By Nicole Falco
"She bugged out, she screamed, 'don't go in there, don't go back in that building,'" Myers recalled while fighting back tears. "With tears in my eyes I told her, 'I've got to go back in. If I was laying inside that building I'd be telling myself to hold on because the boys are going to come save me.' I was one of the boys on the outside, I had to go back in."
Myers, 50, doesn't consider himself a hero, he said he did what thousands of other Americans would have done if they were in his shoes.
"We just did what we had to do," the Valley Stream resident said.
A 27-year veteran, Myers was working at the Port Authority's command in John F. Kennedy Airport on Sept. 11 as he has for his 20 years on the job. After the first plane hit, Myers and other officers were told to mobilize and respond to the WTC for a "large fire."
Myers heard on the radio that a plane had hit Tower One and as he and other officers reached the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, they watched as Tower Two was struck by the second hijacked plane. Before reaching "ground zero," Myers and the other officers helped evacuate the tunnel. They reached "ground zero" just as the first tower fell.
"There was this tremendous noise, breaking glass and then smoke consumed all of lower Manhattan," Myers said.
Even after the second tower fell, Myers and other officers did not realize that the two 110-story buildings had completely crumbled to the ground. Myers said he thought just the tops of the buildings, where the planes struck, had fallen. The thick, dense smoke prevented Myers from seeing the reality of what had happened.
As his crew tried to affect a rescue they were thwarted by debris from all sides. It was only after the smoke began to clear, that Myers saw only blue sky and realized the towers were gone.
In all, the Port Authority lost 37 of its own including, Walwyn Stuart, who was also of Valley Stream. Myers had briefly worked with Stuart at Kennedy and remembered him as being a " real family man."
Myers also speaks very highly of the officers he once worked with who died in the tragedy including Inspector Anthony Infante, commander of both the Kennedy and LaGuardia Airport posts and Officer George Howard. It is Howard's badge that President George Bush now carries to remind him of the tragedy that occurred on Sept. 11.
Since Sept. 11, Myers, like most uniformed officers, has been on a 12 hour, six day a week schedule.
"We're on such a high alert here, we need people to cover the posts and many new posts have been created," Myers said. While he normally works in the airport's Auto Crime Unit and is trained to deter thefts and spot stolen cars, he is also trained in all forms of disaster relief. He is a police officer, firefighter and emergency medical technician all in one. His skills have helped him at previous disaster situations, but there has never been a plane crash equal to the magnitude of death and destruction that happened on Sept. 11.
Right now, the 12-hour shifts are helping Myers get through the day. "We're working so much that it's hard to find time to think - in a way that's good."
Myers and a few other officers did find time to give blood recently at Central High School. Myers is no stranger to Central High School. His 16-year-old daughter, Michelle, attends Central, and his daughters Jennifer, 25, and Christine, 24, graduated from Central, as did his wife, Anne.
In between raising his daughters, his two eldest graduated from Harvard and now attend graduate school, Myers is a past president of the now dissolved Valley Stream Central Boosters Club and he coached girl's softball for Blessed Sacrament School for eight years.
Memorial Fund
Walwyn Wellington Stuart Memorial Fund has been set up to benefit his daughter Amanda Camille. Please make donations payable to: The Estate of Walwyn Stuart, P.O. Box 1585, Valley Stream, NY 11582.
