GETTIN SALTY EXPERIENCE PODCAST Ep 200 | FDNY HM1 FF PHIL MCARDLE

Disclaimer. We'd like to know before the start of this interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the guest of tonight's Getting Salty Experience podcast are that of the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience podcast. You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast. Hello, a word, we go, Welcome back, Hank. See

what I got on? Just fulfilter and I don't put it on. I got my look, I got my hasback jump shoot on baby has back jumpsuit, baby out of a mother and he I don't know how he has had the right color. I don't know, dude, it's what I got to do. Minute, bro, I don't know. I think it's gotta be like navy blue. No, I think they were brown. Look at the pictures. Hold on a minute, and washed so many times well from all the chemical changes they went through, and he ended brown. Look, there's

Philly Mack in a brown jumpsuit. Baby. Yeah, okay, yep, welcome back to it. Against all these pans podcasts, this is the only one that brings the kitchen table to the firehouse, kitchen table to you we got senior dude, Hank Bolet because Roofie is on assignment right now out in Idaho doing kill him whatever. I don't know. He's on assignment. He might check in with us though he gets home in time. He's gotta fly and then he's got to uh he says he will. I was on the

phone with him earlier. He's he was heading to the airport when we were speaking. Oh, he ain't got no jumpsuit though, I can tell you that. I bet your Philly is happy that I got the jumpsuit on. And I tried to get uh to the fabric store to get some like nice uh Drakes with the window shades to match lowis but working. No, no, no, he's in. He's in the Oval office. You gotta have an Italian wife to make those bro an Italian mother in law to make one

of us. Is this roughy now testing with me? Uh? Nope, I don't know. I don't know any who. We got a good show tonight because we got a guy who dude not only to respect this guy really, truly, I could say this with the bottom of my heart. I love working with Philly. Max guy was the pinnacle of his of his game. It was has Mac guy. You think about Hasbat, you think about

Philly Max right, thank he was listen. He was the one of one of the right guys to have in that firehouse making the transition when we became a squad there. You know, he was one of the voices of reason. Well, you had to keep the kindergarten kids in line, and he had to deal with you know, and and him and I used to I have to, you know, sit down once in a while and have a Powow's right of smooth things over. Yes, yeah, I always, guys

do man. I always enjoy having filled in the flyhouse. Dude, Well, you know what, Mikey, we got to pay the bills. So why do you roll that commercial? Quick? I don't know how. Keith just jumpsuit on because which one or which one do you want? Tonight? Armor Tough? We got Alma Tough on Monday night. Baby, come on, all right, I forgot about that yet. It's been a while since I've been in the seat. So here we go to work from our friends

over at Armourtuff. Armor Tough firehouse flooring was recently installed in Station number seven, the newest of the DACAB County Fire stations in Decatur, Georgia. Meeting Deputy Chief Smith of Support Services, Vince explained that Armor Tough interlocking flooring is the only floor that is tough enough to withstand the abuse of fire apparatus along with fire personnel at a very busy station. Chief Smith explained, the flooring

in all of our stations over the years gave us multiple problems. We need floor that can last as long as the walls and the roof. That's why we chose Armor Tough. The installation team came from New Jersey and in three days they had completed their work without any disruption to our daily operations. We were very impressed with not only the product, but with the workmanship as well.

I highly recommend Armour Tough for your station's floor. Call Vince today for a no obligation quote at nine oh eight nine one seven seven six nine to seven. Wonderful. Always nice to hear from Vince's good dude, play the on one really quick. May seventeenth, was it seventeenth? Eighteen nineteen? Me and Louis be down in Harrisburg Expo Hole booth before thirty. Come down and see us. It's a hoot. You haven't good time down the man. I think as a matter of fact, Gave Fox is taking us out

to dinner one night. There he's a no yet. I mean, we're going out to dinner. I'm going to hit him with the bill. So what else? Beautiful? Yeah, I want to see if he's as funny in person as he is in the chat. Well, that's yet to be determined. We'll see if he can. You know, you can hold his own, bro. Report this is big boy Leak. You't playing with He's not swimming with the little fish, Hank. You know what I mean, He's with the big fish. How you going down to Florida? Yeah?

How's it going down to Florida? There? Hot? Yeah, it's it's Florida. You know. People say, oh, how do you take the heat? I'm like, well, listen, I can't complain about cold and move to the warm and then complain about the warm. So to me, it's beautiful out here. Well, almost eighty in the sixties. You're working it's eight, you know, eighty five now this time of year, and I'll take it right. That's when I get the resorts, and that's when

they have beach resorts, you know, beach resorts. I know what he's saying about. All right, might get it out of your system. Even nobody cares about hockey. Go ahead to do it well. The New York Rangers is Rob Procaccini was putting in the chat. How sweep it is a four game sweep over the Washington Capitals. I was very happy. Great Sunday for me. By the way, the Yankees win fifteen to five, Demolister Brewers. Nicks get a huge road win on the three, one on the

sixth k not over yet, not over yet. They still got to win Game five tomorrow. And the Rangers they didn't play with their food. A little tight third period there, they weren't looking too good to score two goals. Put a bad boy away. Now they can chill out. Let Carolina and the Islanders duke it out and on to round two. They themselves up for a couple hope that goes back right after getting knocked out in round one last year, which was very bitter, especially after being in the Conference finals

the previous year. They're back in round two. So once they have the Presidents Cup and be out in the first round. Bro, No, you don't, yep, Yeah, it's happened. All right, let's bring him in here. You want to bring him in heck, senior dude, the senior do okay, Well, it is my great pleasure to announce to a leatherhead Nation firefighter Phil mccarl there he is. Hey, guys, I are you there? Didn't have enough of me for like fifteen years, bro,

Like you know what, I never got tired of you. But before we go anywhere, Mike, you know what we gotta do. How do you like? The cover rolls by the way, just for you. Actually did a wrong color. They are ship and the jump the jumpsuits actually when Navy flight suits they were black, they were or dark Navy blow. They will thank you, thank you, singing dude, got it right again? Cool listen they were military spec Yeah they was. My heart was in the right

place, don'll Phil? You know? Yeah? All right, Mike, let's get patriotic, do it all right? Here we go. I pleasure allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Where did you go? I take this thing off of sweat my nuts off? Here? I don't know degrees that what are you doing?

Oh, welcome to the show, Philly. Long overdue man. We've had Hazmat guys now, but we haven't had Hank Right, the the Hazmac guy. He's here. He's here. When we came and we went from edge of two eight eight to squad to he walked in like who is this guy? And then like Philly mac daddy bro, he's the mac daddy has Matt right. He was had all the answers. He was the guy training I gotta set for all the ship that we did. He was very calm and cool man. He never you know, because at any time he could have

really choked the life of a helpie or any of those other guys. But he didn't. He was calm and cool, which I gotta give him the best to cool. That's correct, thank you. He said a good example that he did probably well. I liked you guys. I liked you guys, so I can't say that about all the hasback guys. They didn't like us, but you know, but you know what, you guys had a job to do. We had a job to do, and uh and that was important, you know, And and staying together. You know what,

we never stayed together more than we did on nine to eleven. Right, we did house, came together. We were good firehouse. I actually went back there last week and I think I knew about maybe two guys and has met. There was a guy that looked like Cassidy, but he's the skinny Cassidy Now he lost all sorts of weight of Like, who was that looks like Cassidy but he's skinny. We had we had a brunch recently and the first John Cassidy was there when everybody's dying, who's that guy? I said,

that's John Cassidys. Yeah, no, I said, that's the real John Cassidy. Yeah yeah. And who was the other guy? Kevin Chambers? But he probably wasn't there when you were there. Yeah, Kevin was Oh no, he wasn't there when I was there yet, right, probably, I don't think anybody but Cassidy was there when you were there. Uh, Cassidy was the only one, that's right, that's right? Ye, time time goes by, Phil, Yeah, yeah, I goes there. Ain't nobody he worked? Uh no, you met you worked with Dane Martin,

didn't you. Uh? Johnny McCoy Johnny John McCoy man. Now, when I was there, I seen John McCoy. I'm trying to remember if I think I was gone when Dane got there. Dany came out after nine eleven, all right, so then a couple of months because they put me out and uh thousand and two after the World Trade Center met, they took you out the pasture. That's correctly done. But I'm still here, so I'm wanting a lucky I didn't shoot you make glue out of here, which

is a good it's a good sign. But we're not here to talk about us. We're here to talk about Philly mac daddy's career. So Philly, let's go back to way back when it was a Philly Macarusu. Where'd you grow up? What the area where you're from, and what made you want to become a fireman? Well, to be perfectly honest, I grew up in the trogs Necks section of the Bronx, right near the trogs Neck Bridge,

a place called Edgewater Park. And what was interesting about Edgewater Park It was one of the areas that had one of the volunteer fire departments that still existed in the city of New York there was ten of them. There was two in the Bronx, there were three in Queens, three in Brooklyn, and two in Staten Island. And I actually grew up and I was one

of the volunteer firemen in Edgewater Park for a while. I was, I was the chief there and the health and safety officer there, and uh, that's where I got That's where I got my love for the fire department. Oh. We did a show on that Philly, on on the ones that's still that are still operational today. We did a show. Yeah, and uh, I actually lived right behind the firehouse, and uh, that's you

know. I I I was an operating engineer I had. I had a very very good job, but I really really wanted to be a fireman more than anything. And my love for the fire service actually started there in a volunteer department. And not like not unlike a lot of guys on Long Island who started their careers in volunteer fire departments on Long Island or upstate. They there was a lot of them who started there. I'll bet you ask guys in the city now, they probably had no idea that even still volley houses

in the city. But I a few of them have closed, but Edgewater is still lest It's still there today. Well, we still have the Two and Queens that are open. I think, yes, one of the Bronx, one of the Bronx. Yeah, yeah, there's Breezy Point broad Channel, Richmond. Yeah, yeah, there was. There was a few of them, you know, and some of them got along good with the city and some of them, you know, used to fight tooth and nail. You know. It was it was like a mix of things and stuff like

