In the days that followed, those that were left at Ladder Three fire house in New York’s East Village kept searching through the rubble at the World Trade Centre.
“We kept looking. We kept going back. You wanted to find them, but in the back of your mind, you knew it wasn’t good. But you had to go down there and exhaust all possibilities,” says Jimmy Wind, one of a handful of the firefighters still working at Ladder Three ten years on.
The company lost 12 fire fighters that day – wiping out over a third of the entire staff there.
The men who died left 16 children behind.
It was a story repeated in Fire Stations across New York – 343 fire fighters in all lost their lives that day.
“You had to face it, as much as you wanted them, you were coming to the realization that you weren’t finding anybody after the first day or so,” says Wind.
In the following weeks, returning to the scene became counter-productive.
“It was hard between funerals and working a schedule. Guys were getting depressed going down there,” says Wind.
Mike Moran, another Ladder Three fire-fighter, lost his older brother John, who was a fire chief at Special Operations Command when the Twin Towers collapsed.
“We never found any part of his body. Maybe three or four days went by, and you were kind of hoping.
“You were hearing reports that people were trapped. But other than that first night, they didn’t get anybody out alive.”
And Moran was there working on the rescue line for days, despite his loss of family, friends and colleagues.
In the wake of the attacks, firefighters became heroes in the city.
The dangers of the job, taken for granted before, were now appreciated.
Ten years later, while the 343 Fallen are still honored, the city has returned to its old patterns.
“It was different in New York after Nine Eleven. There was not as much traffic but it seemed like any traffic that was on the streets, when you responded they pulled over and stopped. But now it’s kinda back to the rat race,” said Wind.
“I still miss all the guys, not only from my house, but from others. It was hard for all of them. Everybody lost people.”
Mike Moran became a folk hero among his fellow fire fighters in the weeks after Nine Eleven.
At a tribute concert in Madison Square Garden, Moran took the microphone and told Osama Bin Laden to “kiss my royal Irish ass”.
The audience – mostly cops and fire fighters – went wild.
“I was thinking to myself, if they let me say something, I’m not going to say anything nice,” he recalls.
“I was in the mood for a battle”
“I think people were a looking for a little anger.”The concert took place on the day of the funeral for his colleague Michael Carroll – who drove the fire truck from Ladder Three down to the World Trade Centre on the morning of the attacks.
Carroll had relieved Moran at six the night before.
“We shot the breeze for a little while. That was the last time I saw him,” he said.
He says he feels “a little silly sometimes” now when he thinks back on his moment in the spotlight, but it felt right at the time.
When Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Special Forces in May, Moran admits he was stunned.
“I always thought it would be one of those mysteries that you might never know if he was dead or alive,” he said.
That night he raised a new flag at this brother’s memorial close to his Rockaway home and admits to become “a little misty-eyed”.
Both Wind and Moran will attend a ceremony at the Ladder Three firehouse on Sunday in honour of their former colleagues.
Neither they nor any rank-and-file firefighters or policemen have been invited to Ground Zero for the anniversary.
It’s something that upsets Jimmy Wind.
“It seems like it’s a photo op for the president. I don’t know where he was on that day, but I know where I was, and I know where the rest of my guys were,” he said.
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