9/11 Stories: Remembering September 11th, 2001

There but for the grace of God….31 year old FDNY’er Paul Falla was on the job only 2 years on 9/11, and just finishing his 24 hour shift at Engine 34 in the Bronx, when the alarms sounded. Heading out to respond, no one on the fire rig looked at the ticket, which tells them where to report. They all assumed they were supposed to be going down to The World Trade Center. Just several miles away from The WTC at 34th street, someone looked at the ticket and realized they were traveling in the wrong direction. They were actually supposed to report to a staging area in Harlem, to join 5 or 6 other FDNY companies. Had the men at Engine 34 continued down to The World Trade Center, they almost certainly would have died along with the 343 other New York City firefighters who perished in the collapse of the twin towers. Ultimately, the men from Engine 34 were ordered down to the World Trade Center. By the time they got there, one tower had already collapsed. They watched the second tower fall, engulfing them in a blackout. Paul Falla says it was like a scene out of “Planet Of The Apes”, hauntingly, eerily, quiet. There was nothing left. Nothing. He saw no chairs. No desks. No computers. Only some papers and a thick, packed dust...and a woman’s freshly manicured hand emerging from the ashes.

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This is the 9/11 story of the Estreicher family: Maryann and her daughters, Callie & Victoria, known as Tori. Maryann’s husband, Richard, was an FDNY Lieutenant, studying to be promoted to Captain and was supposed to be in a class that morning steps from Rescue 5 on Staten Island, where he had worked for 10 years. He was too exhausted to go to class, having worked a 24-hour shift the day before. Maryann, who used to work steps from The World Trade Center in the ’90s, was home alone, watching “Good Morning America”, when she saw the first reports of a plane hitting The World Trade Center. Maryann says she always hated the twin towers. She always had a bad feeling about them. Minutes after the towers were hit in the first suicide-by-passenger-jet-ever strikes, Richie, who served with the Marines for three years, was on the phone to Maryann, telling her the country was under attack, directing her to bring home the girls from school. He also advised his wife to gas up the car and get cash from the ATM. He told Maryann “I love you and I don’t know if I’m coming back”. Most of the day, Maryann was on the phone, trying to find out if Richie was still alive. No one answered any of her calls. It wasn’t until midnight when Richie finally called, telling her, “They’re all gone”. Richie Estreicher lost 11 firefighters from Rescue 5 on September 11th, along with countless FDNY buddies. For 8 months after, like thousands of others, Richie worked on “the pile”, the burning debris of The World Trade Center, breathing in poisonous fumes. More than 18 years after surviving 9/11, on November 11, 2019, Veterans Day 2019, FDNY Lt. Richard Estreicher died of 9/11 cancer, 2 days shy of his 60th birthday, Now 24, Tori writes the blog herestothekidswhogrewupwithafirstresponderparneton911.

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