that. What year we're talking here, Philly, What year we're talking here? Seventies, late seventies. H. I was the chief there in nineteen seventy seven, so you must have been a five and in early seventies then right at mid seventies. Yeah, and then uh, I think I took well, I took the seventy seven tests to get on the job, right, and I was hired. And I was hired in eighty two, so yeah, it was some time around then. Yeah. Nice. Uh. You come from a big family. I have. I have two brothers and

a sister. My my twin brother was was our arch enemy and fight department. The people in the fire department who were in special operations, you know, stock companies and stuff like that. Our our our adversaries were the guys in police Emergency service. And I had a brother who was a lieutenant and police Emergency Service. So we used to do battle all the time about who's better and stuff like that. You guys know we were better than but you know, it was hard to convince them of that. You know, we

tried, Yes, we tried. Was was he like the other guys? Did he have a dislike for the fight apartment? Your brother? He was like kind of didn't care. Well, yeah, you know what I didn't. I didn't have a dislike for the cops. But one of the things that I used to tell people all the time was, you know, when I was a union delegate and I was a union delegate for has Matt and I was a union delegate for the USA teams, you know, we used

to deal with fire police issues all the time. So I was always dealing with issues that involve cops and firemen, you know, and you know, there was there was no convincing either side that the other side that they were wrong. You know, they were always right. It was the other side that was always wrong. So you know, you know, the kind of things that you had to deal with when you have a situation like that where nobody's admitting to anything that they did wrong. It's me and my wife.

Sometimes it's almost like that, very very very similar to marriage. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Yes, all right, so you get it. You go in and uh in eighty two you get appointed, right, yes,

sixty all male personnel. The girls came to classes after you graduate eight five of eighty two and the class valedictorian look at us, Hang, yeah, yeah, Well you know, the only good thing about that was that I actually had a choice of where I wanted to go, and I selected fifty eight truck in the Bronx. And and part of the reason I went there was because some of the guys in that firehouse were I played football with. So I wanted to go to the same house that I played football with

the guys I played football with. So I ended up going to that house and I met a lot of great guys in that firehouse. It was It was absolutely a fabulous place. Who they with? Phil, Uh, fifty eight was in with forty five nguls. Oh okay, that was their company. Phil. When you got when your class of sixty that was a small

class for FDN. Why like the same I was on the same list, Like when I got on with the Chief Steve, they were putting one hundred and fifty in at a time, right, was yours like one of the first classes after like the lawsuit got settled. Is that why it was a small Well, it's interesting you say that, Hank, because the only reason my class got in was because of the lawsuit. The fire department had complained

to Judge Stifton. There was the judge at the time that they were so short of manpower that they needed to get like people in right away just to reduce the overtime course and stuff. So he allowed them to put sixty in and then I think the class after me was one hundred and twenty or one hundred and fifty, and then the women came in the class after that. But yeah, it was a very small class. It was a court mandated

class. So and at the time, you know, it's interesting when me and you were getting in, Hank, the classes were six weeks long, six weeks and then you went to the field. Now today they're doing twenty three weeks. Twenty three holy, twenty three weeks because now now they're doing the cfr D, so you're doing that, they're doing peace officer training piece of training. Well, and we did that too. It was thirteen weeks, yes, you know, like you said, we did six weeks.

I'm going to tell you. You know, when they gave you the blessing and you got to the firehouse, while by fire you got they needed guys. You know, we were the influx of young bloods. You know. The guys that were in the firehouses were all the guys. I mean, they were great and they had experienced like nobody, but they were getting tired. They were happy to see us. You know, we were like an injection of of fun into the firehouse again because they got to be you know,

to have probi's again, and they enjoyed our antics. But then when

it came time to be serious, you know. So it was and part of the reason, part of the reason keV that it went from six weeks to twenty three weeks is over in the eighties, early eighties and into the early nineties, you had a lot of federally mandated training and what that was not only being pushed on municipal fire departments, but it was also being pushed on volunteer fire departments where you had to do a certain amount of training.

There was no there was no way around it. So that's why a lot of the training that you see occurred because of the eighties and nineties and federally mandated training. I mean, but I came on the mid nineties and it was thirteen weeks, So what could they add to get to twenty three weeks? Well, whatever the fuck they're doing. Well, they added a tremendous amount of stuff. And and let me tell you something, the only reason

that departments were adding training was because they were required to do it. So, I mean, nobody's going to give you a federal funding that was That was one of the complaints of a lot of fire departments, Hank, was that it was all unmandated. I mean, all unfunded mandated training. Is what what was happening? You know? I mean, uh, you you

take any any area and and has hazardous material was a perfect example. Hazardous materials was a huge, huge, financial course on departments back in the early eighties because everything that they asked you to do had a training component to it. So the more you asked your guys to do, the more training they were required to do. And it just it just ate up fire department budgets. Was heating up fire department budgets. Yeah, you know, it crashs

me up. Now, how much money did they actually get? Because if I go in there one more time and I had to hear Cassidy tell me about his new rig after we just got into rig two years before that, and we were sitting I was waiting to get our new rig ten years I was waiting to get a new rig. I'm going to tell you where there was a huge influx of money. There was a huge influx of money right

after nine to eleven with all of terrorism related stuff. You've seen the astronomical amount of fire trucks that we got in the New York City Fire Department. You look at our Marine division, how much it grew after nine to eleven. I mean, you know, we went from having boats that were from the nineteen fifties and and and having engines in them that had had swastikas stamped on him from Nazi Germany. That's and that's the absolute truth, and to

the state of the art boats that we have today. I mean, it was just absolutely amazing how much of a change that's been in a like a odd department because of terrorists money. I don't go too far past because let's go back to fifty eight trucks. So you get the fifty eight truck. That's a busy house. That had to be a new house too, right, because they were they were yeah, yeah, they were they It was actually a new building that was attached to right next to forty five engine.

They had they shared a house watch, but they had separate kitchens, right, and uh, in fifty eight truck was in the newer building along with the eighteenth battalion. Right, battalion was in the same building. And how long are there before you catch your first job, Philly? Uh? Actually I pulled up to the front door and the bell rang and a guy was

hanging himself on the fire escape right in front of the house watch. That was That was a job I had and has meant was a guy hanging I mean in uh, fifty eight truck, the first guy was hanging himself. Right. What about the first fire? Though first fire probably was the next night. It was the next night. We we actually had a fire right down the street on Treemont and Viz. It was it was an h type top floor fire. I'm going to say it went to a ten seventy five.

It didn't get bigger than that. Uh. We had some very good companies in the area. We had eighty eight and thirty eight that was just a little bit north of US, and to the south of US we had uh eighty eighty two and thirty one. So uh, you know it was it was good area in terms of it was Dennis Smith when you were up

there in eighty two. Dennis Dennis at that time had transferred to seventy Engine and uh City Island, right he he he was still there, but it was like, you know, the last few months or something and then he was on his way over to City Island. Who was so of your bosses there in fifty eight when you were there, Uh, the first boss that I had was Captain Terry Roach. Uh. He was a real good guy. He ended up getting promoted. A lot of guys got promoted out of

that house. Uh, but Terry Roach ended up becoming a deputy chief. He was the deputy chief who actually had the Father's Day fire. Really, he was one of the chiefs at the far Father's Day Fire. Yeah. So so Terry was a deputy, he made deputy and then Citro was my other captain there before I left and went to Hasmat two good guys. I also worked with tough Timmy Alaga and Engine eighty eight because I was detailed over to eighty eight engine during my probationary period. That was one of the things

back when I got in the job. Anyone who was assigned to a truck had to first go, well not first go, but during their probationary period they had to do thirty days in each engine in their battalion. So eighty eight was in my battalion, forty five was in my battalion. So truck guys actually did sixty days and in engine companies when they had no Because the class that your brother and I got on in seventy nine, and I think

the couple of classes prior, everybody went to engines. Nobody went to trucks, right, Yeah, everyone went to any you went to to eighty first. I forgot right, right, I think, I think I think we all had in our first year show, we did a thirty day detail to

the truck. Like I just went across the floor, I went thirty two, right, So I was kind of the opposite and then after a year you could put a transfer paper in if I were openings, and back then there were, uh, there was a decent amount of openings because guys were retiring, you know, with the influx new guys. They felt like, all right, you know, we passed the torch for a year to you guys. You know, I'm retiring now. So it was easy to get to the truck. We had a thirty day detail and it was just to

a truck in the Italian So they were hurt. They were hurting for guys in in trucks. H when I was in probably school because the women were holding up so many classes that the fire department was severely shorthanded, really shorthanded. So who was your senior A lot of my class went to engine companies, but the guys didn't go to trucks. They were all ordered to go spend thirty days in every engine in their jurisdiction. Who was your senior?

Man? There Philly in fifty eight we had that was a very senior house camp. One of the things that when I first started, I gotta tell you, I felt incredibly safe because I actually sat down and figured it out and there was one tour when I was working. There was one hundred and twenty one years of experience on the truck with me going out the door. So you had guys who had a lot a lot of time. There was

a few guys who were on promotion lists, so they were studying. They were hard workers, they did good fire duty, so I really felt safe in that firehouse. Yeah, those guys there, if you were at a fire and you were in a jam, those are the guys you wanted to be with because there was they had so much experience, so much fire. I would say the same thing in the squad, but I don't want to really blow up his head, you know, So I don't know. I'm

not going to see it. What was tough Timmy like Phil, that guy's name comes up all the time on the showf tough to me. When I first went over to be detailed into that firehouse, my first day over there, I ran into him and he said, look, he says, you're in my group for the next thirty days. He said, you can't make any mutuals. He said, you have to work with me every tour. He says, there's no other way for me to evaluate you. If you're

making mutuals. I can't evaluate. You've got to be with me every day. And I'm going to tell you he's a great fire officer. He would get into the thick of everything. And you know, he was an older guy he at the time, and he could keep up with any twenty year old. He was playing hockey with UH with UH some of the fire department hockey teams and stuff like that. And he was a good fire officer, smart, sharp, UH, tough, you knew stuff exactly, hence the

name tough. You don't get to I seen him. I seen him once, No kidding, I seen him once. We were going into a job and they were trying event windows. I don't know for whatever reason he did, but he took his glove off for some reason, and he was punching the windows out with his hand. When I was over, his hand looked like U a piece of raw meat, and h the chief said to him, Timmy, you gotta go sick. And he said, he says, I'm not going sick. Tell these guys to put a band aid on it.

