This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio. It's hard to believe it's been twenty two years since the US was attacked on September eleventh, two thousand and one. On that day, nearly three thousand people were killed in the attacks on the Twin Towers
the Pentagon. In the attempted attack that resulted in the crash of United Flight ninety three in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, thousands were injured, and more than twenty years later, it's likely more people have died as a result of the pollutants in the period after the collapse of the Twin Towers. That's according to a New York Times article back in
twenty twenty one. Joseph Pfeiffer was there that day. He was in downtown Manhattan on nine to eleven investigating with his firefighters the smell of gas when he witnessed the first plane crash into the World Trade Center. He was the first FDNY chief at the scene, and in twenty eighteen, after thirty seven years with the FDNY, was the last fire chief who'd been at ground zero to retire. Two
years ago. On the twentieth anniversary of nine to eleven, he published a book, Ordinary Heroes, a memoir of nine to eleven. Joseph Pfeiffer joins us. Now he's also, I should note, unretired, having been appointed FDNY First Deputy Commissioner back in March. Chief, it's good to have you with us.
Oh, it's good to be here with you today.
You know, every year around this time, I wonder what people think about who were there that day, and you were, of course one of the first people who were there that day. What is this time of year mean to you.
It's a time to remember. It's a time to remember the tragedy of that day, but it's also a time to remember how how firefighters ran into danger to save lives. And there's another thing that we need to remember is that the global community came together and we supported each other in one voice against terrorism.
You were the first fire chief at the World Trade Center on that day, and remarkably you already had a documentary film crew with you filming another instance, as far as when you were dealing with a routine gas leak. What kind of goes through your mind whenever you think back to that moment, having already been down there before everything began.
I remember it was a beautiful summer morning with bright sunshine, and we were standing in the street an ordinary emergency, and then all of a sudden, we heard a loud noise of planes coming overhead. And as you know, we never hear planes in Manhattan because of the tall buildings.
And then I see this plane flying on a very low altitude, so low I could read on the fuselage American, and it raced past us at fast speed, and I saw the plane aim and crashed into the World Trade Center, And in that moment, I knew that this was no accident, that this was a direct attack, and that's the message I gave on the radio. And really in that moment, our entire world changed, and the next one hundred and two minutes would evolve with the dramatic memories of what took place.
You must have replayed those moments in your head countless times at this point.
I do. And one of the moments I remember is that as we pulled up to the World Trade Center, we saw smoke coming out of the top and flames coming out, and people started to gather by the windows, and we knew that at that time, there would be like twenty thousand people within the World Trade cent the complex, and every firefighter, every paramedic, every fire marshal, every police officer, every responder looked at the burning buildings and they knew
they were going to the most dangerous fire of the lives and they made a personal choice to go in. And even though this is our job, this is what we do, it still was a personal choice to run into danger.
And your brother Kevin was amongst those that went up. And it was interesting that the documentary crew that you were with actually had a moment where the two of you were talking and he went up there. When you think back to that moment, how do you feel.
I think back to the moment when he came up to me without saying a word, and we looked at each other, wondering if we're both going to be okay, And then I ordered him to go up to evacuate and to rescue those that were trapped, and it was the same order I gave many fire offices. And I think back to that moment, which was a special moment that we saw each other. And then I saw him take his unit Engine thirty three and turn to climb the narrow stairs of the World Trade Center.
So whenever you talk about in your memoir called ordinary heroes, is that the ordinary hero that you're talking.
About that is And as my brother went up, another firefighters went up. People were coming down, and the firefighters said to people, don't stop, keep going. You can make it out of here. Some simple words, and those words we know from people who survived. Those words made a difference because they made it out.
When I think about nine to eleven, I remember where I was, along with many other the people who are around my age and older, they remember where they were, They remember what they were experiencing. It was sort of like a you know, talking to my parents that moment that John F. Kennedy was killed, or talking to my grandparents that moment that Pearl Harbor was attacked. Since nine eleven, tens of millions of Americans have been born people who
only heard about nine to eleven as stories. They didn't live through it, They didn't experience it. How do you keep the memory of these ordinary heroes, keep the legacy of them in a world where it's increasingly becoming a distant memory.
