Porch and Parish The Podcast
Our mission is to make sure every Zachary resident feels heard and engaged! Host Mike Gennaro facilitates candid conversations with local leaders, influencers and innovators in Zachary, Louisiana and beyond with the help of producer Mike Holt. New episode every Monday at noon!
Porch and Parish The Podcast
Voices from Ground Zero: First Responders and Eyewitnesses Share Their 9/11 Stories
What if you could hear the raw, unfiltered experiences of those who lived through one of the darkest days in American history? In this heart-wrenching episode of Porch and Parish, we are joined by Louie DiVirgilio, a former New York City police officer, and his wife Ambre DiVirgilio, a college student in Manhattan at the time of the 9/11 attacks. Louie recounts his immediate reaction to the news, mobilizing with fellow officers amidst the chaos and dust. Ambre provides a poignant view of the city's transformation from a place of safety to a scene of unimaginable tragedy.
As we journey through their experiences, Louie shares the surreal and haunting moments of navigating through dust clouds, debris, and fire to aid civilians and find fellow officers. Ambre’s reflections on witnessing the attacks from 6th Avenue offer a vivid recount of the confusion and helplessness felt by many. We also hear from Robbie Flynn, a retired American airline stewardess, who shares her experiences and the rapid changes in the airline industry post-9/11, offering a unique perspective on the lasting impacts on her career and life.
It's Jesus Christ Superstar meets Sister Act! Inspired bt4 gospels of the New Testament!
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Please be advised that the following episode of Porch and Parish.
Speaker 2:The podcast contains graphic descriptions of traumatic events. Listener discretion is advised.
Jen Gennaro:Hi everyone. It's Jen Gennaro with Porch and Parish, zachary's community magazine and podcast. Today we have a deeply moving and powerful episode in store. It's been 24 years this week since the world changed forever. Nearly every American remembers exactly where they were on the morning of September 11, 2001. A day that forever changed the course of history. But for some, that day was more than just a turning point in history. It was a day of action, courage and unimaginable sacrifice. It's a day that first responders faced head-on, running toward danger when most would flee. They are the heroes who saved lives, comforted the wounded and bore witness to one of the darkest moments in our nation's history. Today we're honored to have one of those heroes with us, a first responder who was on the front lines during the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Jen Gennaro:In this episode we'll hear New York native and Zachary resident, louis DiVirgilio's firsthand account of what it was like to be there on that day and how the events of 9-11 have shaped his life and career ever since. He's joined in the booth by his wife, district 3 Councilwoman Amber DiVirgilio, who was a 22-year-old college student in Manhattan and witnessed the attacks in the World Trade Center. And later we'll hear from another Zachary resident, robbie Flynn, who was a flight attendant on September 11, 2001. This is a story of bravery, resilience and humanity in the face of overwhelming adversity. It's a story that deserves to be heard and remembered. So, without further ado, let's welcome our first guests, louie and Amber DiVirgilio, to the show. Thank you, jen.
Louie:Good morning Jen.
Jen Gennaro:Good morning, Louie. I'm going to start with you. Can you share a little about your background and what led you to become a first responder?
Louie:I grew up in Manhattan, on the Lower East Side back in New York in the 70s and 80s, as soon as you were able they would give out the fire department, sanitation department and police department test when you were actually in high school. Basically everyone took all three tests because that was the surest way to wind up getting a job with one of the agencies and, uh, in New York and in the neighborhood I grew up with, that was the fastest way to get into middle class.
Jen Gennaro:And how long had you been a first responder at that time?
Louie:Uh, I um, I was coming up on my fifth year on the force.
Jen Gennaro:And Amber, what were you doing in life at that time?
Ambre DeVirgilio:I was, like you said, 22 years old. I had moved to New York City about a little under 13 months prior. I fell in love with everything about the winter. I felt incredibly safe in New York and incredibly safe in New York, and you know, right before, 13 months in the world as I knew it changed.
Jen Gennaro:Lou, where were?
Louie:you stationed on the morning of September 11, 2001? I worked in the 6th Precinct, which was in the West Village in Manhattan, on the West Side. It was an election day and in New York, the New York City Police Department runs the elections. When I say run is we set up all the polls. We have a cop assigned to each polling station all day and we take back the polling returns and we enter it into the computer. I was one of the people trained to enter the results in our computer system, so I had to be there at three o'clock in the morning.
Jen Gennaro:And what was your official job title in the department that you worked for?
Louie:I was a police officer at the time.
Jen Gennaro:Okay. So, Louie, what were you doing when you first heard about the attacks? Where were you and what was your immediate reaction?
Louie:Around. I think it was a little after 8 o'clock when the first plane hit. One of the cops came running in and said put on the tv, a plane just hit the world trade center. So there was, uh, me and a whole bunch of other guys either waiting to go to court or had slept over the night before because they were going to court. We jumped up and we kind of knew what to do. We just all went to our lockers and started putting our uniforms on.
Jen Gennaro:What did you guys think it was in those first few minutes?
Louie:Well, we just thought it was probably a small plane or something that crashed into it. Uh, once we got in uniform, I went down with my uh, my friend mike, who was going to court, uh, and a couple of guys and we we had a narcotics team in the precinct, uh, so they were getting ready to go to court. So they got uniform, we all got in the van and one of the guys was relaying a story to us which most of us already knew. Back in the late forties, a U? S air force bomber actually crashed into the empire state building. But it was a really foggy day when that happened. And on that Tuesday there was. It was. There was no clouds in sky, it was just bright blue.
Jen Gennaro:So where did you go once you got in the van?
Louie:We headed down the West Side Highway to the World Trade Center In the police department. When something big like this happens, it's called a mobilization and they give you a mobilization point. So as we were trying to drive down there and they give you a mobilization point, so as we were trying to drive down there, the first mobilization point they gave us was the tip of City Hall Park, which is about a block away from the World Trade Center.
Jen Gennaro:As we were going down, the second plane hit and it was almost like snowing out because all the papers from both of the buildings were falling in the street and even though we were a block or two away, it was still coming down over there. When did you first lay eyes on the scene and what did you see?