I'm going back to the firehouse. Put his hand looked like a piece of Why did he take off his glove. Why don't you leave? You guys have no idea. You gotta punch the window. I have no idea why he did. I I think get the radio or something like that. And then he sees he needed to get the window. And because he's tough, that's why. Maybe he thought the glove had too much cushioning and it wouldn't break the glass. Yeah, you know, yeah he was. He

was an amazing guy. Wow. All right, So let's talk about how they decided to come up because Rescue four he used to do hasback for the job, right, Yes, so you're getting how it was people were doing has back first before. Here's what happened. There was an incident that happened on the George Washington Bridge. There was a propane truck that was going northbound on the George Washington Bridge. It was an M seat three point thirty propane

tank. It was carrying nine thousand gallons of liquified propane. And what happened was the relief device on the container. It's normally designed to open and vent to the air, okay, and when when the pressure goes down, the springloaded pressure relief device reseats closes and then on its way, it keeps going. Here's what happened. The springloaded pressure relief device goes to vent, it's venting for a sufficient amount of time and it freezes in the open position.

So now they have leaking propane coming out of a thing on a continuous basis. Big problem. So they stopped traffic on the George Washington Bridge going south as far as Trenton, New Jersey, and it's backed up that that's going north, and then on the southbound side, it's backed up from Bridgeport, Connecticut all the way to the George Washington Bridge. So now what happens. It takes almost a full eight hours for them to figure out what to do.

Okay, so they fixed the leak. After that, the federal government says to the fire department, look, you can't allow this to continue. You have to get a haz mat team. You have to get a has met team. So you know how the fire department is. It's two hundred years a tradition, unimpeded by progress, and because of that, they don't really want to get a has met team. So they decide that you know,

Rescue two, Rescue one is doing diving operations. Rescue three is going to do collapse, and we're going to assign Rescue four to do has met Okay, So Rescue four is doing asthma. They're doing it for two years. They decide to make it a two vehicle operation. They add additional people to rescue for staffing so that they can staff the company. Now it becomes a two vehicle response. And what ends up happening is they're spending so much

time out of the borough of Queens. Okay that Donaldmannus, who's the and says enough of this. He goes to the city and says, look, he says, my rescue company that's supposed to be in my borrow is spending way too much time out of the borough. They're on colls fortween and four hours out of the borough. And we have a fire in Queens. We have no rescue company in Queens. You got to do something else. So the fire department decides and they come up with a plan. Well, we're

going to make a separate rescue company, a separate HASMAG company. So Ray Brown at the time he was uh, he was the captain of Rescue one for a while. You remember that Hank ray Brown was his name. There be for you but anyway, Brown he said he was Gray Brown was was captain of what did you say? He was captain of rescue one at one,

and then they made him the chief of Rescue services. So what ends up happening is this, they decided to make a separate hazmat unit and they're going to put them in Queen's and Maspeth, and they're going to put them right on the l I E. So they can they can run the they can run the l I E, they can run the b QUA, they can go in a lot of different directions. So it's the strategic decision was to put them in the quarters of two eighty eight. Anyway, Yes,

they had an open bay. And what was going to be unique about this company was that it wasn't going to be staffed for twenty five firefighters. It was going to be staffed for thirty five firefighters. Because the company staffing was not going to be five firefighters in an officer. It was going to be

seven firefighters in an officer. And uh, the company was going to have three lieutenants who uh were field lieutenants, one captain, and they were going to have one administrative officer to manage all of this, so they had a lieutenant as administrative officer, three lieutenants for field work along with the captains.

So let me let me stop you one minute. So when Rescue four was responding on HASBAT runs because as we know has that, you know you have two entry guys, two backup guys, a resource guy, de contact, right, what was how are they set up then? Because they only had what five guys? No? No, no, the Rescue four actually tiet more guys to staff the company because here remember we were just talking about federal requirements and and why they why they uh? Why the uh stare uh?

The amount of training was changing. Well, the federal requirements were saying that if you have a hazardous materials response team, you have to have a two man entry team, a two man backup team, you have to have a two man decon team. And what a lot of departments were doing was they wanted a resource person who could look up information about the chemicals, take that

information, report it to headquarters. And so before rod with seven guys at the time, then yes, yes, they were riding with they were riding with seven. Now what what what ended up happening is you know John Dillon, the Duke. Most people know who I'm talking about. If you know

anything about rescue for, you know about to do well. The Duke and a number of the rescue four guys had had actually designed a new second piece for them, okay, and that second piece was going to carry all of their hazmat equipment, all of their regular rescue equipment was going to be on their first piece. But what ended up happening is when they decided to make the new hazmat unit. Now they made they made Hazmat Rescue five and a five nine battalion, all on the same day, All on the same day,

those three units were created, okay. And what they did was this, John Dillon and those guys were worked really hard designing that second piece. The day that it was supposed to be delivered to them, it was taken away from them and given to the guys and has Mat You're with me as their new first piece. They were pissed. You get where I'm coming from, right, because your original second piece was an engine right, Yes, yes, our original first piece was actually designed as rescue for as secies You

with me? Oh so that make good relations with you and rescue for Yes, Well, you know what but you see, but I'm going to tell you what the problem was. There. There were some guys in rescue for who didn't want to do has Matt, and there were other guys in rescue for who did want to do has Matt. So you had a divided company who was who was kind of upset at the way they were being treated,

And quite honestly, they weren't really being treated fairly. I mean, you know, they went to all of that work and research and development, and you know, politics, politics was the deciding fact. Right. They had to go away to school, they had to go to the EPA schools, they had to go to National Fire Academy schools, and those kind of things turned some of the guys in the company off, you know, other guys

other guys. That's it. That's the piece right there. Right. So what what ended up happening is over time, some of those wounds healed a little bit, you know, like uh, John Dillon and me would talk all the time. Uh. He was still a lot of those guys, like Mike Milner, all of them, Uh, they still took Hasmack classes. They went and and and they they were all skilled Hasmac guys. You

know, It wasn't like they were uh they were not. Now some of the guys from Rescue for left there and came over to Hazmat So that's how that's how the initial transition happened. Right when let's go back to how did they put that on an order? Guys who want to go to has matt and you saw it? What they did. What they did was this they they they put out on an order. They said, look, we're going to start a new unit. It's gonna be Hazardous Materials Company one. This

is what you're gonna do. Yeah, anyone who's interested call this number. So they had one hundred and twenty six people called who were interested. Every one of those people were interviewed. Now, at the time, they were only going to take they were only going to take first grade fireman to come to the unit, okay, And what happened was every one of the one hundred and twenty five were interviewed. Joe Gallagher, who was going to be the captain, he did some of the interviews. Joe Buell, who came

from Rescue three, he did some of the interviews. Al Jordan he did some of the interviews, and the captain did some of the interviews, and what they did was they whittled the list down to thirty five people. Okay, those thirty five ended up going to the Division of Training, and they

went there for six weeks of training. Now they were being taught by guys rescue for and from those company officers Jack Calderone, Al Jordan and Joe Buell, Joe Gallagher, and they were taught for six weeks about what these guys had learned at the National Fire Academy. Then six weeks later, everybody goes to the firehouse and we walk into the firehouse and it was like, remember

when you guys came and kind of like took over things. Yeah, the situation when has Matt got there and two eighty eight was there, they didn't want any part of this, and all of a sudden, now they're being invaded by thirty five guys. Thirty five new guys in the firehouse. They had taken over the firehouse. So it was the same. It was the same kind of deal. So let me ask you a quick questions. You were a first grade how'd you get over there? What you weren't first grade?

How did you get over there? No? No, The reason they took me. Is because I was an operating engineer before I came into the New York City Fire Department. I was able to run power plants and heavy equipment and knew how it worked and operated and stuff like that. I could go into a steam generating plant or an electrical power plant and know what had to be on and what had to beyond. So were you Were you the junior guy then? One? I was a junior guy, That's right.

