Frank Carucci

I was rushing that morning to get out of the house, jump in my car to drive to NY Transit Tech High School for a school visit. I would have driven down the West Side Highway to the Battery Tunnel and pass the World Trade Center. When I first heard the news that there was some kind of a plane accident at the Trade Center. I thought I'd better wait to hear traffic updates before I left. I had no idea then about the horrors and calamities that were about to unfold. As our worst fears were confirmed I was moved by the number of friends and people around me who felt the need to go to the Center to try to offer help and assistance. Thousands brought clothes, food, water and meds to help. Typical of New Yorkers, when trouble exists they rally together to work with their neighbors and friends in need.

One image that is sadly in my mind forever, is the long line of yellow school buses that were on 23rd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues in Manhattan. This area was a designated staging area for buses that would be deployed to bring the injured from the Trade Center site to hospitals and medical centers throughout the city. At the hospitals and medical centers, doctors, nurses and assistants lined up at the entrance doors ready to receive and treat the wounded. As the day went on I was stunned that the line of buses never seemed to move or change and by nightfall they all remained where they started on 23rd Street. The sad reality is that there were very few survivors to treat except for exhausted rescue workers. All those in the Towers were lost forever, completely with little evidence left behind of their existence.