The day that 'everything died'

The hours that followed the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, were eerily quiet. “It was like everything died that day,” according to Deborah Steckman Koebler.

In fact, for Koebler’s mother, Barbara Steckman, everything did die that day: William Steckman, her high-school sweetheart, her husband, her best friend, the father of her five children, had perished in the north tower that day and took a part of her with him.

Koebler, who was 33 and lived in Baldwin at the time, rushed immediately to her parents’ West Hempstead home to be with her mother and siblings, Donna Steckman, Deanine Nagengast, Diana DeVito and William E. Steckman. They were joined at the Spruce Street house by neighbors, friends and relatives who made phone calls to William’s employer, WNBC-TV, and to hospitals. No one knew where William was: He had finished his night shift on the 104th floor of the north tower; his family expected him home around 9 a.m.

DeVito, 25 at the time, said people kept asking themselves and each other: “Is he out of there? Is he on his way home?” They wondered if he was stuck in the subway, or walking the streets. They did not want to believe that he had stayed late after his shift, as he often did, and was still inside the building.

“You get that pit in your stomach, and the reality of being, like, ‘Oh my God, this isn’t happening — my father can’t be there,’ is just a complete shock,” said DeVito, who lives in Merrick.

William Steckman, who was 22 at the time and living at his parents’ house, said dread was instantaneous. “Immediately we started to panic,” he said. “We tried calling his cell phone, we couldn’t get through. We tried calling his office there, we couldn’t get through. It was just complete panic from then on. Nonstop for almost two full weeks.”

Then, on Sept. 26, the family held a memorial service at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in West Hempstead, and reality set in: William, 56, was not coming home.