Louie:Well, it took us a few to get to the actual scene because we went to City Hall. Like I said, no one was there. So then so we just took it upon ourselves. We all knew where to go to the World Trade Center because after the bombing in 94, the police department, to prevent another attack, would assign cops on overtime down at the World Trade Center. So we all had posts around there. We've all been in the World Trade Center, so we all had posts around there. We've all been in the World Trade Center, so we actually were very familiar with the layout and everything. So we figured we would just drive down to the World Trade Center, get out, go up into the buildings and make ourselves useful.
Jen Gennaro:And Amber, tell me what happened when you walked out of your apartment.
Ambre DeVirgilio:So I was 22, a college student fairly new to New York. I had still the naivete of a college student at 22 years old and I was running late that morning for class, which was not unusual, which was not unusual. I stepped out and just the world was so different. There was no GPS or smartphones, so the World Trade Center towers were really my compass, so I was just so accustomed to looking at them every day and I walked out onto 6th Avenue and I saw the first tower on fire and it was about, you know, probably 9 o'clock, maybe a little after, and you know there were people out looking at it and staring at it and I just thought they'll put it out Like. I just thought it was just a fire, even though it was this huge billowing cloud, but I couldn't see the gaping hole that you know eventually could be seen. I couldn't see any of that. And the sky was just such a beautiful, bright blue that day I think anybody who was in Manhattan or just New York, any of the boroughs, that day the sky was almost a royal blue color and there were no clouds in the sky at all. And, um, I stood on the corner waiting for um, the traffic signal to cross and, um, the second plane flew over and it was the United Airlines flight and it was so low and your, your brain, it was, it started putting it together and I knew, I knew what was happening, but that there there was also just a protective element. Mentally, my brain just protected me. I did not, you know, freak out or panic.
Ambre DeVirgilio:I actually continued on to school after I saw, you know, the United Airlines Flight 175 hit and I remember it was, everything was kind of in slow motion and, uh, I walked into class and my professor was there and most of my classmates and I said, turn on the TV that we're under attack. And, um, she turned the TV on. Of course, there was, you know, a lot of fear and excitement and immediately, you know, a lot of us started trying to call our family members and you know, we had a flip phone, so there was no texting or anything like that, and you would just call and call and call and you couldn't get through. Um, but that was my experience, uh, with the initial part of 9-11. And then, of course, um, about an hour and an hour and a half later, they both collapsed and I watched that from the street as well.
Jen Gennaro:Did you guys stay in class?
Ambre DeVirgilio:No, what'd you do? I remember leaving and you know I went to the State University of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology campus and it's right in the middle of Chelsea. I remember we hung out for a while and then, you know, at 10 o'clock and 10.30, I watched the towers fall from there In real time.
Jen Gennaro:Right, I watched the towers fall from there and you In real time right, not on TV, not on TV, From the first tower from 8th Avenue and the second tower from 7th Avenue.
Ambre DeVirgilio:What did it sound like? So, even from 27th and 7th, you could see people jumping and you could hear the sirens. There were military flights flying over and you know, I had no family there, I had nowhere to go, but where I was they had shut down traffic in and out of Manhattan. I just remember not really knowing what to do. I had never imagined a situation like this or been through anything like that remotely before. Um, I watched the first tower fall from 8th Avenue and I remember you could um, this probably sounds crazy, but I remember it vividly. You could hear the creaking. I mean, they it, it didn't fall on a pancake matter, like manner it, um it, it was awful. And I remember just hearing like the gas on the street and people falling to their knees. And you know, then, about half an hour later, the second tower fell.
Jen Gennaro:And Louie. Let's go back to you arriving on the scene. What were some of the immediate challenges you and your team faced upon arriving there?
Louie:Well we finally got down to. We knew a place to get into the world trade center. West West Broadway is a street that goes right. It ends right at the world trade center and if you get out you can. There's a stick, there was staircase. You could climb up and get onto the mezzanine level, which was the plaza between the two towers. So we just pulled up in our van. We started getting out of the van to walk up.
Louie:Like I said, we knew where we were going because we've been there so many times and then all of a sudden some older and I don't know if he was FBI or some other federal agency. He had the we call them Ray jackets with the. You know the letters on them. It usually says ATF, fbi or whatever. He just came running at us as we were coming out of the van, waving his arms and he basically said another plane's coming in, get the F out of the van. Waving his arms, and he basically said another plane's coming in, get the f out of here. So we didn't have two planes already hit, so now we think a third is is coming to hit. So we just jumped in the van.
Louie:Um, the driver uh, we called him dc just put the van in reverse and it was almost like nothing. We didn't. We barely got in the van in reverse and it was almost like nothing. We didn't. We barely got in the van. All the doors were still open. He went in reverse about like 40, 50 miles an hour. I can't believe he didn't hit anybody or another car. So we went in reverse about four blocks and then we got out.
Louie:We ditched the van on a side street, got out and at that time the NYPD has been around 175 years now, so they revert to things that they know. So there's a mobilization. We have hundreds of cops down here. There's immobilization we have hundreds of cops down here. So let's just do what we always do, and what we did was they started lining us up under the World Trade Center and counting us to see how many cops they had, and then usually what happens is a sergeant takes eight cops, so now they're giving out detail rosters. Takes eight cops, so now they're giving out detail rosters and my sergeant at the time is writing down all our names and shield numbers, because then he has to give a copy to the captain. So literally we the the.
Louie:Both towers were hit and we were under the towers, lined up in formation, being counted and being distributed to sergeants. So as we were doing this, my counted and being distributed to sergeants. So as we were doing this, I was talking to my friend Mike and my sergeant comes over to me with the captain and says hey, the captain needs two people to go to the roof of this building because there's a piece of the plane on it and it's going to be a crime scene. The plane on it and they, it's, it's going to be a crime scene. So we come into the building and there's all looks like federal agents in there and my friend mike uh and and I go hey, um, where's the staircase? We got to go check the roof. So the the agent goes oh, the elevator's over here, and uh. So we went to the staircase, started walking up. It was about 20 flights of stairs, it was a 20-story building and this is not the World Trade Center.
Louie:No, this is about yeah, there's the World Trade Center, the post office building and this building. So we're walking up the stairs and at the time, back then, the NYPD didn't have enough radios for every cop. So what you did? You signed out a radio. So since I was in early, I had a radio. Mike didn't have a radio, so he's in front of me and I'm trying to listen to the radio and at that time it was chaos. You know, we were getting people saying people are jumping off the building. But then there was also people saying there were people on rooftops of buildings shooting AK-47s at the building, shooting RPGs at the building.
