under the direction
of others, began searching through the pile, hoping to find

(07:29):
people who were there. Not to be macabre or inappropriate,
but as you're searching and as you came into the area,
you didn't find living people, but I suspect you did
find parts of people. What was that like?

Speaker 3 (07:42):
We did. You know, it was filled with mixed emotions.
You're bringing closure to a family who lost a loved one,
who needed something to hold on to, to the fact
that their loved one was in there. So you felt
good that you did that for the family. You also

(08:03):
felt horrible that the family lost a loved one the
way that they did. And it was just, you know,
when people ask me, I always hoped that we would
find intact remains. And I personally did not find anything
that was even remotely close to intact remains. And, you know,

(08:26):
you come to realize after a few weeks of being
down there that just the amount of force, the amount
of weight, we were lucky to find the things that
we found for the families. Right.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Not to be, again, disrespectful, but looking at the stats,
of 2,753 people who were killed in New York City,
intact remains were found for 291 individuals. and then there
were 21,906 partial remains, pieces of people who were discovered. And, sir,

(09:03):
you and other workers like you were the folks who
discovered those. And, you know, not to play the emotional
thing or whatever, but that cannot be an easy task.
That must have been burdensome then and since for you
and the others with you.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
Absolutely. You know, I will say one of the good
things that the NYPD did have, and they threw it together,
whether it was, you know, by the Cedar Panther, however
they did it, you know, you had to go talk
to a counselor. And, you know, the first few days,
it was kind of like you didn't really know what
was going on. You didn't know what to say or what. But,

(09:40):
you know, they had a good support system there, a
good support structure. I will say one of the biggest
things that stands out is the respect for one another.
When parts or remains were found, people stopped in the area.
One of the major reasons was we took a moment

(10:00):
of silence, and then people came in and they did measurements,
latitude and longitude, where those parts were found, and they
tried to piece together where in the building those individuals
were located during the collapse. And then they were very
respectfully removed. The remains were very respectfully removed and taken

(10:23):
to where they needed to be taken to for further processing.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Paul Dondorfer was a New York City police officer 25
years ago today. He currently is a veteran member of
the Rochester Police Department, interim president of the Police Officers Union,
and a member of the Monroe County Legislature. Twenty-three brother
and sister officers of your department, the New York City
Police Department, a passed away in that. What was that

(10:49):
aspect of that like, please, sir?

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah, you know, I mean, you always sit back and wonder, right?
It's kind of like our brave men and women in
the military. You always sit back and wonder, could that
have been me? And, you know, I guess the short
answer for me is if I was working days, you're
darn right it could have been me. You know, it
sucked to lose one. You lost 23. Our department lost

(11:15):
over 300. I couldn't fathom that. But, I mean, it's
just something that you live through and you move on
and you carry their legacy forward and you carry their
drive and their determination and their willingness to lay their

(11:37):
lives down for people. And I think that goes too
easily said for people where, oh, they signed up for that.
I don't remember anywhere in any brochure in the fire
test that I took or the police test that I
took that said anything about you should be fine with dying.

(11:57):
We accept it. We realize that that is part of
the job, but it's certainly not a fair part of
the job, especially when it comes to acts of violence
being taken against us.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Speaking to Paul Dondorfer, As you look at first-person recollections
from various aspects of September 11th, people had a powerful
need to reach out to family from the planes, from
the towers, and from the squad rooms and the firehouses.

(12:30):
You were down there. You got people up here, the
Rochester area, who loved you and were concerned about you.
With your family, with your friends, was there a Paul,
are you okay? Was there I've got to call home
and tell my mom. Was there something like that for you, sir?

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Ironically, there was. My mom and dad were on their
way to Cleveland for a Women's World Cup soccer game
or a women's soccer match of some sort. By the
time they had originally found out about it, I was
already on my way in. I had a quick phone
call with them just telling them that I was on
my way in. And then I didn't get back in

(13:09):
touch with them until very, very late that evening. And
needless to say, their nerves were pretty amped up, and
they were very concerned about my well-being throughout that day.
But being down in that area, there was no cell service,
and we were a little busy that I didn't really
have an opportunity to to pick up the phone and

(13:31):
chat with anybody, but they were relieved nonetheless when I
finally did get to call them, no matter how late
in the day that was. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
How many hours did you work that first day, sir?

