enough to fight back against the awesome force of even the worst fire. But no one could imagine challenging this collapse and rolling it back. There was not going to be much in the way of voids, Holden thought.
Chris Lynch, a chauffeur on the Engine who had worked the Monday night shift, had just missed going on the run. He had been relieved by Bruce Gary, who told him to go home early. Lynch, thirty-six, had wanted to make the 9:15 train from Penn Station to Farmingdale in Long Island, where he lived. The next train was not until 10:15, so he could save an hour by taking the early train. Lynch called his wife to tell her that Gary had relieved him, that he was going to make the early train, and to ask if she could meet him at the station. Just then, as Lynch was in the office talking to his wife, both Steve Mercado and Gary came over to tell him that he should call Battalion because they might be looking for someone to work at another house. He would be able to pick up some overtime that way. Lynch was coming off a fifteen-hour night shift (the day shifts are nine hours), and he had a twenty-four-hour shift coming up the next day. He had already worked a good deal of overtime in the preceding weeks, and so he decided not to call in to Battalion.
Instead he rushed over to Penn Station and made it in time to catch his train. Minutes prior to his boarding, the first plane hit the north tower, and as the train passed under the East River to Queens, the conductor made an announcement about it. He was somewhat casual, so the news did not seem so urgent to Lynch at first; he thought that a small plane had collided with the building by accident. Then very quickly the passengers began to pick up more bulletins, among them that a second plane had hit the other tower. Shortly before 10:00, a woman with a Walkman said that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. By then Lynch knew that it was a terrorist attack. He continued home to Farmingdale, changed and showered, and got ready to go back to work. For some reason, he did not think immediately of his own company going down thereââIt didnât dawn on me. It should have, but it didnât,â he said later. With his wife uneasy and obviously frightened about the idea of his return, he quickly ate a sandwich, headed back to the city, and raced to the firehouse. The rigs were gone; what he found instead was complete chaos. So Lynch and a few others grabbed a Red Cross van and headed to Ground Zero.
At the site Lynch wandered through the rubble looking for his friends. Finally he ran into another member of the house and asked him, âHave you seen anything of our guys?â The answer was so stark that he would never forget it. âTheyâre all dead,â the other fireman said. Lynch thought, Are you crazy? That just canât be. Nothing like thatâs ever happened before. If itâs bad, maybe we lose one or two men. So it canât be, things like that donât happen. You have to be wrong . But then the other manâs words began to sink in, and he began to wrestle with the terrible questions that would haunt so many of the men who had not been on the rigs that morning: Why did I survive? Why was I allowed to live?
That night when he finally got home, Chris Lynch was in his bathroom, a bathroom that Bruce Gary had been renovating for himâat no cost, of courseâand there he saw written on the unfinished plywood wall Bruceâs notes to himself: what he needed, what he wanted to do, measurements, and his cell phone number, just in case Chris needed to call him.
When Ray Pfeifer, one of the men from the Maryland golf outing, arrived at the World Trade Center site, among the first people he ran into was Thomas Von Essen, then New Yorkâs fire commissioner. Pfeifer asked him what he had heard, how bad it was. âAbout five hundred,â Von Essen answered, and it took a second for that to register, for Pfeifer to realize that Von
Chris Lynch, a chauffeur on the Engine who had worked the Monday night shift, had just missed going on the run. He had been relieved by Bruce Gary, who told him to go home early. Lynch, thirty-six, had wanted to make the 9:15 train from Penn Station to Farmingdale in Long Island, where he lived. The next train was not until 10:15, so he could save an hour by taking the early train. Lynch called his wife to tell her that Gary had relieved him, that he was going to make the early train, and to ask if she could meet him at the station. Just then, as Lynch was in the office talking to his wife, both Steve Mercado and Gary came over to tell him that he should call Battalion because they might be looking for someone to work at another house. He would be able to pick up some overtime that way. Lynch was coming off a fifteen-hour night shift (the day shifts are nine hours), and he had a twenty-four-hour shift coming up the next day. He had already worked a good deal of overtime in the preceding weeks, and so he decided not to call in to Battalion.
Instead he rushed over to Penn Station and made it in time to catch his train. Minutes prior to his boarding, the first plane hit the north tower, and as the train passed under the East River to Queens, the conductor made an announcement about it. He was somewhat casual, so the news did not seem so urgent to Lynch at first; he thought that a small plane had collided with the building by accident. Then very quickly the passengers began to pick up more bulletins, among them that a second plane had hit the other tower. Shortly before 10:00, a woman with a Walkman said that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. By then Lynch knew that it was a terrorist attack. He continued home to Farmingdale, changed and showered, and got ready to go back to work. For some reason, he did not think immediately of his own company going down thereââIt didnât dawn on me. It should have, but it didnât,â he said later. With his wife uneasy and obviously frightened about the idea of his return, he quickly ate a sandwich, headed back to the city, and raced to the firehouse. The rigs were gone; what he found instead was complete chaos. So Lynch and a few others grabbed a Red Cross van and headed to Ground Zero.
At the site Lynch wandered through the rubble looking for his friends. Finally he ran into another member of the house and asked him, âHave you seen anything of our guys?â The answer was so stark that he would never forget it. âTheyâre all dead,â the other fireman said. Lynch thought, Are you crazy? That just canât be. Nothing like thatâs ever happened before. If itâs bad, maybe we lose one or two men. So it canât be, things like that donât happen. You have to be wrong . But then the other manâs words began to sink in, and he began to wrestle with the terrible questions that would haunt so many of the men who had not been on the rigs that morning: Why did I survive? Why was I allowed to live?
That night when he finally got home, Chris Lynch was in his bathroom, a bathroom that Bruce Gary had been renovating for himâat no cost, of courseâand there he saw written on the unfinished plywood wall Bruceâs notes to himself: what he needed, what he wanted to do, measurements, and his cell phone number, just in case Chris needed to call him.
When Ray Pfeifer, one of the men from the Maryland golf outing, arrived at the World Trade Center site, among the first people he ran into was Thomas Von Essen, then New Yorkâs fire commissioner. Pfeifer asked him what he had heard, how bad it was. âAbout five hundred,â Von Essen answered, and it took a second for that to register, for Pfeifer to realize that Von
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