Speaker 2:Really.
Louie:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Who.
Louie:No, that's in the chaos. That's what just people yeah.
Louie:No that's in the chaos, that's what just people yeah. So I said, right before we got to the roof, I said, mike, pull out your gun. And he's like why? I said, mike, I don't know People coming over the radio saying you know RPGs and AK-47s. So we took out our guns, we got to the landing, kicked open the door to the roof and of course there was nobody there with ak-47s, rpgs, but we got onto the roof. So once we got out we could see part of the uh, a part of one of the planes on the far side of the building. But it also gave us a good view of the world trade center. So we were looking through at one of the towers and when the smoke would would blow, you could actually see daylight through the tower. Finally, after a while, I said, mike, let's, let's go just check this piece of the plane and get off this rooftop.
Louie:So what we had to do is, because the HVAC pipes were kind of in front of us, to our right, we had to turn around and go to our left and go all the way around the roof. So when we turned to the right, the ledge of the building was there and I just happened to look down to the street which was West Broadway, and people were running. So I turned to Mike, I go why are people running? And then we both looked up and the South Tower looked like it leaned towards us. So now, we didn't. At that time we didn't know that it was going to fall more or less straight down. We thought it was going to fall over onto us. And you know people have asked me were you scared at that moment? And I said no, because it was at that moment. I couldn't jump off the roof. We were never going to make it down the 20 flights of stairs in time. I just thought I was dead and there was nothing I could do about it. So I was fine with it. So me and Mike just hit the floor. We had our riot helmets on, so we just put our hands behind our riot helmets and then, the best way I can describe to you, it was like being right next to a freight train as it was going by, because that's how it sounded. Then, about another 30 seconds to a minute, it was dead silence and I said Mike, are you okay? He's like yeah, I go. Do you still want to check out the piece of the plane on the roof and he said let's get the F out of here.
Louie:So we went to the staircase and we were doing and it was almost like we were kids again, and I mean kids again because we were just grabbing onto the hand railings and throwing ourselves down the stairs. And throwing ourselves down the stairs because we were just trying to get out of that building. We didn't know if the building was damaged or whatever, we just wanted to get out of the building. So we were just literally throwing ourselves down flights of stairs. So we got down there to the street level and there was just still the cloud of dust. Papers everywhere, fire, helmets, pieces of bodies oh my God. Papers everywhere, fire, helmets, pieces of bodies. People had pulled off their jackets and blazers and that too. So one of the first things we did, because we couldn't see that far, was grab one of the blazers. We ripped it up, cut it up with our knives and put it over our faces Because of all the dust.
Louie:He goes, start looking for dead birds. And I'm like why dead birds? He goes. You know, we don't know what was on those planes. They could have had gas or something. And the first you know, like in World War I they used to keep birds because the birds would be affected by the gas first. So he goes if you start seeing dead birds.
Louie:We got to go in the opposite direction. So we wound up walking back down the block and a half to the World Trade Center to look for our guys, because that's where we last saw them. So there was no one there to look for our guys because that's where we last saw them. So there was no one there.
Louie:But at the time, like I said, I was the only one who had the radio. A female cop came over the radio calling for a 1013. And a 1013 radio code in NYPD means officer needs assistance. So everyone is trying to ask her where she was and she's like I can't see where I am. I'm here with a whole bunch of civilians, firemen. So people kept asking her give us a landmark, give us a landmark where you are. And she's like I can't, we can't see anything. It's pitch black, we can't see anything. So I started walking in the direction. I kind of thought she was. But Mike grabs me, goes, we don't even know where she is. We got to find our guys first, the female cop I'm speaking of. We're pretty sure it was Moira Smith. Moira wound up dying at the World Trade Center. Moira Smith, moira wound up dying at the World Trade Center.
Louie:So we started looking for our guys and walking around.
Louie:So because all the dust we figured, if we walked west, is the Hudson River and we'll get the wind from the river and get out of this dust. So we started walking west, even though all schools were closed that day because it's election day. There's a school on chamber street that I guess had daycare and all the parents were there trying to get their kids. So we kind of, with a whole bunch of other cops and firemen, just started literally handing kids to parents, putting people who were coming out of the cloud into cars to take them to St Vincent's Hospital, which was on the west side. Then we started. After we did that, we started trying to walk east. Again. That's when the second tower fell and when we had a whole bunch. We had some firemen with us, we had a whole bunch of these parents with their kids. So we got them into this deli and in new york every place has basements and so we pulled open the door to the floor of the basement, got everyone down there and waited for the dust cloud to come by us.
Jen Gennaro:Okay, so that was at the time that the second tower fell.
Louie:Yeah.
Jen Gennaro:Okay, after you came out of the basement, where did you go?
Louie:We were walking around a couple blocks from the world trade center and then my friend who worked in the 10th precinct, angelo, appears in a van out of nowhere. So he's like Louie and I'm like Angelo. He's like get in, we're looking for our guys too. So we got in the van.
Jen Gennaro:And what was the scene in the street at that moment?
Louie:There was very few people on the street, there was all the fires raging around. There was other smaller buildings around the World Trade Center that all got damaged. We were just driving around at this point to try to find where other cops were or where our guys were. At this point the word went out that Manhattan was closed below 14th Street. There was going to be no traffic. And that's when they put on the news because we were listening to the radio in the van, the FM radio that everybody off-duty has been recalled all NYPD, all FD, all EMS and they were supposed to report to their precincts or station houses forthwith. So they were actually to get the guys in from the outer boroughs. They were using the ferries to ferry them into Manhattan. We saw that because we were down by South Street Seaport and the ferries were just docking wherever they could dock to drop off duty well, now, on duty cops and firemen off.
Louie:At that point we could see everybody leaving Manhattan on foot via the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges and by that time the Air Force jets and the Navy jets were over Manhattan. And we knew they were over Manhattan because some of them were flying really, really low. There was one I saw fly between the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge. A couple of years later I found out I met at a 9-11 thing one of the pilots and he kind of took it really hard because he said when they were told to scramble, they didn't tell them what for and they just reverted to their training. So their training was that a soviet or russian submarine was going to shoot missiles from offshore, so they went out to sea looking for missiles and then they had to go get called back and they came back on afterburner, uh, to be over the city. So he kind of was pretty broken up about it because he's like, even though he didn't, he felt like he failed in some way Because he went out to sea first instead of being over the city.