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Oh, God, I don't even remember, Bob. Well, a long time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
This is Paul Dondorfer. He, 25 years ago today, was
a New York City police officer. We'll be back in
just a moment. This is downtown section, 3rd Platoon. on
NewsRadio Wham! Welcome back, general listeners. This is downtown section,
3rd Platoon. 25 years ago today, you know, was this
horrible Muslim terrorist attack upon the United States. One who
was in New York City and responded shortly after the

(14:08):
attack was a Rochester native who was a New York
City police officer, Paul, or for whose name I suspect
you recognize. He's a member of the Monroe County Legislature.
He's the interim president of the Rochester Police Locust Club,
and he is a veteran member of the Rochester Police
Department and has been involved in prominent events involving that department.

(14:31):
And again, you were assigned that day and the days
after to search through the pile, sir, looking for survivors?

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yep, I was assigned that. I was assigned any sort
of detail that was down there. You've got to remember
one thing, and I think a lot of people kind
of take this for granted or forget about it, but
that was a crime scene. That was a blocks and
blocks long crime scene because we were attacked. And a
terror attack is a crime scene. And not only were

(15:02):
we looking for people, but we were looking to preserve
evidence as well, which is a task in and of
itself in a situation like that.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
When you read accounts of this, you do see accounts
from NYPD officers who took portions of the aircraft back
to their station houses and preserving it as evidence in
this matter.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
Yes, and that was, you know, and also a secondary
mission to what we have going on, you know, in
the rescue and recovery. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
In the aftermath, in the days that followed, I remember
there was like a church that's set up there where
a lot of people went and folks tried to show
support and and such, how did the community, the people
of New York City, respond to those of you who
were there working at Ground Zero, please, sir?

Speaker 3 (15:56):
That was the most amazing community I've ever seen in
my whole entire life. And when you talk about coming
together and checking on family members and checking on loved ones,
I think you forgot one very important thing. They checked
on strangers. They checked on a person that was walking
down the street and was dazed and confused. One of

(16:18):
the biggest things that I remember is when we were
driving down the West Side Highway heading to Ground Zero,
just the lines and lines of people standing in the streets. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
In the first 24 hours, some 60,000 people either did
or tried to donate blood, hoping to come to the
aid of strangers, sadly not needed. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah. The officers with whom you worked, as you know,
and again, Paul Dondorfer has been a police officer his
entire career, and there's a camaraderie there, I suspect, that
many of the rest of us can't begin to understand.
But when you're engaged with those other officers in that
very specific, that very daunting task, I imagine that that

(17:08):
forms some kind of special bond.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Oh, absolutely. You know, I mean, police officers and firefighters
have a bond. thicker than water to begin with, and
I think that going through something that you know the
majority of the people in the country have never, will never,
and pray that they never will go through is, you know,
it's something that you're going to lean on each other for.

(17:35):
It's something that you are going to continue to share
with that person and those people, and really, you know,
when you're having tough days and you want to talk
to a spouse or a loved one, you know, as
great of a support system as they are, you weren't there,
you don't know, and, you know, there's only so much

(17:56):
that they can do, and, you know, you kind of
reach out to those guys and girls, and, you know,
you're not the only one thinking or feeling the things
that you are, and that's good to have, and that's
a great great support system. And I'm, I'm super fortunate, uh,
that I made some very good friends when I was
down there. Uh, and I still talk to them to

(18:17):
this day and, you know, every September 11th, I call
the guy, uh, the fireman up here who, who called
me up and, uh, you know, we have our, we
have our moment. We go on with our day. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
It's Paul Dondorfer. Um, it was a New York city
police officer 25 years ago today. I imagine that to
an extent the normal policing responsibilities for the city of
New York continued. I, there, you had this massive task,
your department and other agencies. What was the transition like from, okay,
we need to focus on this, but we've also got

(18:52):
to police the rest of the city. How did that
process impact you, please, sir?