I was. I was. I was only a third grade fire and when they took me, that's right. If I may ask a question, I was, I was? I was the tidy bowl planer. What's the question, Mikey, I canna say those early days eighty four, eighty five, eighty six, there's a lot that we didn't know back then about HASMAT, and a lot of it also was rooted in everyday use of certain chemicals, like, for example, our frigerators retained retain certain chemicals that are normal in

certain dosages. So for you, this is a two part question. One the growing pains both personally and as a company, and two what were the early missions and goals of the unit? Okay, first things first, the federal laws and regulations that regulated has MAT and HASMAT training did not become effective until nineteen eighty six. The Super Fund Amendments and Reauthorization Act was actually in nineteen eighty six that mandated training, and the training that was mandated greatly expanded

what we had to do in terms of training. But here's the problem. We're coming from a department that's one hundred and twenty five years of tradition, unimpeded by progress. It is heavily, heavily entrenched in tradition. So we're going to start this new company in the fire department that totally goes against everything that we've ever been taught. The guys in the fire department are taught an

aggressive interior attack, that's the way we fight fires. The guys in has matter being told WHOA, Yes, we're not going to go in there and go ape shit crazy until we see what we got to deal with. So the written protocols and procedures for firefighting were one hundred and eighty degree difference from what the protocols and procedures were being taught for hazmat personnel. And that's at the federal, state, and local level. So now we're having a company

that's being taught contrary to what the department believes. Okay, you're with me, Mike. So in terms of growing pains, every time that we had a problem or an issue, we're dealing with chief officers or people high up in the ranks who don't see things from the same point of view as we

do. And not only don't they see things from the same point of view as we do, but they're also not trained or educate to understand the federal regulations and the federal requirements that say this is what you have to do. And just let me give you one simple example. When we first started, we were in the four six battalion. We were in the four six battalion man power pot. So anytime that we didn't have enough staffing, they would

want to send us a person from the four six battalion pool. But when they sent us a guy, if they sent us an untrained guy, we would send him right back to the battalion and the battalion would go crazy and say, you can't send him back, And we're saying to the battalion, you can't send them here because the federal law requires that the people who fill these positions have to be trained to certain levels. You with me, yes, So it became one of the toughest jobs in the fire department. Was

the delegate for Hazmat won Do you know why? Why was that? It was he had to fight an issue every day. And when I say this, every day, if you were to delegate in an engine company or in a truck company, you had literally one hundred people who've seen things from your perspective. Okay, when you were in a rescue company, you had at least five delegates who've seen things from your perspective. When you were in Hasmat, you were the only person who's seen things from your perspective. The chiefs

didn't understand. Sometimes the company offices didn't understand, and push came to shove on many occasions when you talk in terms of growing pains. So I hope that kind of answers your question. It does, and it prompts a follow up. Naturally, over the course of a company's evolution and growth, there is not amongst you guys, but amongst outside observers the oh that's why they're

here moments, you know. So, where did you start to feel that that respect factor was coming in and chiefs or any other officers for that matter, started to say it these scenes collectively, Okay, that's why we need them. Time. And when I say a long time, I'm going to say it took I'm going to be legitimately recognized in the job. Probably took over ten years. And I'm not saying that there were some people who recognized right away, but it took a long time. It took a long time

for people to understand it. Hey wait a second, this is a completely different perspective. But you know what You've got to remember too, we were the new kids on the block, and the new kids on the block. It's like, I'm sure that Rescue five, which was created on the same day as us, how to go through a lot of growing pains out in Staten Island because companies out there were dealing with fires and stuff long before Rescue five was even established out there. You know what I'm saying, how would

you like to be an engine company operate as a rescue company? Right right? Well, one thing I would like to say, you know, to back up what Phil said is that it did probably take, in most people's eyes that were in the fire department a while for them to be accepted or get the the you know, realize what they did. And listen, I was one of them, I know when when they when I saw that come

about the Hasmat, I wanted nothing to do with that. I was having a great time doing those aggressive interior attacks fighting fires, and then you know, later on doing all the other stuff that the that the rescues did. I think where I got at least a much greater respect for what the guys in Hasma did was when when we became a squad and we had to do all that training and all the different level suits and and the dexterity you know

what. I'm glad you brought that up, Pat, I mean I want to yet, well again, listen, it's still it wasn't my favorite thing to have to do, but at that point I knew that was one of my tasks if I was asked to do it, So I was, like

anything else, I was going to train and become good at it. But it was definitely, uh, you know when you had to get those lets you know, lel level as it was, I mean it was daunting, uh with the you know, the hand out, yeah, you know, and and and you know, making sure something's not ripped I mean, it was just so many things to think about and to try to do in these spacesuits that you had no dexterity. It was, you know, it was

definitely challenging. You know, you bring up such a great point, and and I just would like to if you guys are okay with this, I'd like to just expand on what what Hank mentioned for a second. You know, that was probably the turning point, Hank, when when all his terrorism stuff started and we started to train all of the rescue companies and the CPC

trucks and the decontructs. What we did was we created what was called the tiered response, where we trained people to different levels, but we brought all of the companies out to the Rocky. We taught them about the capabilities and limitations of wearing chemical protective clothing. We taught them about decontamination. We made everybody get in the suit. And when I say we made everybody, every

chief in Soccer had to get in a suit. Every chief in the safety Operating Battalion, any chief who was ever going to operate in the safety operating battalion how to get into chemical protective suits. And they had to go through a task oriented obstacle course where they had to climb over things, they had to open barrels, they had to do with a one person drag or two person drag, a four person carry, and you had to do all of that and complete all of that on one bottle of air. And if you

ran out of air, you failed the course. Well, I'm going to tell you something. We had one chief he went through the thing. He failed the course and he said, he said, you know, I know I failed. He says, I'm not asking hear pass me. He says, I'm going to tell you one thing though. He says, that was the toughest course I ever had in my career. And he says, I'll

tell you what he says. When I'm a safety chief. Now, if I get an incident and the incident commander thinks that he has enough guys to wear chemical protective suits to the job, I'm going to tell them, no, you need more guys. Get more guys. Because one of the reasons that we created this tiered response was when the chief officers were going through chief officer training, one of their programs that they had to take was the Hazardon

Materials program. And what we said to them was this, Look, we're going to give you a situation, and we want to know. We don't want you to say out loud, I want you to write down what you would do, okay, And this is the situation we gave them. There's an incident at Grand Central Terminal. There's people down in Grand Central Terminal. First responding units get to the scene and all of the first responding units go down. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Now?

The first thing that you have to think in your mind, Well, civilians go down and not protected. All right. Firefighters are coming in in bunker gear and they're going down. So what is that telling you about their protective clothing? It's not adequate for the task in hand. Okay, So who are we gonna call? Well, at the time there was only one has met. How many people are getting in suits? Well, according to protocol, you have a two man entry, two man backup, and you

have two decons. So you're gonna have two guys go in for literally one hundred people down, a full first alarm assignment down. How long is it gonna take them to get people out? Quite a bit long time? Understand the concept? Yeah, Now, now the job is in panic mode because they see the incident that happened in Tokyo and they're saying to themselves, we can't expect Hasmat to do this, and we're we're certainly not going to add

more victims to the situation if we have if we have guys. So the solution is we got to train everybody in special operations to wear chemical protective clothing. Now, when we train guys, we have a lot of great people in in sock. And I'm not knocking anyone, but I am saying this, guys developed a more healthy respect for Hazmat because some of the guys were a bit closer FORWICK and they didn't like suits. No way, no how. But now I gotta go in a suit. I have to go in

an unfamiliar environment. I have to go in and I have to physically work hard. I am going to be huffing and puffing because I got to hump people out of this scene. Then they understand how difficult it is to wear chemical protectives. And I know every guy that's listening right now, I can tell every guy that's listening, if you've never been in the level A suit, you have no clue what it's like man, And if it's like an eighty degree or eighty five degree day. Yeah, and you know what.

The other thing that that made me realize this was the real deal. You remember the training that was part of the training was where we had to give ourselves different shots like in the thought. Yeah, I'm like, you know, with those injectable things. I said, well, if they're teaching us this, you know we're gonna be getting you know, we might be getting too some bad ship at some time, you know, Yes, what's out

for sludge them? When I went to the Army Chemical Warfair School and I was working with Saren the uh, I'm working with it in a in a room that's not contaminated, but there's a medical team standing right outside the room in case something goes wrong. And they have a needle that's about this big, all right, that they're gonna inject into my heart if I go down. And before I even went the room, I had a sign a disclaimer

holding the Army harmless if anything I was killed or died. So, Phil, let me answer your question from the time that has thatt one was developed, when did the thought process start to begin about building this tiered system because I mean the squads and the engines came later, right, So so a lot of this stuff, a lot of this stuff started when say Ern von

Essen were the commissioners. Uh, the Tokyo Saren incident was like a wake up call to everybody because they looked at that, that incident and you know, fourteen people died in that incident, But they also looked at that and said, you know, if that happened in New York City here, what do we What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do if we have a ton of people go down. We can't say, as the New York City Fire Department that we can't get them. We're never gonna say we

can't get them. We're always going to say we're going to get them, and and and how do we make that happen? How do we make that happen? And you know, like part of the chief development course was that we wanted guys to understand that that we have to change the way we think. You know, we don't have to tell chiefs, We don't have to tell people how to fight fires in New York City. Our guys are great at that, great all right. Second to none, But we get those

situations and they're not They don't happen often. We get those situations where we're out of our element. Okay, and has met used to be is no longer, but used to be one of those situations where we were out of our element. Today because of the way we've trained Sock and the companies in SOCK, I don't think. I don't think that that we can't meet the

challenge. I think that everybody in SoC today can meet just virtually any challenge that's placed upon us, whether it be diving, whether it be collapse operations, whether it be fires, whether it be medical incidents, whether we can meet all of that stuff because we've trained our people to the point where they are so good at their job and they're so intelligent at their job. And

not only that, but they have the they have the skills. They do not only have the knowledge, but they have the skills to perform all of those functions and goog the job and do it safely and not get hurt. Right. So I think the best part was to fill The greatest thing was having the chief go through those courses because even heck, even when we used to show up or something they were like, Dad, no idea, what the ropes well with the systems, with the idea of our capabilities. Oh

that robe, I'm not putting it up keV. You know one of the reasons. One of the reasons that I I said that, you know, like when when von Essen came to me and he said, he said, look, he says, you're going to make the chiefs do this stuff. He says, some of these chiefs in fifty years. I says, look, how can they how can they supervise guys if they don't know what the guys are going through. I said, you know, it's very easy to

say, just have the guys keep working in there. No, no, no, I want you to go through the physical stress that they have to go through so you can understand. You know, you get to the scene of an emergency, Hey we need more resources here, what are you talking about? We need more resources? We got a full first lam assignment. This is not enough for the task at hand. You know what I'm saying, Well that they didn't even know what our capability these were quite honestly,

that's right, that's right. But you know what the safety chief the safety chiefs and all the sock chiefs who went through this training. Those guys were smart guys. They knew right away. They they recognized what the problem was when when we had a mess incident where we have a lot of people down and we have firefighters going down and bunker gear. These guys know exactly what

to do, right. That was the same problem that any of the what became Sock companies had before Sock, which was kind of what thirteen David came in because right as things became more specialized, whether it was asthmat, diving, high rope, confined space, a lot of the chiefs had never experienced any of that stuff right and and I think a lot of times they were they would take a step back because if they didn't understand the capabilities, they

didn't want want to put guys in harm's away when they didn't understand it. So, you know, all had to go through and at least see some of these things. I think it helped tremendously for the whole you know, the whole aspect of Sock in the fire department. I'm going to tell you something, Hank, and you bring up another great point. There was a Captain John. His last name began with an m I forget it, but he was in thirteen David. He came from rescue one. Oh remember when

the kid fell down the shaft. Remember when the kid fell down the shaft and the water tunnel in the Bronx. Yes, yes, the nine year old kid he was playing in he was playing in the water tunnel in the Bronx, fell down the shaft. We had to go down to the manifold in the Bronx, take a seven and a half ton cap off the manifold and we had to repel down one hundred and seventy five feet and then walk a few miles to get the body. That's what we had to do.