Jen Gennaro:Amber, where did you go that morning? Did you just go back to your apartment by yourself?
Ambre DeVirgilio:Yeah. So after the towers fell I did. I went back to my apartment and I had been trying to call my parents but the calls it wouldn't go through. So you just had to keep calling and calling and calling and eventually that afternoon I did get in touch with my mom and dad and you know it felt so good to hear their voice. But I sat in my apartment for a while and I watched the news and I felt really helpless. And I watched the news and I felt really helpless. So I guess it was probably around 2 or 3 o'clock that afternoon. I left and I had a case of water and I walked it down to Canal Street, which was the furthest south that they would allow me to go, and I just I brought it to the officers there at the barricade and the streets.
Ambre DeVirgilio:I just remember them being so eerie. When you think of New York City. There's people everywhere, almost any time of day or night. It's really the city that never sleeps. There's always something open. Everything was closed and shut down. There were no people in the street, there were no cabs, no cars, and Manhattan was so silent and desolate that you could hear a pin drop, if it weren't for all the sirens. There was a caustic smell in the air like nothing I've ever smelled before. I remember the sensory details pretty vividly the blue of the sky, the way it smelled, the screaming. The sensory details are still very strong.
Jen Gennaro:Did you know anybody who was killed that day?
Ambre DeVirgilio:No, not personally. Who was killed that day? No, not personally, Louis.
Jen Gennaro:then what happened? Were you involved in any of the rescue efforts?
Louie:Yeah for the rest of the day. We eventually found our guys and my friend Angelo found his guys around 3 o'clock. The precinct had me and Mike actually missing. So we were on the missing list for the World Trade Center. So we went back to the precinct we kind of washed up a little bit and then we went back down and basically until about eight o'clock in the morning the next day we were down Just making sure people weren't on the street. So, like I said, we were there until about seven, eight o'clock on the 12th. I tell everybody you know a lot of at least a lot of D-Day veterans say D-Day was longest day of their lives and September 11th was the longest day of my life into September 12th. After that they put us on. We thought we were going to get hit again. They blocked all the streets around the precinct. We had to have guys on the rooftop on overwatch. We had. We were still sent. We lost one of the cops in six, jimmy Leahy.
Louie:So we sent guys down every day because the first at least two weeks we thought we were going to find people. So every time we went down there we were digging. Every time we went down there we were digging and on the 13th we were digging off Liberty Street and one of the we dug into the pile and there was a good chunk of one of the planes in the pile and it was just like the fuselage. So we were trying to. It was aluminum, obviously. So we were trying to pull it back and forth to dislodge it and it wound up, lost my grip, it whipped back at me and I got a.
Louie:I still have a scar on my arm from when the aluminum hit me in the arm. I probably needed stitches at the time, but there was literally, as we were digging, we had teams of doctors, nurses, ems ready with all triage stuff if we found somebody to pull them out of the pile. So I just had them wrap me up instead of doing stitches and we kept digging. So I think I worked, I think, 14 days straight down there until they decided, you know, at the end of the two weeks is we're not going to find any more people Now it's a recovery operation.
Jen Gennaro:Did you find anybody still alive?
Louie:No, there was a couple of people found still alive. Me personally, I didn't. We didn't, and my crew didn't find anyone still alive.
Jen Gennaro:During those long days, were you feeling exhausted or were you feeling adrenaline?
Louie:It was. It was, I guess, a mixture of both. We just knew we had a job to do. And you know, like those first two weeks we just wanted to find people because there was no doubt in our mind. We were like we're going to find people under this and that kind of slowly went away. We were working. When I say they put us on 12-hour tours, it wound up being 16 or 18-hour tours until you were relieved. So you kind of just try to catch sleep wherever.
Louie:Uh, because a lot of when fd went down there that day, they set up all their hoses and everything. So when the buildings fell down, all those hoses and water mains were broken. So I remember I think it was on the 13th too we had been working, digging like 12 hours. So me and my partner were exhausted. So the only place we could find a sleep is in the winter garden, which was a mall area right across the west side highway from the world trade Center that was damaged. Now the whole place was flooded, like I said, because the water main breaks. So the only place we could find dry to take a nap was they had stacked all the body bags, the empty body bags, waiting to when they found people. So we took like a 20, 30 minute nap on top of the body bags waiting to when they found people. So we took like a 20, 30-minute nap on top of the body bags.
Ambre DeVirgilio:Oh my God, Amber, how long did it take for things to get back to some sense of normalcy in the city? I love that you asked me this because I was thinking about that just yesterday. Um, new York is a really resilient place and I feel, looking back, life went back. New York went back almost immediately and as I lived there longer, I was a downtown girl. I never really went above 14th Street. I loved downtown. The financial district was my happy place, greenwich Village, where Louie and I met. I spent almost all my time downtown and uptown. You know, northern Manhattan, upper West Side, upper East Side it was almost like they were in a different world. I felt like they were able to forget, not forget, but move on a little sooner. Because it did happen downtown.
Ambre DeVirgilio:Um, but we, I remember we went back to school immediately. I was thinking, over the weekend there was no counseling for us or support and it was a lot for me to process it. I think you know, even all these years or two decades later, it's still a lot to process sometimes and I go through periods where I honestly I want to forget and, um, I feel guilty about that, but I honestly can't forget what happened. Um, it really, uh, affected me. There was, um, you know, I went through a period where I was really angry that I had to go through this, and even, you know, with my friends and family members, you know it was really hard because I did feel like they just got to go on.
Ambre DeVirgilio:I had made the choice to live in this place and my world had been, and what I thought of the world, had drastically changed. I remember feeling like it wasn't fair that I didn't get to just move on, fair that I didn't get to just move on, and um, but it was New York and you were expected to just move on, and I think that's also, uh, what has created in me to be a strong and resilient person, you know. But there are some silver linings and New York is a transient place and I also struggled with the fact that, as time went on and New York changed in terms of the people and my friends, I felt lonely because eventually, I was the only one left who was there Other than, you know, the native New Yorkers that I was friends with, which actually they're kind of rare. So when I met Louie, it was actually on our first date.
Louie:We bonded over 9-11.