Speaker 3 (18:58):
Uh, well, from what I, what I can remember from
people talking about it, because I really wasn't a part
of it, but a lot of the city police itself, uh,
You know, we weren't getting the calls for the neighbor troubles.
We weren't getting the calls for the domestics because people
were shocked. People were scared. People were looking out for
one another. And I think some of the pettiness that

(19:23):
people tend to have kind of went away for a while.
And it was more focused on, I can't believe this
happened in my city. I can't believe this happened to
my neighbors and my friends and my family. And We
need to set those petty differences aside and move on.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Paul Dondorfer leads the police union here in Rochester on
an interim basis. He's a veteran RPDR. officer, a member
of the Monroe County Legislature. Did the event ever make
you angry?

Speaker 3 (19:55):
Sure. I mean, I think if you were an American
citizen and you stopped and looked for two seconds to
the fact that we were attacked on our home soil,
they murdered our citizens, our friends, our family, our neighbors.

(20:17):
Heck yeah, we were mad. And heck yeah, I'm still mad.
I'm still mad that it happened. I don't place blame
to anybody, you know, except the people that did this.
But there is a hatred for America. And I think
that a lot of people have become complacent to that again.
And you know that Do I ever think that there

(20:41):
would be an attack like 9-11? No. I'd like to
think not. I'd like to hope not. But people aren't
paying attention anymore the way they used to be. They
know that this country is divided. They know that people
are polarized in many different directions. And they're going to

(21:02):
exploit that, and they're going to take advantage of that.
And people want to see America fail. You know, I mean...
Over the last few months, we've had, what, 12 different
attacks on our water systems and our water purification systems. And,
you know, that could be significantly more devastating than flying
another plane into a building, you know, when it comes

(21:23):
to loss of life. So people need to pay attention.
People need to be vigilant. And, you know, we have
to figure out a way as a country to stop
being as polarized about things as we are. And I
don't have the answers for that. And I wish I did.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
It's Paul Dondorfer. We'll be back in just a moment.
This is Downtown Section 3rd Platoon on NewsRadio WHAM 1180.
And there has been this today. I think the nation
has looked back. Paul Dondorfer, a Rochester police officer, veteran
Rochester police officer, grew up around here, went down to
start his law enforcement career in New York City. And

(22:04):
he had worked an overnight shift September 11th into the
early hours of September 10th into the early hours of
September 11th, awakened at his place. Something's going on downtown.
He sees the second plane hit the building on TV,
and he grabs his gear and he goes. And with
other off-duty officers, was sent to Ground Zero to see

(22:26):
what he could do to help. We've been talking about
that on this, the 25th anniversary. Were you there? President
Bush kind of famously came and stands next to the
firefighter there and makes the statement, Were you around when
that happened, sir?

Speaker 3 (22:42):
Boy, I wish I was, but no, I was not.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah. We also this week down in New York City,
the mayor currently released a bunch of paperwork and talked
about stuff that was in the air and such. Without
regard to that, we've known for a number of years
that people who were on that pile, who went to
ground zero, firefighters and police officers like yourself, have faced

(23:06):
a series of potential illnesses. and a great many lives
have been lost more since then than on that day
as a consequence of that. You were there. You were breathing.
Have you thought about that in regard to yourself and
your health, please, sir?

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Oh, yeah. I'm on medication every day. I have acid reflux,
which is associated with the inhalation of all the dust.
You know, I have a mild form of exercise-induced asthma,
so I've got to watch that, especially, you know, on drugs.
different asthmatic days here in upstate New York. But I
am certainly cognizant of all that. My doctor is very

(23:47):
good at, you know, monitoring me for all that stuff.
And I'm pretty proactive when it comes to, you know,
any testing that is available to do.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
That event in your profession, in that department, did that
after the attack, Did that bring people into the New
York City Police Department? Did that bring people into law enforcement?
What was the reaction, please?

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, people had that desire to serve.
I think that sparked a desire for people. I know
a lot of people joined the U.S. military, which was
amazing to do that, to fight for our country. And,
you know, I think there was– the police were held
at a– at a different regard back then. And, uh,

(24:33):
you know, there was, there was a respect for, uh,
the job that was done, uh, the job that was
being done. And I, and I think a lot of
people wanted, wanted in on that at that time. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
That's a wonderful, positive thing. Um, what have I forgotten
to ask you as, as weeks moved on and turned
into months there? Um, uh, did New York city adjust
if you will?

