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  • FDNY Releasing Sept. 11 Papers, Recordings
  • FDNY burial for New City man ( Patty Moran )
  • Bravest are hot Stuff ( Lt. Flanagan. F.F. Leeber)
 
 

 

FDNY Releasing Sept. 11 Papers, Recordings



MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
Associated Press Writer
 

 

NEW YORK (AP) -- After years of legal battle, the Fire Department of New York is releasing thousands of documents offering a detailed and intimate look at the heroism and missteps behind its response to the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack.

The department on Friday plans to make public hours of radio transmissions and hundreds of oral histories telling the story of firefighters' rush to the twin towers on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, to help evacuate thousands of people.

The Sept. 11 commission, which had access to the histories and recordings, described major flaws in the city's response to the attack. Emergency radios did not function properly. Police and firefighters did not work together. Discipline broke down. Vital messages went unheard.

But some of the families of the 343 firefighters killed say they hope the information will cast additional light on the problems that contributed to the death toll.

Sally Regenhard, whose son, Christian Regenhard, died that morning, still does not know exactly where her son died.

''Maybe there will be something on there that gives me a clue as to what happened to my son,'' she said. ''I have not heard where he was sent, when he was sent, what he was supposed to accomplish when he went in.''

Regenhard and other victims' families joined The New York Times in suing the city in 2002 to release the more than 15 hours of radio transmissions and 12,000 pages of oral histories collected by the fire department in the days after the towers' collapse.

The city argued that releasing the histories and radio recordings would violate firefighters' privacy and jeopardize the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty in April to six counts of conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers.

New York's highest court ruled in March that the city had to release the materials but could excise potentially painful or embarrassing portions.

Some families and other critics of the city's response hope the new documents will help them challenge the conclusion that many firefighters in the north tower heard but heroically chose to ignore an evacuation message issued after the south tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m.

Glenn Corbett, a professor of fire science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and an adviser to Regenhard's Skyscraper Safety Campaign, said he believes that outdated radios prevented many from receiving that vital message.

He said he did not find it credible that perhaps hundreds of firefighters ignored a message from their commanders.

At least 450 relatives of firefighters killed in the collapse have requested copies of the oral histories and radio recordings, and they will be receiving them by express mail Friday, the fire department said.

An FDNY spokesman said the department would not comment on the documents before their release.

FDNY burial for New City man

By RANDI WEINER
rweiner@thejournalnews.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: July 26, 2005)

Hundreds of New York City firefighters stood at attention outside St. Augustine's Church yesterday to give a final salute to a longtime comrade who died July 20 from an extended illness.

Patrick J. Moran, 50, of New City served with Engine Company 69, Ladder 28 and Battalion 16, the "Harlem Hilton," for nearly a quarter century. One of the engine company's trucks, draped with a yellow and red banner that identified it as part of the Harlem Hilton stable, was brought to Rockland in Moran's honor.

"One of the early church fathers had a phrase that I think in many ways describes Patrick's life and I know it's what Patrick would also want us to be more of," said the Rev. Christopher Keenan, chaplain for Engine Company 69 and the guest celebrant for Moran's funeral Mass. "Why not be turned into fire and run through life with that light? Truly, Pat was turned into fire, he was so alive, and he wants us to do as he did, to continue running through life with that light."

Moran was born in Manhattan, attended Catholic grade school and graduated from Power Memorial High School. He joined the New York City Fire Department in 1981 and was assigned to Harlem. For 18 of the 24 years he served in Harlem, he served as a union representative. But it was for his sense of humor, his passion for his job and family, his vocal celebration of his Irish heritage and the ability to listen to others that was recalled at the Mass. He retired from the department about seven weeks ago.

"I worked the last 18 years with Paddy Moran: It was a relationship of respect, a relationship of love and a relationship of arguing. It was an Irish relationship," said co-worker Jim Carney, who gave Moran's eulogy. "They say that when people go, they don't come back, but we all know that Patrick Moran, somewhere, somehow, will be there for those who he really loves. He will still be there, whether in spirit or in example or in some of the concrete principles he believed in so strongly.

"Pat was a man of commitment, integrity and full of ideals. He was a firefighter, which in itself proves how much love he had for others," Carney said. "He was not afraid to die. He told me so. He had a tremendous amount of pride and dignity, and that's the way he wants you to remember him. He told me so."

Then he added, "He was the best white rapper that ever lived. He told me so," to chuckles from the nearly 500 who attended the Mass.

Keenan, who worked with Moran for more than two years, told Moran's family that he was honored to recall his friend.

"Everything Paddy did enabled us to have life, to be joy-full, to know peace, to experience a friend, to know in his own way that we were loved and appreciated and yes, he truly challenged us to live by the journey," Keenan said. "When you think of it, of giving life, he always gave from the heart and he always gave to the nth degree."

Burial was held in St. Anthony's Cemetery in Nanuet. Moran is survived by his wife, Jackie; four children; three brothers; a sister; in-laws; nieces and nephews.
 
 
 

June 29, 2005

BRAVEST ARE HOT STUFF
By PATRICK GALLAHUE

In a race against the clock yesterday morning, firefighters pulled a 10-year-old boy from a burning Harlem building with little more than a fire extinguisher to hold back the flames.

"At that time of the morning there's a good chance someone's sleeping and still in bed," said Lt. Kevin Flanagan, credited with the heroic rescue. "So it gets you thinking."

The 7 a.m. "all hands" blaze broke out on the 22nd floor of the Colonial Park Houses at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue.

Flanagan and two firefighters, Vic Leeber and Bill Porteus from Ladder 28, raced inside the 30-story tower and ran into a woman with two children on the landing of the 22nd floor. With smoke filling the hallways, the men asked the woman if there was anyone still in the apartment.

"There's one more in there," she told them.

Still without a hose from the street below, the men crawled on their bellies into the three-bedroom apartment, with Porteus staying near the heart of the fire in the living room to contain the inferno with an extinguisher.

"The first bedroom I went into is where I ended up finding the young boy," Flanagan said. "He was unconscious on the floor face down and wrapped in blankets"

The boy, whose identity was unavailable, was taken to Harlem Hospital for smoke inhalation and was expected to survive.

 

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