Ambre DeVirgilio:And you know, it felt really comforting and good to be able to talk about that with someone who had gone through it, and with someone who had gone through it, and especially someone who had gone through it in the way that he had.
Jen Gennaro:Louie, what sticks in your mind the most Is? There a particular scene smell sound scene smell sound.
Louie:Well, you probably could ask any York City cop or fireman down there that the smell every day. You're never going to get rid of that smell. And speaking of smells, york City cops have a nose for lack of a better word dead bodies Because we get called to in a city of 8.5 million. Now we get called to hundreds in our career DOAs so you get to know the smell. So a lot of times when we were digging after it became a recovery and we were just looking for remains so families could have closure, if they couldn't get one of the search dogs down there, they would get cops to just smell because we could smell it how long did the recovery efforts ensue?
Jen Gennaro:like how many months was your life and your work consumed by this?
Louie:site we went to at least may, and then may was of 2002 and then may is when the major uh construction companies started using the heavy equipment to take out the beams and and dig down into the. The actual the um world trade center when it was being built was built in a bathtub. They had to dig down do a concrete bathtub to prevent the Hudson River from coming in and then they built the towers inside that bathtub. So they had to make sure that bathtub was still structurally sound and to reinforce it. So around May, I would say, is when we were completely out of there, except for a few cops and Port Authority police that kept security for the site.
Jen Gennaro:Is there anything about your experience on 9-11 that you think people often overlook or misunderstand? You think people often overlook or misunderstand.
Louie:You know, I see in more recent times of how people's attitudes to the police changed. I mean, when we were every night we were going down people, there would be people lining the West Side Highway just with signs saying thank you or like cheering us on. I I don't think that would happen nowadays. Um, you know, we had people bring food to the. We had more food than we know what to do with because people would bring food to the prison. Uh, you know, we had people volunteer to answer phones.
Louie:When I say obviously it's a cliche, but my life was totally different before 9-11 than after 9-11 for a variety of reasons. But I don't think people realize that a lot of us, you know, knowing what we know now and we have to do it again, would do exactly the same thing because it, you know I don't want to sound corny, but it was our job. You know guys, they're firemen. I know who I went to school with that got killed. There were guys that knew they were going in the tower and they were going to die. There was actually a very well-known, at least to us, fire captain um, who we have his last radio transmissions and he was with his firemen and they were trying to get people down and they radioed him and they said, ordered him to evacuate the building and and he told them I have too many burned people here and I'm not going to leave them.
Jen Gennaro:Tell me about your career journey after 9-11 and kind of walk us through what you're doing today and how that day has shaped your career.
Louie:Well, after 9-11, I had about 14, 15 more years until I can retire and I was promoted sergeant. I went to Brooklyn for a while. I came back to Manhattan I was in plain clothes unit I think everyone who was on 9-11, especially when you became a supervisor we were extremely aware of anything that involved buildings. I remember we had a couple of building fires and partial collapses and I remember sergeants that I worked with as cops, as sergeants, and we became really hypersensitive to even more than we would have been of where our cops were, where in buildings. They are in fires and New York unfortunately has a lot of mostly older buildings and I'm saying buildings but like three, four floor buildings from the 1900s and pre-1900s that collapsed when they do construction. So that thing that stood out to me that everyone became hyper aware of, you know anything that might be another building collapse, building collapse. I just I grew up in an apartment building my whole life and after 9-11, I couldn't wait to get out of it.
Louie:I just didn't feel I don't want to say safe, I just didn't want to be in a building anymore. To this day, I fly, but I really don't like flying um, because I feel like it puts somebody, somebody else has control over me and I don't like not being in control of where I can get out of some place or I could do something to, you know, affect my, my fate as a cop. They, they, from your experience and training, you usually try to think of three steps ahead of everything. And I'll go over scenarios. After 9-11, it probably bothers amber because I get, she'll say something to me and I'll give like eight different scenarios and she's like well, that, that, that that's crazy, that's not going to happen. And I go yeah, you might. So like I try to plan for everything.
Louie:Um, I, we went to the empire estate building, uh, on a visit when Amber's parents visited, and, and I even went all the way up and I'd been there before, before 9-11. And I just did not like being in there because I needed to know where the exits were. I needed to know if we had to get down fast from the top of Empire State Building. It just felt really uncomfortable being up top.
Jen Gennaro:We have about five minutes left and I want to hit these two questions. Um, Amber, you mentioned to me that Louie has to go back on the 25th for an inquiry. Um, what's that about?
Ambre DeVirgilio:Obviously, louie was greatly exposed to the dust from Ground Zero for quite a while, in those initial two weeks and all the way through May. That's another thing I remember the dust stayed around for years and downtown was my favorite place. I lived downtown when we were married. We lived downtown and you had to know what you were looking for. But like, for instance, the stairs, the subways, or some of the stairs to um, some of the pedestrian bridges, like over the battery tunnel, if you looked in the corners the dust was still there um years later. So you know everyone was breathing that in. So, um, louie unfortunately has lung disease from nine-11, and he goes up to New York every year to be scanned and evaluated by the 9-11 doctors. So he has his appointment this month, so hopefully we have good news wow, is there anything you guys want to add as a closing thought?
Louie:uh, I don't want to add on a or end on a on a sad note, but I just wanted to. What, like Amber was saying, my breathing issues, I feel, are sometimes I feel I'm a little better off than some people, Like my sergeant Ned Thompson, who was talking about how I went down. He's died of 9-11-related cancer. Angelo, who picked me up he died of 9-11 cancer. We had probably maybe 200 cops and detectives and civilians in my precinct. I know about at least 12, if not more who've had various forms of cancer. My old radio car partner, because in New York you had a partner in the car with you on patrol and in anti-crime. He has cancer now and we were together every day down there, every day down there. One more person who was a dear friend to me and Amber Vincent Crivelli. He was a Sergeant at the time. He's actually in that famous picture of him carrying the baby from the world train center.
Louie:Vinnie refused to fly after nine 11 refused Last March of 23, he was going. He finally bought a house in Florida, drove down as he was driving back to New York because he will not fly. Well, he refused to fly, he was driving on I-95 and got rear-ended and killed by a 18-wheeler, oh my gosh. So, even though he didn't die of any 9-11 illnesses, I kind of feel, and a lot of us who knew him kind of feel, you know, he's another 9-11 casualty because he refused, refused to fly after 9-11.