Huge operation, right if it wasn't for thirteen David there we went had to fire him. A fatality at that job. Because I'll tell you what was happening. They were hooking up on ropes to repel down to get him, and Billy Quick was one of the guys who was going to repel down. Now Billy is straddling the chef that he's going to go down, repell down one hundred and seventy five feet, and just as he's getting ready to put over his foot, the Captain Neill stop stop, stop stop. Billy wasn't

tied off. The only person and there must have been fifty guys standing around watching what's going on. The only person who's seen that was the captain from thirteen David, whose job it was to make sure they were doing everything safely. Nobody else seen that, right, right, somebody put up John Moran, But I don't think it was John Moran. I know it was entirely. He was a He was a lieutenant and rescue one and then he became

a captain thirteen days and then he became the captain. But actually thirteen thirteen David was made up of captains, and then what they did was they made a Rescue Services Battalion, and then they made a Hazarmount Operations Battalion, and then it all became chief offices. Right, So in the beginning, that's what it was, thirteen David. Let me let me ask you something, Phil because going back to you know, like how things started, I was

always and you were in the inner circle there with the hazmat stuff. So maybe you can either either confirm or deny. I was always under the assumption that the ninety three bombing planted the seeds for like the squads and further further moneies for terrorism because of that ninety three bombing, because it actually we had terrorism on our shores there and it hit us in New York and that kind of was the impetus to it kind of started making it kind of started.

It kind of started the ball rolling. And one of the things that a lot of people you know, no, but don't really know, is that, you know, we have something that's rather unique in New York City when you compare it to the rest of the country. And let me tell you what that is. We have foreign governments that are enemies of ours, that

have embassies and consulates in New York City that go to the UN. So we have people from Cuba and the Cuban mission here, we have people from the Arab countries that are here, and because of that, we have over five hundred protected visits every year. In other words, people from foreign countries coming here that people want to kill, okay, And because we have so much of that and so much un dignitary protection here, it makes us a

huge, huge target. And the ninety three bombing is just a perfect example of what you're talking about, Hank. You you look at the number of resources that were tied up for the ninety three bombing, and you know, it gave people an idea of what to do. You know, we top of one of these buildings here, what's it going to be like for these people to get back in business? And that's that's what it's about. That's what it's about. It's about getting back in And the name that we were

the name we were searching for is John Serato. That's it. That's the time. Serrato saved Billy Quick's life. He saved his life. He saved his life. Getting back what you were just saying, Hank, You know, like we one of the things with all of this stuff was that if we didn't do some of the things that we were doing to prepare ahead of time, we really would have been in trouble. You know. Ninety the ninety three bombing was like a wake up call. It was basically saying,

you know what, you guys have to do more. And we realized that we have to do more. And one of the things that came out of the ninety three bombing that a lot of people don't realize was the USAR teams, the urban Search and Rescue teams from FEMA. They were created around that same time, and it was this was the reason they were created. When you look at the Oklahoma City bombing, Okay, and we went to the Oklahoma City bombing. Our task was, but you have a community it is

so devastated by the event. Now, how do they function? How does their fire department function, how does their police, their ems function? Well, what the female USAR teams was created to do. That was part of what was called the National Response Plan ESF nine Emergency Support Function nine, which

was USA. The USA teams were created to go into a jurisdiction and now help the community, the local community deal with that event so that their local police and local fire could back get back to the business and taken care of the normal every data fires, the normal everyday crime, the normal everyday ams. Our job was going to be to go in control, manage, and recoup from that event. And that's basically why do U SAW teams were created.

A lot of it had to do with nine to eleven And basically you mean the ninety three bombing, Yes, the ninety three bombs, So a lot of that, Yeah, there was a lot of There was a lot of stuff on the table between ninety three and two thousand and one in terms of that, Yes, and each time as challengers came up, we met those challenges. You know, the ninety three bombing happened, the Tokyo incident

happened. We looked at that. We looked at that seriously and said, what if that happens in New York, what are we going to do? And and and how are we going to respond to them? And didn't the military? Yes, I remember the Seabirth team coming to the Rock one time. Yes, when and when we observed them, and I mean like young

kids, but they were you know, Marines or whatever. What they were like boom boom boom they you know, they were what they What they did, Hank, was the Sea Birth was a unit out of the Marine Corps. And basically what they were coming in to do was do very similar to what we did with our tear response, create a group of guys who could go in and drag people out and then decont them and and un lessen the

impact of the event on those people, you know what I'm saying. So so yeah, between what the federal government was doing and we were doing, we were kind of on the same page, we were on the same page with that. If I may, I was going to say, even without terrorism incidents, there's an opportunity with each incident to kind of look at operations

and essentially rewrite the playbook. You had an MCI in nineteen ninety one with the Uton Square derailment, and operations were going on with tools that dispersed chemicals that made first responders on the scene sick. To your point earlier about guys going down that are entering to rescue those who were initially injured. Nineteen ninety four, Edward Leary lets off the fire bomb on the fore train. Now that wasn't as big an ins as ninety one, but another collective opportunity to

look at the manual and rewrite things. So even without terrorism being on the forefront of your mind, just with general MCIs where there is a hazmat risk like ninety one and ninety four, how did you guys look at that and how much tinkering, if anything, was done to the collective playbook at the time. Well, well, I think that when you look at all of this stuff, it wasn't really time to catch your breath, because, uh,

when you look all of these incidents. You know how long it takes to change a policy or procedure, Okay, and that usually takes a long time. So what ends up happening in a situation like this, We're having one problem occur right on top of another problem before we have time to write a new procedure, test a new procedure, and implement the new procedure. Does that make sense? Yes, you know, so there's there was a lot of times where like, uh, I'm not going to say we were

flying by the seat of our pants, because we were. We were we were following doctrine, we were we were following all the protocols that we knew, and we were anticipating what was coming next, you know what I'm saying. And as a result of doing all of that, like I mean, you know, we didn't wait for a Tokyo Sarah incident to occur in the

United States. That incident happened, and then we were already on the drawing board looking at how we're gonna how we're gonna deal with that kind of situation if it happened to you, But you want to that's that's happening today right now with Again, now I'm not talking Sarah or Anthrax. But you look at it, but it is has Matt fire related the lithium ion batteries,

the same thing. There's no playbook on that. We're writing the playbook as we go along, right right, right, you know, Yeah, that's Mass doing a lot of work now, Philly Max doing a lot of running warriors. Yeah, it's there, that's true. You know, it's like that is the next big thing in the fire service because you know it's going to be how to extinguish and contain these type of fires. Right, you got guys like Paulie Rodgers from York has Matt one that's out there and like

the head of the spear kind of stuff. But you know, but it's the same scenario brought up about things getting thrown at you. We're actually involved in these things and there is no playbook and we're kind of you know, right. And and the other thing is too that that we've developed so well in Sock And I'll give you a perfect example. We have a we have a collapse or a confined space event. The main key players in those types

of events for us is Rescue one and Rescue three. They go in there to do what has to be done, stabilize the area, get victims and stuff like that. Who supports that hazmat comes in, They do air monitoring, make sure that there's no gas leaks, make sure it's safe for them to work. And the way that even even like on the USA teams, when the hazmat goes like to an Oklahoma City bombing, what is the hazardmat specialist on the scene for. He's there for force protection. Force protection means

you make sure it's safe so that everybody else can do their job. Make sure there's no contaminants there that are going to hurt people. Make sure there's no contaminants there that are going to get people sick. Make sure there's something's not going to explode or kill somebody. So when when Hasman is operating,

people support us. When other people are operating, we support them, and and and we have such a good system in New York City now, but it took it took time to develop that system, and and and you know what, it gets better every every day because you have guys who who like I'll just use diving as an operation as a perfect example. You have guys in the New York City Fire Department who are skilled divers. Okay, those skilled divers are always going to be there because these guys love diving, They

know their shit. They do it on a regular basis. Not just only are working, but when they're diving. Okay, now, who supports them? Every body else? Everybody else supports them. And that's just the way the system is right now. But the system is built very well. But another reason, in my opinion, why FDNY has gotten so good at all these specialty things is because we used to do some of this stuff with no

funding. Right, we go into our own pockets to buy a regulator or you know, like we always say, it always takes a tragedy, right, get somewhere, And it took after nine eleven the floodgates opened up with funding. So when you have the funding to do training and get all the right equipment, it makes you job that much better and your skills that much better. Yeah, and you know what, the federal government now realizes that

