The most memorable story assignment of my career was at Ground Zero in New York a day after 9-11-01.Within 24 hours after the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, a rescue team from Indiana set out for New York to help. All non-military aircraft were still grounded so the team went by road.
The 62-person crew, sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was one of the first specialized search-and-rescue teams to arrive in New York and was in action just 36 hours after two hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center.
In New York City, the task force split into two teams that spent 12-hour shifts looking for victims in the rubble of the trade center towers; some members stayed at home base in a nearby convention center, performing support functions.
They were joined by FEMA teams from eight other states that are similarly structured and performed the same missions. The Indiana team was the first to try out remote-control robots that use cameras to search through wreckage.
A Friday night-early Saturday visit to The Pile produced this first-person account of Ground Zero, at night, and remains one of my favorite stories while at the Star.