Ambre DeVirgilio:I think that's something that isn't talked about a lot. Obviously, when I married Louie, I also say that I married into the NYPD and they were like my family and there is PTSD that was not addressed at the time and we they do relive it and we've lost a lot of friends to illness and we continue to lose people to 9-11 with various diseases.
Jen Gennaro:Well, you are certainly in our thoughts and prayers for good outcome for your upcoming appointment, and I think I speak for everyone when I say thank you, not only for sharing your story with us today, but thank you for being there, thank you for your service to our country, and we're just so happy to have you here today. You two are a tremendous asset to the community, and this is a story that I think many people will be surprised to hear. So, thank you guys, thanks for being here.
Ambre DeVirgilio:Thank you to hear so, thank you guys, thanks for being here.
Jen Gennaro:Thank you, jen. Thank you, jen. All right, and when we come back, we're going to be joined by Robbie Flynn, a retired American airline stewardess, who was flying that very day. Welcome back, Robbie. Thank you so much for being here with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Jen Gennaro:All right. So tell us the back story. How long had you been a pilot, not a pilot, I wish Sorry. Okay, starting over. All right, robbie, thank you so much for joining us here today. Give us the back story. What made you go into the industry that you chose?
Speaker 2:I went to work for American in 1990, when my oldest was going to college. I had been a stay-at-home mom before then and I decided when she went to college that I wanted to pursue a career.
Jen Gennaro:Wow, now, prior to September 11, 2001, what had been the biggest in-flight emergency that you had dealt with biggest in-flight emergency that you had dealt with.
Speaker 2:I had to give oxygen one time to a person Thought he was having a heart attack. It was a panic attack?
Jen Gennaro:Yeah, but nothing just the regular air sickness and things like that.
Speaker 2:Now, did any of your training prepare you for that day? Well, I was in the air. I was flying that day, I had been in Seattle the night before and was supposed to fly from Seattle back to Dallas. That was all the day was going to be over. So the flight left Seattle at 7 o'clock in the morning, which would have been 9 o'clock in Dallas and we were in the air about 40 minutes and passengers actually started saying something's wrong. We're. They were getting messages from friends on the ground, so how, though?
Speaker 2:I mean that was before smartphones, yeah they actually smartphones were in existence, but I think even at takeoff they were hearing rumblings. Oh, so I went up into the cockpit. They called. Well, the first class flight tenant called me up there and we went up there and the captain told us that the towers had been hit and that we were turning around, going back to Seattle and he would make an announcement. So he did and it was a very calm, controlled. He was very good at what he did and he kept everybody real calm. There was another pilot and his wife were sitting in the first row of main cabin and he got up and went into the cockpit because at that time the cockpit was an open door. You didn't have keys or anything. So he got up and went in there to see if he could be of help. Um, we went back. They had already closed the airport down when we got back what was the information that y'all were given at that time?
Jen Gennaro:that that two planes had hit the Twin Towers, and based on that information, you were pretty certain that it was terrorism, not some sort of fluke, right?
Speaker 2:Well, the FAA grounded the whole. I mean there wasn't any plane in the air. They put the second plane. When the second plane hit the towers, the FAA put everybody on the ground. So no planes were flying, except George Bush. They flew him to Shreveport actually, oh wow, from Florida.
Jen Gennaro:So so the plane lands back in Seattle, and then what?
Speaker 2:we walked to the outside of the airport because they wouldn't let anybody, even the hotel, pickup. They wouldn't let them come to the airport and get us, so we walked to the perimeter.
Jen Gennaro:You and the pilots, or you and the whole, all the passengers there were three flight tenants, no just the pilots and the flight tenants. What did they do with the passengers?
Speaker 2:The agents took care of them. We left yeah, just the ground personnel there had to deal with them. So we got back to the hotel and it was just a lot of confusion, but we were, we were in Seattle for five days before we got to fly back home. So both of my pilots were, uh, retired or former not retired former military and they took on their military mode which I guess they taught them in the military to maintain normalcy.
Speaker 2:So every morning we got up and we would go to the gym, work out, get dressed, we'd walks, we did the underground tour, we went to bookstores, we had lunch, just maintained normalcy until the company called us back. Different people reacted different ways. One of the flight attendants didn't want to be with anyone. One of the flight attendants had a friend that she went and stayed with, a friend in seattle that she went and stayed with. So I just remember my first when I got back on the ground, my first thought was to call my mom because I knew if she heard about it she'd just be in a panic, like my husband knew where I was. What about your kids? My kids? They called me. Yeah, as soon as they heard they called me. And that was my most important thing was to let my mom know I was okay, because everybody else, they would learn I was okay.
Speaker 2:But I just knew she would be sitting over here in Zachary on that little house, scared to death, you know so anyway, yeah, it was the um when, when the pilots said to create a situation where we maintain normalcy, I had actually taken some handwork with me. So I had a section of my room that was my craft area and I had a section that was my reading area, so I just didn't sit and watch TV all day long.
Jen Gennaro:Right, because that yeah yeah area, you know.
Speaker 2:So I just didn't sit and watch tv all day long, right, because yeah, yeah, yeah so how do you feel like your reaction to the events of 9-11 was unique, given your profession? It changed the industry completely. I mean now you have to go through the TSA when you fly. We used to just, for instance, my husband many times took me to work and picked me up. He would meet me at the gate. He'd be at the gate when I got off the plane Then that ended there?
Jen Gennaro:Was it just the surrealism that it could have been you, it could have been your flight, it could have?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it could have been. Seattle to Dallas politically is not the hot spot though, right. You know New York DC. The East Coast is where they wanted to hit.
Jen Gennaro:Tell me about this magazine that you brought, that you were showing me just before we went on air.
Speaker 2:It's the crew members of the two American Airlines flights that died. There was a wide body and a narrow body, so the narrow body had four flight attendants. The wide body had, I think, seven.
Jen Gennaro:And who is Betty.
Speaker 2:Betty Ong was based in New York and she called flight service. Now she would have been at the back of the airplane back in the galley area and she was working in the back. But she saw what was happening at the front and I mean it's pretty graphic. I can tell you what she saw.
Jen Gennaro:Yeah, you can say.