New York City is a number one target for every terrorist organization. Why because we have so much infrastructure here. We have to stop market here, We have the u N here, we have we have more religious institutions here than anywhere else in the world. So all the stuff is here. All the stuff is here. If New York has a problem and the emergency responds, people in New York can't handle it. We're in deep trouble. And don't

just get the bridges, the tunnels, the subway. It's like that infrastructure. Just just just look and and and and I hate to deviate from the subject, but let's let's just look at the Port of Baltimore right now. It's a perfect example. You don't think the terrorists look at that bridge situation and and say to themselves that's the perfect thing that we could do and and cause a major problem. But absolutely, hijack a ship, run it right

into a bridge that's vulnerable, not shut down. They shut that bridge down right right, that's right middle the middle of the middle of Russia hour or something. People people were killed, luckily it was it was you know, it was late at night, but they could I mean that caused death. It caused a great financial you know issue, you know, great issues. So yeah, it has all of all the variables that they're looking for. Yeah, if you'll get back to when they started the squads, Like when

did that idea the concept first start, Like was it. Oh. I. I think part of the reason they wanted the squads was because we needed to add to that tid response and that component, you know, and and and and part of part of uh getting the squads, from von Essen's perspective,

I think was too Uh. If the right we only had five rescues, and you know, you know, with with with fires in the city and all other jobs, they could easily be tied up up at other jobs if we had some type of major event and didn't have enough units to respond. You're with me, yeah. In other words, Rescue one could be at an auto accident on the side highway or something like that, Rescue four could be doing some kind of BS and queens, and and Rescue three could

be at something. What happens if all of the rescue companies are tied up. We needed to have something as a backup for the rescue companies. And and you know, here's the other thing, keV too. When you make these special units. If you make special units and you don't have work for them to do, how do you how are you going to return personnel? You have to keep them interested. You have to give them jobs and opportunities

where they're going to enjoy going to work. If you go to work and you sit around all day and do absolutely nothing, I mean, number one, you're not productive. But number two, guys who were really into the job and stuff motivated, And it's hard for a boss to keep his guys motivated, right right, I mean, you know, there's only so much training you can do. You actually have to you have to. You have to write a response policy that includes these units and make sure they go to

events. So like, as a perfect example, when Hazmat started, you know, what are we gonna send Hazmat to. Well, we're gonna sign him to all airpot boxes. Why are we going to sign them to the airport boxes. Well, if we have a crash, there's gonna be fuel lare. If there's gonna be fuel layre, there needs to be a haz Matt unit there because of fuel. You get where I'm coming from. You when we create the squads, what kind of work are we going to give?

Well, if the rescue companies are tied up on a job or if they have a ten to seventy five, let's make sure that they get involved in that. If we have an incident in Grand Central Terminal where we have a lot of firefighters go down and bunker gear. We need those units to respond in from everywhere to assist as CPC companies and and and get in there

and help out. You know what I'm saying, because I think originally what they said was that they were just going to make them has that units, right, and then they're like, well, we're not going to get guys to go there. So that's when they said, well, that's right, that's right, that's right. It doesn't make sense because you know what, we're there for the waffs all the time. You know, it's it's easy to go to fires all the time. It's much much harder to go to

jobs that only occur once in a blue moon. Yep, you know it really is. We got a hanky. Well, yes, that is correct. In order to recruit guys to the new squads, they had to make

it appealing you. You had to have a good sales pitch, right myself included when when I was asked from Dennis to come over, it's like, well, we're gonna be doing You're gonna have you're doing has Matt, And I was like, you know, like if you know, I said, I'm not you know that's not everybody's cup of tin, correct, But but you're gonna do everything that a resting company is doing, except you're trading to

dive in for the has mat. So to me it was like, okay, so I'm gonna learn another skill and like Phil said, you're not doing it all the time, but when it happens, you got you got. You have to be on top of your game. You know you're not gonna sit there, you come up your ass because you don't know what you're doing. You got to do the training. But to keep my interest, I'm still gonna go to fires and I'm gonna go to collapses and I'm gonna go to the high angle rope. So so it was for me it was like

a win win right right. I think said you're gonna work with Kobland too, So I mean, here's the other thing they had. You know, it's not like you know, when a guy has time on the job,

you might want to slow down a little bit. And but you know, and I go to get a specialty skill like a has mat, or you're going to go out to a to a slower compan andy that's still getting some work, but they're not doing all the running and stuff, but like a squad where they were gonna be bringing in all you knuckleheads that had three years on the job and you're all young guys and all, you know, chopping

at the bit, you know, in the starting gate. So you know, they were able to say, well, we can recruit these guys in. We're gonna we're gonna give them all the stuff they want to do because they're still gonna go to fires and we're gonna get some longevity out of them because they're young, right, So you know, and if that was the thought process, it worked, because yeah, because the squads, they they they happened. Yeah, and there's always some growing pains, you know,

just like the has Matt and everything else. You know, But now that it's you know what twenty five, twenty six years and they've all established themselves and what they can do and and uh and and the city has the the has Matt personnel with all the training beyond the squads now with with the has Matt engines and that, you know, so the city has what they need in the event there is a big has Man incident, you know, or

you know, golf. But I mean, you look how far it's come and just a short amount of time just from the house five rescues to what you know, the whole sock has not battalion, socc battalion, all the squads, all the rescues, all the CPCs. It's tremendous and credit to the city, you know, I mean, this was this was not an easy thing to put all of this together. I mean it really really really took a lot, a lot. Yes, it is a credit to the

city, yes, but I'm not giving them that much. It's it's a necessity for the city, like you said, number one target for terrorism, and shame on the City of New York if they don't have the find and make the training available to those emergency service personnel that needed because the civilians that count on them, you know, if they don't, if they don't have

the training, what you call them ghostbusters. Not so those you know, F D, P D, E, M S. They all need to have the proper training for when that incident and you know, I hate to say it, but not for if it occurs when it occurs. Right right now, I was gonna ask you, what do you see? What do you see coming next? Phil? What what would you say in your in

your experience. I think I think that it's not us up to us, Kevin, it's up to it's up to like the guys, like the terrorists, because they look at they look at how cities prepare for what they're doing.

They have very good planners. Terrorists are very good planners. They they they they understand military applications, they stand strategy, they understand tactics, and they look at what people are doing and they look for weaknesses in the system and see how to exploit those, and and and and what what we do

in New York is we look at what happens around the world. We do we look at what happens around the world, and if we see something significant, somebody in New York City, whether it be in the police department, whether it be in Office of Emergency Management, whether it be in a fire department, somebody looks at that and says, what do we have to do to be prepared for that? And we do it. We do it, we do it. We figure out a way to do it and make it

work. And like Hank said, one of the biggest problems was funding to do all of these things. But today, under the current situation, I think when we can show that we actually have a vulnerability that's worth going after or being prepared for, somehow they find the money, order resources to give us the tools and equipment and knowledge we need to do that job. So do you think that they had any clue as to terrorist hijacking three fucking jets

and taking down two buildings? Do you think that was even on their radar? Or I don't know if that was on their radar. But you know what, after the ninety three bombing, they should have said to themselves, look, we see what they're trying to do here. They're trying to take down a building and make it, make it a major catastrophe. Now where did they try and take down the building by taking that? Not in Chicago, not in another place. They tried to do it in New York.

They tried to do it at the Foundation, They tried to do it in the Wall Street area. So you have to say to yourself, this is what they're shooting for. In twenty ninety three, in two thousand and one, they were successful in going for something that they're drying. He listen, just a sidebar, and I've talked about this before. You know, I worked with Ronnie book Or and Rescue one. And Ronnie, you know, was in Delta Force and then when he went to the reserves, he was

in the Army Intelligence. And after the ninety three bombing, I remember him coming to quarters. He didn't work that day, but he came to quarters that night because at that point he was a fire marshal because remember he had fallen five stories off the fire escaping to his back and stuff, so he really couldn't do the firefighting anymore, but he didn't want to leave the job, and he sat in quarters and he told us, he said, he said, there's this group called al Qaeda, and you know the we're trying

to get the powers to be to listen to us. And he said, this group, if they go after a target and they didn't accomplish what they wanted to do, which in ninety three was knock that building over, he said, they will come back and attack that same target at their convenience. And eight years later they did, and Ronnie was one of the only fire marshal that went up in the building and got killed. So they know it was known. It was just that it was falling upon deaf ears at that

time. Austin EDGs in the sand, and they didn't want to hear it, or they didn't want to hear it from certain people because how do they know? You know, But it wasn't it wasn't like it was, you know, because people didn't know about it. Well to your point about that, Hank, there there's a story and this was verified. So two years later Ramsey usaid who orchestrated that bombing, gets caught in Pakistan. They bring him back the night he's brought back by FBI escort in a helicopter. They

had a blindfold over him. They take off the blindfold. This is nineteen ninety five, and they point to the towers and say, see they're still standing sarcastically to Ramsey. Ramsey has a six smile on his face and looks them and says, all I needed was a little bit more money and a little bit more time and I would have brought him both down. Sure enough. Six years after that conversation, what happened? Mm hmm, Yeah, Hey, Phil, did you when you went all part of where the squads

were located? Was that the did you? I didn't have any saying that. No, So why did they picked two eighty two eight with Hasmad in it. Uh, you got many Uh you know what I think they were trying to do with the time cap. They were trying to make it easy with keeping special units together, okay, or close to each other. So two eighty eight actually was a perfect location for a squad because you already had one sock company in the firehouse. It made it easier for the command and

stuff to do that now and rescue one's case and rescue fourth case. They're single firehouses, you're not putting anybody in with them, you know what I'm saying. And you're not going to displace people who were already in some of these single fire you know, double firehouse for North Queens you had it was it was a pretty good spot. You had rescue for a little north right,

but it also gave so you had two companies responding. Plus it was a real quick as we know, keV really quick and to bet which we did get called to yes, yes, And that was that's another thing that was the reason the Hasmont was selected for that firehouse. Easy access to all the highways, right, yeah, I just take that maybe three sixteen would have been a be a spot over the Hank you know single engine, then I would have then I would have never seen you. That's right, very

good point, Phil, You know what things happened for a reason. Maybe let me ask you a question, how did you How did you prepare the guys, because I know some guys in Hasbat weren't down for it. You know, these guys coming in, you know, for for a squad coming in there with a bunch of young guys, and you know, you know what what goes around comes around. We did it to two eighty eight when they were there, you were doing it to us. It's not a big deal, you know, I mean, it is what it is. You

know. It was probably more of a big deal for the guys in two eighty eight. We didn't want to be in a squad. Yeah, they had. I'll tell you a funny story when when when and when the captain of two eighty eight found out that we were coming, he transferred really his name his name was Morgan O'Brien. O'Brien he found out as soon as as soon as he heard Hasman was coming. Somebody asked earlier, Phil, what was Hasbat's first run? Uh, it's a good one, jeesus, that's

a good question. Oh stop, I don't even know if I was working for their first run. I'm not really sure. Really, look at that picture, that picture that you have up there on the board that came from Penhouse. I will tell you this. I'm probably the only firefighter in the history of the f d n Y who went who appeared as a centerfold in Penthouse. Let's go through some of the other pictures, Mikey, Yeah,

let's pull them up that This is my favorite picture of all. Uh. Me and Larry Singletary were We were selected to take this picture for one of the magazines, and it was taken out at the rock and the guys who weren't in the picture, they were doing the fire behind us, and they were making the fire so hot that the hair on the back of mine and

