Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2002 | 9:09 a.m.
In the rubble of the World Trade Center in the days after Sept. 11, Dr. David Slattery felt his priorities shift.
A member of a Federal Emergency Management Agency team, the University Medical Center emergency-room physician realized in those difficult days how important home was to him, he said. "It strengthened my faith and my family."
Red Cross volunteer Jerry Meardy, 68, came out of three trips to ground zero in New York a better person, he said, more able to respond to the summer's forest fires and floods.
"I focused, because I didn't have all the stress of New York," he said. "I was able to act more professionally.
"It made me appreciate life a little more."
The terrorist attacks that altered the nation also changed 62 Las Vegans who did their part in the rescue and recovery efforts for FEMA. The volunteers spent anywhere from days to weeks on the scene, some combing through the smoldering piles of twisted metal looking for victims, others meeting the needs for shelter, food and rest of rescuers.
All of them say they appreciate their lives now that they are home.
Firefighters, engineers, a doctor and a volunteer, they brought with them to New York experiences of what had ranked as the worst national disaster until last September: Some responded to the 1996 Oklahoma City bombing, others to the 1980 MGM Grand fire.
What they saw at the World Trade Center exceeded what even they could imagine.
Some of them scoured the rubble, numb to their emotions if human remains were found, they said. They went there to do a job, they say, and they acted as professionals do.
Clark County Deputy Fire Chief Steve Hansen said he spent two weeks in Oklahoma City after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and was on the scene at the World Trade Center as a member of the Urban Search & Rescue crew.
"Both of them were tragedies, absolutely," Hansen said. "Both of them were disasters."
The crew took lessons from Oklahoma City to New York, he said. Oklahoma, he said, "really built a fire under us and we made a lot of changes. New York put it to the test."
But the New York City disaster dwarfed the Oklahoma experience, Hansen said.
"It definitely changes the way you look at people," he said.
George Brizendine, a structural engineer on the FEMA team, will never forget the New York recovery effort.
"I've never faced anything of that magnitude," Brizendine said. "In fact, nobody has."
The whole purpose of the team is to rescue people, he said, in a subdued voice. "But by the time we got back there, it was recovery. That's why we exist, to get out viable survivors. Once they're not viable, then we have no purpose."
The stench of the smoke, the glow of flames and the mountain of rubble stick in Brizendine's mind.
Although Brizendine was a structural engineer on the MGM fire in Las Vegas, there was a huge difference between that and New York: The hotel structure didn't kill anyone. Most MGM victims died of smoke inhalation.
"There's no parallel between MGM and the towers," he said. "I don't have nightmares, but it sure changes your attitude."
Brizendine worked in the ashes of a 47-story building, the seventh one that collapsed after the twin towers were attacked.
"The stuff we saw ... it was not recognizable as human, but the odor was evident."
When crushed torsos of firefighters, their helmets near, were found, the team backed away, allowing New York City firefighters to recover the remains.
Brizendine fears that terrorists will once again strike within the United States.
"It kind of brings home what happens in a failure," he said. "While the rubble was interesting, I hope we never see anything like it again."
Firefighter Scott Webster calls the experience "horrible," but one bright moment plucked him from despair.
Webster had been worried about friend and fellow firefighter Steve Gillespie, who was part of a FEMA team that first responded when the attack occurred. At least 90 percent of the team's members were dead after the attack.
"He's a good buddy of ours, we thought he was dead," Webster said. "He's a big Irishman, and as we stood in the rubble, we saw this helmet with a shamrock. He was alive and walking toward us in the ruins."
Ron Atiyeh served with Webster, driving a firetruck on the night shift.
About 10 days after the attack, Atiyeh walked through crowds and the skyscrapers toward the site. "It's almost like a forest, all the tall buildings," he recalled.
At the site, he saw a glow from the burning rubble and over the last two blocks, he saw the destruction. "You couldn't describe it," Atiyeh said.
Atiyeh managed the search team on his shift and was most impressed by New York firefighters who worked round the clock. "They were great. You could see the tiredness in their eyes and the futility. They were just totally spent."
Atiyeh, known as "Big Man" at the firehouse, said it made him more conscious of what could happen.
"We never thought we'd respond to a terrorist attack," he said.
FEMA rotated its 26 national teams in the rubble piles, but after four or five days the chances of a team finding survivors diminished.
"Our team did feel like we had accomplished something when bodies were found," Slattery said. "It gave families a kind of closure."
The most powerful moments for Slattery came when a firefighter's remains were discovered. The rescue crew's mood became solemn. An American flag was draped over the remains or the body part. A chaplain would conduct a short service on the spot.
"And then they went back to work," Slattery said. "How much courage it took. I don't know how they did it."
Meardy is a retired electrical engineer who spends his time responding to fires, floods and frightening disasters all over the nation for the Red Cross.
His seven years of volunteer work had been challenging enough, but New York was a once-in-a-lifetime event.
"It was a very difficult assignment, but that's what we do," Meardy said. He has visited ground zero three times, from three weeks to only days.
His job was to supervise shelters and food. He said he wasn't prepared for the stress level or what he saw.
The pilot bringing him to New York flew over the flaming World Trade Center site. "It just jumped up and hit me in the face," Meardy said. "There wasn't a dry eye on the plane.
"The entire experience made me appreciate life a little more."
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