Speaker 2:The last passengers. One of the last two men to get on sat in the first row of first class A and B. Right in front of the purser, who is on a wide-body airplane, is the boss. He's in charge of the flight tenants. So the purser sits facing the back of the aircraft and the passengers sit facing the front. And it was right after takeoff I mean right after takeoff that they got up and they slit his throat with the box cutter and broke into the cockpit. She saw it happening and she called flight service, which was our bosses. She was still low enough that she could get transmission and she called them and she told them what seats the two guys were.
Speaker 2:in that way, they were able to immediately find out who did it oh yeah wow, and did you know any of these crew members? I did not know that American at the time I retired, had 20,000 flight attendants, 4,000 in Dallas, so you rarely worked with the same crew ever.
Jen Gennaro:You may go a year or two and go, hey yeah, right, um, so you were in Seattle for five days, and then was it business as usual pretty much we had to come back home.
Speaker 2:Um, they caught we living in Dallas. Yeah well, we flew back to dallas. We were the first flight back back to dallas, actually from. They called us, they, we were controlled by a group called crew schedule and crew tracking and they work for the company and they are the ones who, um, create the schedule, what you're going to fly, when you're going to fly, and then, after you leave on a trip, crew tracking takes over and they track where you are. So crew schedule called and told us we need to go to work. So we took an all-nighter back. Actually, we left at midnight and came back to Dallas in a Chicago flight at the same time. We did so we were the first two flights to leave out of Seattle, one to Chicago, one to Dallas.
Jen Gennaro:What, excuse me, was there anything different? I mean, I guess protocol had not been put in place yet. What were the immediate they had initiated security.
Speaker 2:For instance, I had a little sewing needle, I mean sewing scissors. They took them away from me. Everything changed. The passengers were on edge. Yeah, edge, yeah, a little bit.
Jen Gennaro:Did you guys do or say anything to put the passengers at ease, like was there any training as to the captain usually did something like that.
Speaker 2:So the captain made the pa about you know, going home and I'm just in training flightants were. It's one of the things? Key things maintain a pleasant facial expression. That's what it was. Yeah, we were trained so like if you hear a bump or something that doesn't sound right in the air, you're not supposed to go. Oh my gosh, what is that.
Speaker 2:Because you're maintaining a pleasant facial expression. So I guess that would have been, you know, in our training, just to create a comfortable environment and make everyone feel confident. The passengers feel confident that we're going home, everything's going to be fine this time.
Jen Gennaro:The passengers feel confident that we're going home, everything's going to be fine. This time Was there an uptick? You mentioned the panic attack earlier. Did you see any sort of increase?
Speaker 2:Just anxiety, generalized anxiety over the whole change in the security system and you know, and some, actually there were passengers that grumbled about it. You know, I mean, but that's life.
Jen Gennaro:Were you guys offered any sort of? I mean, if something like this were to happen nowadays, everybody would be in therapy. It would be paid for by all the companies you know it. Was there anything like that? Wow, no, not really. Did you fly to New York on your routes? Yeah, what was your first trip back there? Like?
Speaker 2:We went to ground zero. The crew did how long after Gosh? The cleanup was major. I mean it was mostly done by the time we went.
Speaker 2:But we went as a crew to Ground Zero and I remember that we had our badges on and that's something we had to start wearing a badge. Before that we didn't have to wear a badge, just our name tag. But then, from then on, we had to wear a badge. But we went as a crew and they gave us, um, because we had our badges on, they gave us first responder tickets. Oh, wow, yeah, and let's tell my brother about this morning. And he said and you weren't a first responder? And I said oh, yeah and I am not downplaying the lives that were lost are the people who sacrificed their lives, the firemen, the policemen, the bystanders, but those flight attendants on that airplane. When she called flight service and identified the guy who used the box cutter, she was the first responder.
Speaker 2:She was a hero, yeah, she was.
Jen Gennaro:Did you think about quitting no?
Speaker 2:Really I loved my job.
Jen Gennaro:Did you have any long-term physical, mental, emotional damage Damage?
Speaker 2:No, it's interesting that the next time I felt such an emotional process for me was Katrina, really Mm-hmm. Yeah, I still was living in Texas, yeah, but my brother worked at LSU, my nephew played football for LSU and they were in the middle of the triage that was bringing the football players were bringing mattresses in and the Hueys were landing on the track, and so that that brought it back up the awareness of how quickly our lives can change, you know um.
Jen Gennaro:After the events of 9-11, how did your camaraderie among fellow flight attendants change? Did it strengthen your bonds?
Speaker 2:I would say yes, but they've always. It's a family, I mean, it really is there's. I can't quote the numbers, but worldwide it's a very small percentage of the world population that are flight attendants. They told us in training I can't remember it was like whoa, but yeah, it's always you can sit down on the jump seat and by the end of the three-day trip or a two-day trip, you know, or even just a turn, you know how many kids they have and what foods they like, right, yeah, trip, you know, or even just a turn, you know you know how many kids they have, and you know what they're, what foods they like.
Jen Gennaro:Right, yeah, so you went on to serve as a flight attendant for um what?
Speaker 2:how many years after that? 10, 15?
Jen Gennaro:I started in 90 and retired in 13, so I flew 23 years, wow so and what did american do to um, honor the memory of 9-11, honor those whose lives were lost? Well, you have the pens here, yeah they.
Speaker 2:They did the commemorative book and the pins, but a flight attendant took it upon. A group of flight attendants took it upon themselves to raise the funds to build a. It's in Grapevine, not far from the DFW airport, a beautiful sculpture honoring the flight attendants that lost their lives honoring the flight attendants that lost their lives.
Jen Gennaro:Tell me about the changes that went into effect after 9-11 and how it affected your job.
Speaker 2:It became such a normal thing so quickly.
Jen Gennaro:Was any specialized change.
Speaker 2:You just had a heightened awareness of watching any person that got on the plane that might be considered suspicious.
Jen Gennaro:Did you ever have to make that call, any kind of difficult decisions where you were unsure about a passenger?
Speaker 2:It wasn't a terrorist threat. I did have to. We had the law meet a flight two times, but it was passenger disturbances.
Jen Gennaro:That was the what. Two times it was a passenger disturbance?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was just somebody being.
Jen Gennaro:Yeah, looking back, is there anything about your experience of 9-11 and the day, the events as a whole that you feel like is misunderstood or overlooked?