Larry's next was actually singed, and we actually had it. We actually had to throw away the suits because they were no longer serviceable after this because they have melted so much. You know, two badass dudes right there. This is uh This is me down at the National Fire Academy. Uh. This was one of the classes I tore down there, Hazardous Material, tactical considerations. We had people from all over the country who would come there, and

we teach them how to wear chemical protective suits. We teach you how to handle certain you know, hasmat tools and stuff like that. This class was actually discontinued at the hazard at the National Fire Academy because they got away from hands on training down there. This was one of the last classes that did hands on training down at the Fire Academy. I heard one of the requirements for that class was they had to bring you a patch, so it looks

like you have a lot of friends there. Actually everybody grow up patches. I know, I can see them behind you. I went to I went to Russia with with Tom Harring and Chief Mayas, and we were there to

evaluate the Russian Fire Service. And when we were there, uh, we were staying in Saint Petersburg, and one of the knights that we were there, there was a fire in uh a warehouse that was on the other side of the river, across from our hotel, and me and Harry Mayas actually ran across the street and got people out of the apartment house that was adjacent to the warehouse. And uh, this is one of the officers from the Russian Fire Service actually thanking us for getting them out of the out of the

fire. These were like the many different UH types of chemical protective clothing that has Met had. Obviously, we had the Level B suits, we had the Level A suit in the middle, we had the proximity flare suits and my famous jumpsuit so much. Yeah, the dark navy blue one was in the lot line gimble Rick. Yeah and Jacquie Lie too. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So when I when I was the Health and Safety officer for the u f A, Uh, this is me talking at the annual UH

nine to eleven memorial. That'spatakis sitting there at the thing. So given my two cents, give four. Uh. This was one of the most spectacular fires that we went to. Actually, uh has Matt was actually working in Queens and when we got the call for this job, we were coming over the Throgs Neck Bridge. Now this fire is in Hunts Point, so if you know the distance between Hunts Point and the Throgs Neck Bridge, we could see this fire from the Throgs Neck Bridge. We were on the Trugs Neck

Bridge. It was pretty pretty spectacular. Guy ripped the valveof right, the kind of guy yeah yeah, yeah, And what he did was he he he ignited the whole street. I mean, the we had to go there because the the substation, the Connate substation was right next to it was on fire and they had these huge battery rooms that was producing a lot of hydrogen gas. So we actually had to go in there and and try and resolve the issue with the hydrogen gas in these things. It was a mess.

It was a pin but with something like this because i mean, after your fire department life, you had a conned life, so you know the operations of both. But like that was a high pressure gas Maine. I mean, FDNY, we can do just so much. You still need to have somebody in Kanye that knows, like where the remote shut off and stuff off.

Yeah. You know that's a good point because this fire, this fire went on for hours because it took them a tremendously long time to shut the gas off, and it was it's not just shutting the gas off, it's all the residual stuff that's in the line. It still has to burn off. I mean, you're not putting this fire out, You're just letting it burn, that's all. We had one fatality at this fire, the backo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Uh, this is every year the city has a thing, it's called the one hundred Year Association, and they give out awards to city employees who who they feel make a difference. So, uh, in ninety five I got the Outstanding City Employees. So this was stuff awards Man van Essenaire and Juliani basically a few awards. So and you had to buy the first round afterwards. Yes, this young fellow. Oh

yeah, that's graduating Provay School with my family. Uh. That's my wife on the end, my mother, my aunt in the background, my two brothers in the back, the girl up front that's my sister in law, she's an FBI agent, and my father and me in the middle. Oh FBI agent. Huh, little g woman. It will be entry a picture. We had those kind of operations all the time. So, Phil is a level A suit like having a pipe at a job. Like if you go to a level A suit, you make entry. It's not fun being

in the entry suit. One of the things that you obviously sweat a lot. It's very claustrophobic. If you're claustrophobic, it's not the area for you.

You have to know how to get yourself out of the suit. One of the things that I told people all the time was that, as a matter of fact, I had actually run a special program down at the New National Fire Academy training people you can suffocate and die in a chemical protective suit if if you get if you get separated from people and people can't get you out of the suit, and you don't know how to get out yourself, you can suffocate and die in that suit. And so it's very very important

to not put you It's like diving. When you dive, you need to be able to take your gear or off underwater and put it on underwater to make sure that you know what to do with you get snagged on something. Well, being in a chemical protective suit, you got to do exactly the same thing. You got to know you got to know how to get the suit off yourself. If you have a problem is visibility is a nightmare and

aways always a problem? Am I do I remember? Correctly? Didn't they tell us like if you had to have a pocket knife or something in there, like just like you said at the I always told people this that if you're in a chemical protective suit and you can't open the zipper for some reason, either the suit is designed where it's behind you and you can't get to

it. You have to have a means to get yourself out of the suit because if you can't get out of the suit and people, like in non line of sight operations where people can't see you, if you get stuck and you run out of air, you have a very very short window of opportunity to open that suit. Otherwise, this is what's going to happen. You run out of air inside of the suit, the first thing you're going to do is you're going to take off your mask. You got to take your

hands inside the suit. Take off your mask. Now you're going to be breathing the air inside of the suit. At some point that air is going to become oxygen deficient. You're going to start to hyperventilate. At some point, you'll hyperventilate and pass out. Once you pass out, if somebody hasn't gotten to you in four to six minutes, you're going to suffocate and die.

So it's important to have a plan. You're in the suit, you move to an area that's not suspected of being contaminated, and then do your best to get out of the suit and get out of the situation. Right, Yeah, that was a good point. Like you say, to try to get out of the contaminated area. I mean, worst case, if you can't, well, if you're breathing, and then they can get you out, then you'll you know, maybe there's something that they can give you

to counteract whatever contaminant. It was, right, and in some cases I'd rather be exposed than that, right, right, exactly right. Yes, somebody's asking quick, Phil about were you're working on on eleven. I actually met you that. I don't know if you remember this. I yes, I actually was working on nine to eleven. As a matter of fact,

there was a few guys from Hasman who actually survived nine to eleven. I had gotten off that morning and I was actually going to meet Chief Fanning at the Division of Training because we were gonna we were discussing training issues for the company. And while I was on my way to the Division Training, the

first the first plane hit the towers. Jack had left and went down to the trade center, but he left Jeff Borkowski at the at Hasmont Operations and told him as soon as Phil gets here, I get you and Phil take a suburban and come down to me. So I got to the division training went down to see Jeff. I mean went down with Jeff and we pulled up on West Street just as the South Tower had come down and our vehicle had got showered with the debris. So we got out of the vehicle.

We started to walk in and I found Dave Hanshew. He was in one of those pictures that I had sent you, and he he was lying in the middle of the street. He had a compound fracture of his leg and me and Jeff had found him and I said, I said, we have to move you. And he was in tremendous pain. We didn't have anything

to splint his leg with or anything like that. So we picked him up and we physically carried him, and we carried him like a block away farther west on towards the Hudson River, and we put him inside a Delhi And when we after we put him into deli, we told him that somebody would be back for him, and we went back and we were starting to go into the North Tower when the North Tower collapsed. So me and Jeff and a guy named Charlie Wells from MEMS who was a deputy chief, and in

the ms. We actually ran and there was a lot of people who were running the same time as us, and we ran and we tried to get close to the columns because we felt that there'd be some strength in some of the columns. So everything came down around us. It took eight or nine seconds to come down. Then it was like eerily quiet, and then me and Jeff and Charlie Wells actually worked our way out, but like the thirty or forty people who were around us, they were all dead and in it

reminded you that was kind of it. It reminded me of like after it snows, how quiet it is, you know, and everything was white, and it's just like eerily quiet, right Phil, Like it was. It was weird. Yeah, then you would hear pass along going out a different you know, I'm going to tell you it's a very interesting story. And it just goes to show, like you know, you always have to put

things in perspective. After nine to eleven happened, and you know, we were taking care of the families in the firehouse and stuff like that, and you know that like we had we had had to go and do some public relations stuff after nine eleven and what I mean by that is we were getting a lot of money. And one of the things that I want to mention here today is, you know, our firehouse was the only fire house, the only firehouse who gave money to all three hundred and forty three families.