Speaker 3 (25:00):
New York is a very resilient city. I would say
adjusting is probably the best word. I think it took
years and years for there to really be a reset
of how people live their daily lives. I think that
that was on the forefront of a lot of people's minds,
especially if you lived anywhere near lower Manhattan. Obviously, for many,

(25:24):
many months, there was a massive... cleanup effort that was
going on down there, a massive search bill to, you know,
months and months afterwards. So I don't think life ever
got back to normal in regards to living or working

(25:45):
in lower Manhattan. But one thing that I will say is,
you know, we have a whole new age of youth
who weren't alive then. and know nothing about it. And,
you know, I encourage our education staff, our teachers to

(26:06):
keep that alive. And, you know, as much as I
hate to say this, you look at Pearl Harbor and
how many people now are like, you know, it's not
really on their minds. It's not a thought. It's another
day that goes by. And shame on us for not
making a Again, Americans were killed on American soil. Our U.S.

(26:31):
military was attacked on U.S. soil. 9-11, our citizens were
attacked on American soil and murdered. And we need to
keep that flame alive. And I really wish that the
younger community would look at how the people of New York,

(26:52):
how the people of Pennsylvania, how the people at the
Pentagon came together and put all their pettiness aside and
came together as a community and came together as a nation.
And I just wish that we could get something similar
back when it comes to the sense of pride to
be an American and, you know, look back and learn.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Amen. That's the great Paul Dondorfer. He's a member of
the Monroe County Legislature. He's also the interim president of
the Rochester Police Locust Club, a veteran Rochester police officer.
And 25 years ago, he was a New York City
police officer. Sir, thanks for what you did that day,
and thanks for telling us about it today. We're very
grateful to you.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
I appreciate you keeping the memory alive, Bob. You bet.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
God bless you, my friend. Thank you, sir.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Don Dorfer is an outstanding man, and he's been involved
in a lot of stuff up here, a demonstration of
that great character and strength. He talks about unity. I
always remember.
In the wake of September 11th, when it happened, I
was working in Utah that week. And, you know, a couple, three,

(28:05):
four days had passed. And I was leaving the radio station,
going to the motel where I stayed. And I stopped
off at a convenience store to get a Gatorade. And
there was a line, a rather long line station. It
was in a community in Utah that had a lot
of people from, you know, Asia, Polynesia, Latin American countries.

(28:25):
And we're all standing in line at this convenience store.
I was the only Caucasian or Anglo there. I was
several people back. And again, Polynesian folks in front of
me and folks speaking to each other in Spanish and such,
folks from Asia. And out comes, behind the counter, the

(28:47):
clerk puts down and opens up a box of little
American flag lapel pins. And as soon as he did,
Every person that lined just closed up on it and
grabbed one or two of those pins and then got
back in line. It was as diverse a handful of
Americans as you'd ever want to see, and yet we
were of one heart and of one mind. We were

(29:09):
the American family, and that is when we are at
our best, and that's who we should strive more so
to be. From the banks of the mighty Genesee in Rochester,
New York, this is downtown section 3rd Platoon, and we
are 10-7 on the night. Rochester's news, weather, and traffic station.
News Radio, WAM 1180.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
This is the Bloomberg Money Minute.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
U.S.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Household net worth rose to a new all-time high in
the spring second quarter thanks to a rebound in the
stock market. That's after the shock of the U.S.-Israeli war
starting against Iran.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Also, higher home values.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Total household net worth now $ 196 trillion, according to the
Federal Reserve. Consumer inflation last month rose 3.4% from a
year ago, mostly on higher food and gas costs. That's
raising bets of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike when
it meets next week. Still, all the major averages rose
about 1% on Wall Street today. The Dow up 509 points.

(30:06):
The Nasdaq up 251. The S & P added 65.
And oil down 2%, but it's still close at $ 100
a barrel. Because of extreme heat, the Agriculture Department is
cutting its outlook for the U.S.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Corn crop this year.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
And it's official, the Nashville Airport Authority voting unanimously to
name Nashville International Airport after Dolly Parton. Tom Busby, Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
The Democratic Party.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
Big tent.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
The midterms.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
The Democratic Party is.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
The greatest show on earth.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
It's a big. Beautiful.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Big tent party.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Pick your. Tent. Tent. Big tent.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
And keep it here for the latest.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
News Radio. Wham! 1180.