Speaker 2:I don't think that the general public realizes that, and I know that there will be that bad flight, that you will not be treated correctly, but most employee personnel are there because they enjoy people, they love people and they like to serve. I will say that it changed the dynamic of flying. It's more it used to be you put on your Sunday clothes and went to fly.
Jen Gennaro:Right.
Speaker 2:And now you put on your pajamas, basically Right, it changed that way. But initially, when we went back to work, initially there was a lot of thank yous. People thanked us for coming back to work and thanked us for being there. That wore off pretty quickly. But I think, safety and security I still travel with flight attendants. Well, I went to Italy, remember we did that. Those three women there's four of us and one of the girls still flies. The other three of us retired, but one girl still flies. She's been flying for 37 years. It's a career that people keep for a long time.
Jen Gennaro:Do you miss it?
Speaker 2:I miss the camaraderie.
Jen Gennaro:Do you still get free flights or what kind of perks are there? Yeah, wherever you want to go, yeah. Where are you going next? Wherever you want to go yeah. Where are you going next?
Speaker 2:I'm going to California next week. I just got back from Washington State last week. Wow, my husband and I one year I was looking at the flights and I said, Tim, the flights to Paris are empty. You want to go to Paris? We had friends that were living there. So he went, yeah. So I texted my friends and I'm like, hey, the flights to Paris are empty, you want some company. So we just got on a plane and flew to Paris.
Jen Gennaro:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:How fun Stayed with them, wow, yeah.
Jen Gennaro:So, it wasn't very difficult for you to stay motivated than to remain a flight attendant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's it's a great job. It's a great career because it's the. It spools you to any other job because it's not a 40 hour work week. Average month is 12 to 15 days. If you want to work less, you can. If you want to work less, you can.
Jen Gennaro:If you want to work?
Speaker 2:more you can. So an average month is when I was working I think it probably still is is 70 hours, and that's in the air. Oh wow, that's not on the gate, that's not hanging coats or doing pre-departures, that's not. You're not paid for that. It's when you're in the air wheels up. That's when the pay begins. I think they're in negotiations for that right now. Yeah, right, um, but it's so flexible. I actually used it. I paid a company that, a bid service. Uh, I would tell bobby I need these days off and I need these many hours, and they had a base of like 500 flight attendants in Dallas that they would trade everybody's trips around and then you got the schedule you wanted.
Jen Gennaro:That's not bad. Yeah, did you have any friends or colleagues that quit, either as pilots or as flight attendants, following 9-11?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, flight attendants.
Jen Gennaro:Yeah, just didn't want a chance anymore, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. A good friend of mine. Actually she was a neighbor behind me in Texas. She had flown for Delta for, oh gosh, 30-something years. She just hung it up.
Jen Gennaro:Wow, yeah, I can see after 30-something years, that being a catalyst to not do that anymore. What is this? Red, white and blue.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's what I had. It's the lanyard that my daughter had that made for me after 9-11. So we had to have something to wear. Our badge had to be visible, so she had that made for me after 9-11. So we had to have something to wear. Our badge had to be visible. So she had that made for me and what else did?
Jen Gennaro:you bring. Those are your wings.
Speaker 2:That's the wings I had on that day and then the, the pin that they had made, and then they had a pin made at the 20-year anniversary sent to us have us?
Jen Gennaro:Have you gone to any sort of reunions or anything like that following retirement?
Speaker 2:No, they have an organization called Kiwis that meet occasionally, but mostly just the friends I have, like Washington. When I was in Washington State last week I was seeing a friend of mine that still flies. She and her husband. They lived in Dallas. They went to Washington State on vacation. They fell in love with it and they built a house and moved there she. So she's a commuter they call a commuter, so she drives two hours to Seattle and gets on an airplane and flies four hours and then goes to work.
Jen Gennaro:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Jen Gennaro:That's so strange and interesting the train's rolling by.
Jen Gennaro:In case you hear that in the background everyone the train derailed my train of thought on my next question for you. Let me let it pass. We'll cut this part out. Is there anything else that you wanted to share about? Oh, I know what I wanted to ask you In hearing all the details of what happened on that flight, those flights, did you put yourself in those flight attendant's shoes? Did you think about what? If it were me, what would I have done? What do you feel like could have been done differently? I think they did the best they could.
Speaker 2:You know, we have been trained In training. You're trained in safety and security, but we have been taught like hijacking. They wanted the plane to take them somewhere. You know how you would deal with that. I don't know if it's still the case because, like I said, I've been retired 10 years, but in our training the male flight attendants were told just to take a seat. Yeah, because the terrorist would be nicer to the female Interesting. I don't know if that's still the case, right, but yeah. Then we were like wait time out, yeah, right.
Jen Gennaro:So I'm the human shield here right On a similar note sidebar. Do you follow the case of that Malaysian Airlines? What is it? Flight 327? Do you have your speculations? I don't. I went on a deep dive about that not too long ago, did you? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Strange stuff yeah, it is anyway um.
Jen Gennaro:Is there anything else you want to add about your experiences that day?
Speaker 2:I just certainly appreciated the way that, you know, the captain took charge of his crew. You felt safe, yeah, very confident that I wasn't there alone.
Jen Gennaro:Yeah, yeah, did you look around and you know when information was so scarce you guys didn't know what was going on Did you look around and be like, is it going to happen to me? Is it somebody on this flight?
Speaker 2:Right. We all thought that until we landed, we didn't know where the next hit was going to come from. At that point, we didn't know who did it.
Jen Gennaro:What did you think? What was your immediate reaction when you saw the footage and realized exactly what was going on? Think what was your immediate reaction when you saw the footage and realized exactly what was going on.
Speaker 2:I watched a replay. My husband watched it when it actually happened. I just watched the replays but it was like it's just not really happening, like this can't be happening, not in our country. This, not our country, this can't be happening, not in our country. This, not our country, this can't be happening. And yet it did so. I think we always have to be vigilant well.
Jen Gennaro:Thank you for sharing your stories. Um, it's crazy to me that there are kids being born whose parents weren't even alive at that time. So it's so important that we continue to remember and continue to honor those lives lost and the people who were heroes and first responders that day, in whatever capacity.
Ambre DeVirgilio:So thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sharing your story with us.
Jen Gennaro:You're welcome, thank you.
Speaker 2:America, america.