We everything that came into our firehouse we brought up to the bank and we asked them to divide it three evenly amongst three hundred and forty three families, and we were the only we were the only firehouse to do that. So I just wanted to make that point. But anyway, one of the things that we had to do as part of public relations after nine to eleven is we had to thank some of the people who were contributing to us and stuff

like that. So I was asked to bring a few of the wives of the widows over to England and we were going to I was going to give a talk at the US Embassy in London. So I give to talk about what it was like in uh to be at nine to eleven and stuff like that. And in the end, somebody asked me a question, and this is the question that they posted me. They said, what was it like

being there on nine to eleven and you have to know your audience. And one of the things that I said is book it was a lot like the Blitz during World War Two. I said, you what you people went through for months. We only had one two hours of during our time down there, you know. And it was interesting because after the talk, you know, they had a small reception and one of the people who was in the audience came up to me and said, he says, you know, that

was a very interesting observation of yours. He said, I was kind of surprised you made it. But now I'm going to tell you a little piece of information. He said, do you know that if you were in the London Fire Brigade in World War Two and you wanted to join the British Army, you were considered a coward because statistically it was safer to be in the British Army than it was to be in the London Fire Brigade. They had.

When you look at all of the military units in World War two and combat losses, none of them compare to the combat losses of the London Fire Brigade in World War Two. They had a three hundred percent loss in World War two, three they lost the entire fire department three times. So you know, you look at that kind of stuff and that kind of gives you a perspective. You know what you think you've seen, there are people in the world who've seen far worse. You know. They meant to that.

Brother. Yeah, you remember when I ran into you down there film probably remember I ran into you down there and you said, we lost everybody here. You know at that time that did that thought didn't even cross my mind. Yeah, it was everybody here. Yeah, it was like, no way, what do you mean we lost everybody here? Like, yeah, we lost everybody here. Yeah you're guessing you were like, we lost over three three hundred people somewhere, like yeah, in no way. Yeah that

was huge. Yeah, it was huge. Yeah, there was. There was at least there was at least eighty people that I knew personally, you know, from from the SOCC companies where I knew them. I knew the wives' names, and I knew that names. It was it was, uh, it was, it was. It was stunning. I don't know,

it was incomprehensible, you know what I mean. I mean, you know me and I'm sure Hank, you know, we were in firehouses where we lost guys over the years, right, Frank, uh Hank, And and you know, losing one person is devastating, losing losing the amount of people we lost was like incomprehensible. You know, nobody, nobody ever expected someone just from a firehouse nineteen. But again, you know that that that technically it was an act of war. It wasn't just yeah the fire with a

class that was war. And uh, unfortunately the people who set out to do, you know, they pretty much accomplished what they wanted to do there. Yep, yeah, yeah, you know like that you couldn't I mean, you know, all the debris in the air, I mean, everything was so micro pulverized. You couldn't see a thing, you know, and you couldn't see the sky. And I could hear planes flying overhead, you know, and I knew they were jets. They weren't like commercial airliners because

you could hear how fast they would flying. So the pitch is completely different. And one of the things is like a few, like a year or two after nine eleven, I actually had to go down to testify in Washington as to the health effects the nine to eleven you know, because I was the help and safe few officers for the union and stuff, and I was staying at one of the hotels, and the hotel I was staying at the Chief of Naval Operations was actually in the hotel at the bar when I was

in there having a drink, and I went over to him. And I didn't know he was the Chief Naval Operations at the time. I mean, I just seen a guy in the navy uniform. I had no idea who he was. And he wasn't the Chief of Naval Operations at at on nine to eleven, but he was in charge of a carrier task force off the Carolina coast and we were talking about nine to eleven and I said, you know, I said, I was extremely nervous when when I couldn't see the

sky and I heard planes flying overhead. But I said, I kind of knew they were all planes because of the pitch. It sounded completely different than a commercial aircraft carrier. He says, that was fighters from my aircraft carrier flying over in New York being told to shoot down anything that they seen flying

over New York. Wow, right, they And they didn't. They weren't there just that day because I remember the second night when they finally made us leave the site and I went back to Fantasy Island, you know, in the you know, under the fifty nine street bridge, and it was still it was still eerily quiet, although you know, every once in a while you'd hear a siren going down the drive there. But and every once in a while there would be a fighter plane. That was the only thing that

wasn't that weird? Like see if fighter plane fly over the upen Yeah, it was really eerie, you know, yeah thing yeah, yeah. They told you to go back and get some rest, they ordered us, but

you couldn't rest. You were just two wounds now, like you would remember, we would we were all like up against the edge of the railing looking at the water going by, and just you know, like you know, like and you know that that brings up another memory too, that like you know, nine to eleven happened, and uh, a lot of people don't remember this, but you know how we do nine in fifteen, right,

we do nine and fifteen, nine to eleven happens. They decide we're going to do twenty four hours twenty four and we're going to keep running that schedule. Well here's what happens, and a lot of people don't realize this. The department goes back to a regular work schedule sometime in November. Suck doesn't go back to a regular work schedule till the end of December. Correct, you know when has what went back to a regular work schedule? When May?

Eight months later? So we worked twenty four on twenty four off, just like the squad did. And what were we guys doing on our twenty four off? We were going to funeral funerals, family funeral or our guys, our guys. The guys who were most impacted by the event were the guys who got the least amount of relief. Ye'll think, right, you know, we we and you know I used to say to people, and people didn't believe me. I used to say, look, don't ever tell

me anything about the sock guys. They are tough baskets. They can they can they can handle just about anything. They lose a lot of people, They keep grinding away, they keep working. My kids were my twins were born in December. I didn't see them for six seven months, eight months. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we we We basically just threw the meat grinder and there was no stopping us, you know, I mean we were

we incredible. I have an incredible amount of respect for the for the sock guys and and what they did on nine to eleven and afterwards they did, They did more than their fair share, one hundred times more than their fair share. Most people would have cracked and and and uh and uh and falling apart. Our guys stuck with it, stuck through with the entire time. And we had to rebuild too. We had to rebuild the companies. Yeah,

train them all again. Right, tremendous problem. That's that's all because of I mean, obviously there's a certain makeup of the people that become firefighters, but a lot of the credit goes to the our senior guys that broke us into the job the right way, right, you know what's important and what's not important? Right, Our guys, our guys were over and above, over and above. Yep, agreed exactly all right, one fifty three. I think it might be that time, PHILM. Do you have your

little tip ready? Can we get uh, well, you know, but hey, let me present you first. You just can't. We have a whole thing here, bro hold on a second, stand by you ready, Mike, Yes, it's time for the old school tip tip of the day of the day. The tip of the day is to know your adversary. And I'm going to talk about it from a hazmat perspective and from a hazmat perspective, and it even applies to fire when you think about it. Knowing

your adversary. You need to know the product that you're dealing with. Okay, you need to know its physical and chemical properties, what makes it dangerous? You need to know the type of container it's in. What is it a pressurized container? Non pressurized container, doesn't have safety devices to all those

safety devices working properly, and so on and so forth. And not only that, you need to know the product, the container, and the container's environment because all of those things are factors on whether you're going to be able to safely deal with this type of internet. That environment can be it's exposures, uh, it's it's environment. Is it on land? Is it in

the water? Is it in the atmosphere? And knowing that the product physical and chemical properties tell you you about what type of protective clothing you have to wear. How do you monitor for it? How do you know where it is okay. So those are the issues that you need to think about product, container and container's environment, and those are the three issues that will keep you safe at most hazardous material incidents, but they also apply to fire situations.

To excellent, Phil, absolutely, I want to thank you for a great show. And actually i'd like I'd like to thank you for making me a better fine and film for be the young guy. And you know, I mean, well you said that many times, but Phil, thank you one of the guys that has man. I always said, you know what, whatever this guy tells me, I'm gonna put it in here. Bro of a better five. And I enjoyed being on your show. You guys did a good job, you know, and you just do. You just

do a good job with all of the shows that you're doing. I'm glad to say that. You know, guys who have retired from the job are still promoting the job. That's that's that's exceptional. Very well. Yeah, I mean in your blood, you know that you just said that hanky you said it. Yeah, like I said, I still miss it. So I'm glad you like this because it makes you still feel like you pought of something. You know. I think on Thursday. We have a guy that's

older than you, Hank. We get a guy who was in one oh three second section back in the day. We have Anthony von Bommel, a nice German guy. Okay, and bombl on Thursday Night Show, Phil Again, I was engaged the whole time. Man, you're talking. It's like, you know, one of those guys are talking. You're like waiting on every word. Whoever was watching tonight was very lucky because they got to hear

the guru of haz Matt. This man knows it, you know. And I'm sure the point is you gave tonight even for a chiefs officer with a little tidbits and stuff there, it's all important stuff. I learned stuff tonight listening to you. Right, nuggets, I like to call them nuggets, Hanks nuggets, a little nuggets, little nuggets. And don't forget the fortieth anniversary for haz MAT's coming up right, yes, yes, coming out November, oh September, September to having a party. I'm to throw it out

on the chat for the guys. Yeah, maybe I'll bring Hank. All right, I'll bring Hank is my date? What do you think I want to come with me. Okay, Mike, it was nice meeting you for the first time. Likewise your dude and Kobs. I hope to see you guys again. That was very good. I don't sign off yet because we're gonna be in the back room. Have to be done. Henky, I'll see you soon. Brother. You know, we gota be safe. Yeah, Louis, I hope you killed something or whatever you did tonight. I

know you're home safe. He said he landed safe. Give all right, So we got to get on that story's thing. So I'll call you tomorrow. I just thought about that now. So I mean, Henk's gonna tell some five stories and he's got plenty. I'll make him up. Don't worry, no, no lies. All right, I'll see you guys, say Thursday. Until then, stay long ago, I'm gonna say, we have to say, stay low and go. Indeed, thanks to everyone for supporting us. This is our two hundredth episode, by the way, so we

would not get here. Wow, Phil, you got number two hundred. We didn't mention that earlier. We'll mention it briefly now. It's been quite the ride and it's great to be a part of it. So without you guys, the audience. We would never have gotten to this point. So much love to all of you, and on behalf of Phil MCGARTERO, Hank, Phil mcgardo, rather excuse me, Hank Malay and Kevin Coopler and Mike Colonne. We'll see you next time. It's always be advised the tones are dropping.