The memory of nine to eleven is part of history and certainly are young people, many of them were even born, and they can read about it, but they also can see documentaries, and I think that's a different experience that they actually looking at a documentary experience it again. And the question for us, I think, is what do we want them to learn from it. Is this just an event that they look at it on a program or
is there more meaning to it? And I believe that we want our young people to understand what took place that day, and we do it with our probationary firefighters. We bring them to the nine to eleven Museum and for them to walk around and see the burnt out fire trucks. We want them to experience what took place. But I think as they look at this event as part of history and they see our firefighters and first responders running in, they see them as superheroes running into danger.
And you know, it can never be a superhero. It's just too difficult to do those things. And what I tell them is that on that day, our heroes did ordinary things but at an extraordinary time. And I think when they think of nine to eleven as that as ordinary heroes, they can start to imagine themselves as being one of those heroes, and we need that today more than anything else. We need our new generation, our young generation,
to tack some of the problems that we're experiencing. Not only do we have to deal with acts of violence and terrorism and homeland security issues, but we have issues of climate change or what I'm referring to now as as climate security. How do we deal with the heat, the wildfires that we saw in Mali, the storms, And I think that's what our new generation, our young generation, should see themselves as part of the part of the solution to those problems.
Earlier this year, you actually came out of retirement to take on a new job as the nation's largest fire department here and you were named first Deputy Commissioners that's the second highest civilian rank in the department, managing those day to day operations. So very impressive. What motivated you to do this after you did retire from the FDN Y in twenty eighteen.
It's coming back to the fire department that I love, that there's so much part of my life and saying, yeah, I got some more work to do. There's other things that I can do now. As I mentioned, it's not only responding to emergencies here, but how do we shape the department to deal with lithium battery fires and to deal with the climate change safety issues? So it's for me, it's exciting going to work every day.
It's pretty remarkable that in the last twenty years, twenty two years and moving forward, we'll probably see more people die as a result of the toxin the pollutants at Ground zero then who were actually killed in the attacks, and continue we continue to see members of the FDN Y die each year as a result of this. How do we keep those heroes in our memory even though they're dealing with the health effects decades later.
It's hard to believe that twenty two years later, we're approaching the number of our firefighters that died on nine to eleven. We lost three hundred and forty three of our members, and we're approaching that number. We're at three hundred and forty one that died from post nine to
eleven diseases from the toxics that you've mentioned. And we keep those memories alive by in the FDNY by putting their names up on a on a wall, and and we're putting up for this year forty three names that have just died in the in the in the last year.
So we have at a fire Department headquarters a plaque of with the names of all the firefighters that have died since the beginning of the FDNY and opposite including the nine to eleven nine to eleven firefighters, and opposite that are the firefighters and our members and our medical ems folks that died post nine to eleven.
As we come to this twenty second anniversary, whenever you're speaking with family members of those who are going to have their names added, how are they feeling at this moment?
There's there's a level of sadness, but at the same time, there's a sense that we're supporting each other and they're not alone. And I think coming together as department and other family members that have lost loved ones, we stand arm in arm, and we stand arm with the city of New York and the country and even the world, and in that sense, we can make it through it.
Do you think there's more work to be done in taking care of those not just members of the FDN Y, but those who are living with the effects of nine to eleven. Is there more that Congress can do?
There's definitely more that Congress can do. They continue to fund our medical programs and we're dependent on that in FDN Y for the people who have got sick that they've survived, actually eighty five percent of them survived longer than what was expected because of our medical programs, and those medical programs aren't cheap and seeing physicians and treatment. So Congress has a responsibility to care for for the victims, not just from that day, but the victims that we're
seeing now. And so I would I would ask Congress for for our families and our our future families who are suffering from from from nine eleven cancer, to to continue to help those families.
What motivates you to keep serving? As Jess mentioned, you unretired after nearly forty years with the FDNY, and I think a lot of people in your position would would say, hey, that was that was a great career. A lot of people probably said to you, that was a great career.
I like the term unretired. It's actually fun being unretired, going back and looking at new challenges and looking at the complexities we have to deal with, and bringing together our experienced people and our young people coming in and saying okay, we can do this together. We can protect the city, we can deal with new challenges, new disasters,
and we can do it together. Which is this secret And and it's not just with an f D, n Y. I work closely with n Y, p D and UH and Emergency Management and and the city should be proud. There's there's some good people serving New York City.