Three years ago today, it was Veteran’s Day. I was working at the OEM Command Center on a 5:30am to 1:00pm shift. Although still only three months shy of the September 11th atrocity, the day was going to be a slow one because of the fact that everyone was covering the Veteran’s Day remembrance ceremonies. So I started the day by compiling 9/11-related press stories and taping the local newscasts…

…then I received the worst telephone call I ever got – and my slow day at work became my absolute worst.

My supervisor called me from his car and told me that a plane had crashed in Far Rockaway Queens. At that time, the words, “plane crash” were more horrifying than normal, so I had to take a second to absorb what he just said. My instructions were to call in all of my fellow Public Information Officers and head to the site of the crash, which from my location, was about an hour away.

After calling in as many PIOs as I could, I grabbed a Police Captain I knew and told him that I needed a police escort to the site – and he got me two officers from the 77th Precinct to take me to the one place I did not want to go – but had to because it was my job.

As the police car sped down City streets at over 90 miles per hour, I recall wondering what I would see when I arrived. Throughout my entire life, I have heard stories of plane crashes, but was never at the site of one – and all the way there – my mind was consumed with the horror that awaited me.

When I got to the site, I ran into Governor Pataki’s entourage and walked with them to the site, as we got closer, I began to smell fire – and then I saw the first of the twelve smoldering houses that the plane had struck before it crashed. At that point, I did not want to go any farther but knew I had to, so I turned the corner and headed to the site of the plane’s final impact – and saw the worst scene I have ever witnessed.

Sticking straight out of a burning house was the tailfin of an Airbus A-300. On top of the wreckage were dozens of firemen – who were pulling bodies out of the fuselage of the aircraft. Around me were hundreds of emergency workers doing hundreds of different tasks – and although I was neck deep in disaster – I felt completely alone in that moment – because I had never seen anything like that in all of my life.

After the shock wore off, my job was to coordinate with the Office of Emergency Management and basically do anything that was asked of me. My first task was to accompany Mayor Giuliani to a school parking lot to deliver his first press conference since the plane went down. I remember standing behind him and seeing close to one hundred members of the press staring back at us with microphones, cameras and tape recorders in hand. While staring at them, I still saw the plane’s tailfin – and the bodies that were pulled from it’s wreckage – and I still do to this day.

My next task was to head to JFK Airport’s Ramada Inn, which became the location where the families of the passengers would be given the news that they already knew. When I arrived there, the scene was just as frantic as it was at the site of the crash – except instead of everyone running around – everyone was sitting around hysterical crying. To this day, I never have or never will hear as many people cry at once as I did that day. Although my job was to escort the necessary people to the press room, I couldn’t help but wander around in a numbed shock. Everywhere I looked, there were people screaming, wailing and passing out. I remember being grabbed by a woman, which jarred me out of the state I was in. She showed me a picture of her loved one and asked me if I had any information about him. Not knowing what to say, I told her that I would find out whatever I could – and that I would pray for her loved one.

I also remember escorting a gentleman through the chaos into an awaiting elevator. Once inside the only silent place in the building, I asked him if he lost a loved one in the crash, and he said no, but he was very distraught over the situation. Later on, I realized why he was so distraught – because he was the President of the Airbus Corporation. I also recall seeing person after person after person being carried away on a stretcher because they collapsed in grief. And worst of all – I remember being surrounded by hundreds of people who were suffering the worst pain of their lives – and being completely helpless and unable to do anything to ease their pain.

That night, I had tickets to the Aerosmith concert at Madison Square Garden that I bought a month earlier for Christine, who deserved them for tolerating my workload of nearly 18-hour days in the months following the attacks. During the concert, she was having a great time watching her favorite band rock the world’s most famous arena – while I sat there stoic – because all I kept seeing was the plane’s tailfin – and all I kept thinking was how she and I would escape if a plane crashed through the roof of the Garden.

Three years later, my memories of that day are still as clear as they were then – and my thoughts and prayers are still with the families of all 265 passengers that lost their lives so tragically. I may not be a Public Information Officer anymore, but I know that of all the experiences I had as one, that day was probably the most difficult for me to endure...

...and the hardest to forget.