At Ground Zero

Some staff at the DEA New York Field Division witnessed the attacks on their commutes into work. Many visited Ground Zero in the days and weeks following the attack, describing it as akin to a horror movie. Here are memories of a retired DEA New York Field Division ASAC, and photos of the devastation and recovery efforts DEA staff would have seen at the site of the World Trade Center towers.

“It just made you, well, it made me just angry. Angry at this loss of life that was almost incalculable in terms of how many people could actually be buried under that rubble and to see fire engines, just covered in rubble, just sitting there…and people trying to dig with buckets. Think about a bucket brigade trying to remove 110 stories worth of rubble.” 

“It was horrible. I remember the odor, the smell that I can almost still recall. It was a combination of things that were burning, so it was a combination of smoke, but it was also a smell of death.”

“And as the day went on, people were walking up the west side of Manhattan, covered in dust, covered in dirt, and we (DEA staff) were giving out bottles of water. I don't know where the water came from, to be honest. And folks were just trying to help the people that were coming up the west side of Manhattan. I mean, it looked like something out of a horror movie. With people just covered in soot and white dust, just in a daze, walking up the west side of Manhattan.”