By Marley Seaman
"We heard word over the house phone from Chief Neville about what happened," says retired firefighter Billy Brown. "There was heavy loss of life. We were to stand by for anything that was coming down the pipe. We went, along with many other departments, to [Belmont] Raceway, and we mustered there."
More than 230 Baldwin volunteer firefighters were soon ready, and as some made their way to lower Manhattan, others would spend days staying prepared and waiting. In the days that followed, some would go to Ground Zero, and others would be deployed around Long Island to replace companies injured or working in the city. Despite the tragedy, every town still needed a fire department. But the firefighters who were working that day insist they were not unique.
"It's just what we do," says firefighter James Hagan, whose sister worked at the World Trade Center and was killed in the attacks. "The people that were there that do it for a living- the cops, firemen, it goes with the job."
"Everybody in this department, all 230-something people, was willing and ready to go to support those people that were in there," says firefighter Chris Neville, who was Chief of the Baldwin Fire Department in 2001. "We were the lucky ones. We were the ones that had the honor of going in and working in [Ground Zero]."
The survivors all point elsewhere for examples of glory. They mention the 343 firefighters, both paid and volunteer, and 35 police officers killed as they tried to rescue others from the damaged and collapsing buildings. They mention Brian McAleese, a Baldwin resident and FDNY firefighter who went with them to the World Trade Center and did not return. They praise Neville's leadership, and discuss the city and emergency personnel who remained at the site for weeks and months, clearing rubble, searching for signs of life, and even sifting through the dust for human remains.
The first Baldwin rig called down to the area was 208, the heavy rescue truck, and relief crews came in during the night. But as the day and night unfolded, the mission changed from rescue to recovery. In time, it became clear that there was little to recover. After days of standing at the staging area, ambulance 2010 was called in on Saturday, Sept. 16.
"You wanted to be there," says Lt. Karen Werfelman. Like other Sept. 11 veterans, Werfelman is wary of receiving attention for a job any of her fellow volunteers would have done, given a chance. "You know you're doing what you can, but you still feel that weight, like 'I wish I could do more.'"
The tragedy of losing so many and the bravery of other firefighters continues to hit home for everyone in the department. Firefighters are a tightly knit community.
"As the day went on," Brown says, the information came over the horn about how many guys were missing, the numbers that were missing, particular names, divisions that were missing of the city fire department... we knew guys everywhere."
"That's why they call it a brotherhood. It's what we do for each other," says Hagan. "Nobody wants to be picked out as 'you did this or that,' or anything like that."
Despite the shock and the mounting losses, Baldwin volunteers and many others continued to work in a situation they never could have imagined. Assuming their efforts would be confined to rescuing survivors, they did not expect to deal with a fire at all; in fact, fires at the site burned for several months. The fact that one of their own had suffered such a close loss was an added motivation for the Baldwin crew to do as much as it could.
"Everybody lost somebody that day, lost a friend or a brother," says Brown. "Jimmy Hagan lost his sister. And the gravity of this day was amplified immediately when Jimmy told me 'my sister's working today, and I think she was in there.' Jimmy is like a brother to me, so we understood how important it was."
Hagan continued to work as well, trying to keep his fear for his sister -and then the growing certainty of his loss - in perspective.
"A lot of people were there, a lot of people were lost," Hagan says. "I was one of the unlucky ones. It wasn't just me, it wasn't just one other person. [It was] everybody."
