Yeah and what I had decided to do was just say well once I got underneath of the walkway, got past that and come out on the other side. The...the...the...It opened up more it was like, the landscape can't be described you've got to look at some of the pictures to understand it and look towards the...where the towers, were. You could now just, your mind wasn't ready for it, but I looked at it and I said, well...."Not gonna be a good day." You know, I kind of like had a feeling, not gonna be a good day. So I started right there the minute I came out, you know you just, drop into a, drop through the facade of the North Tower. That's what it was; it was the, the outside skeleton, which was monstrous. But it was just sprawled out across West Street all the way up right to the World Finance Center but it really didn't hit it. Except for one piece that hit the AMEX building, way up high, which is another thing like "Wow, how did that happen." But P.S. you just hop over the faade and drop into it, and hop over the next piece if you can and drop in, and drop below, drop in and hop over, and drop in, and... If you could crawl around, there wasn't a lot of being able to get too far. But you could drop in to these little openings and cracks through the building. No, nobody tries to stop anybody. There were...there were loads of firemen. It was crawling with firemen. A lot of PD, but the firemen were just like, it was just like ants. I am in civilian clothes, there wasn't a...there was not one person. Of course I am meeting people that I know now, ah, who were there. [CW: Like?] I can't think of names...Higgins family, looking for their, their brother. The Downeys, looking for their father. It was just like, you keep...you met these people as you went. "Did you see?"... "No did you see my son?"..."No." "Did you see?"..."No." It was the thing that went on, not just that day, you know, for a little bit it went on. I can't tell you how many days, but a little bit, you'd meet somebody. Donald Burns'...son...there was a load of people like that, you know. I...I...I didn't find Brendan until late in the day. Because he came over immediately with his company, they had to muster. You know I was retired so, where did I wind up? I wound up going into a, ah, garage of the AMEX building, the doors were up. I finally made my way over into there. There was fire gear all over the place. It was like, there was fire gear all over, but I mean, ah turnout coats strewn on the inside, masks were on the ground. It was like; you try to understand what happened. Why...why was this like this? What did they do? You want to try to make some semblance here, you know, again you don't want to helter skelter. So you want to, the only thing I could come up with was, that they must have taken a beating when everything came down. They weren't in there gear, it wasn't like it was thrown off of them. It was on the ground inside there, inside. So I figured they must have just been...had taken a tremendous beating, and they just wanted to get this off of them. Take their mask off, take their turnout coat off. I don't know, I can't think of any other reason why you would take off your turnout coat, your mask maybe. You run out of air, you take it off. You know you can't get another one. P.S. I pick...Did I put boots on? I don't remember if I put boots on or not, I don't remember. I might have found a pair of boots, I have small feet, you know, a seven so...Did I? Yeah, my moccasins. I had burned myself already. I found a coat; I put on a turnout coat. Let's just leave it at that, I am not sure if I had boots or not, isn't that something? I don't remember. Nobody said anything. I had seen officials...fire department officials, you know. But then again you've got to remember that I was on the job twenty-six years. Busy, busy house, I knew a tremendous amount of people on the job. Right from the commissioners on down, you know. So, yeah I met, I met a lot of officials that I knew, that were higher ranking. But I knew them when they were firemen, I knew them when they were lieutenants, captains, you know. So it made it like, "Hey Lee, how...what do you got...?" "What do you have?" "Did you happen to see my son?" "No, no..." Yeah...yeah, you know...the fire service, the fire service is unique. Um, people just really don't understand, especially the New York City Fire Department because we are a very busy department. You know, and it is a, it is a brotherhood and the men are...even the slower houses are taught this, this ah, comradery, you know so. Um, controlled helter skelter, controlled chaos, and there is that. I mean if you're charging a hill in war, you're not just running crazed, you...you've got a mission. It may look to someone who doesn't know that, "Hey look at this there running amuck." They're not running amuck, they know exactly what they're doing, it just looks like it. It's the same thing with the fire service, you know. So ah...I um...I think the fire service did a yeomen's job that day, and the first few days. Yeomen. Considering the circumstances, you know, considering the criticisms that people were throwing around too, which was just uncalled for. Um, I think the fire department on a whole, considering what happened, do people remember!? You just...two buildings over a hundred stories high, collapsed. And the fire department stood up, they shined...they shined. So, the day went on, and that was the scenario for the day. I spent most of that day on West Street and just into the periphery of the World Trade Center proper. Where now you would see it's the...the slurry wall, bathtub area. I had a cell phone, cell phone was...didn't work for the vast majority of the day...ah, and I didn't use the phone, I didn't want to call anybody yet. It was difficult...who am I calling? The only person I did...my cell wasn't working when I was thinking about who to call because when I realized that this wasn't going to be a good day for the family. You know? I figured I had to get a hold of a friend, to get over to the house. I didn't want to call the house first, that's no good. So I called up a, um, best friend, Dennis Hill. Um, Got him on the phone and I said, Dennis, listen I don't think its going to be a good day for John, you've got to get over to the house and you've got to be there with the family, you've got to stay there with the family.' I don't know if I called up Freddy and Laura, I might of...but Dennis definitely. No. No he didn't have to. No, not that I remember. I just told him to get over to the house and that I'll call in about an hour. No...Nothing... Okay, you got it.' You know...boom. I said if you need to call...yeah I did tell him. Call somebody, yeah...you need to get a hold of Freddy just to get some people...ah, ready, because...I just had a feeling, hmmm. P.S. ah, Okay, so I met up with Brendan, finally saw Brendan. Of course he looked at me, I looked at him and...you... Find anything Dad?' He didn't have to say...I said, No, nothing at all Bren...you?' No.' And, Okay.' You know I think I saw him and he was on West street which is, which was great because I was concerned about where Brendan was you know because this place was horrible and I didn't...I couldn't see past, just a...you know, a couple hundred feet into the site itself, there was still a lot of smoke coming up from around the site which kept the visibility...you couldn't see up...you couldn't see into the site more than, like I say...a hundred feet, two hundred feet the most, if that. No, I saw him, you know, we were close when I saw him. It looked like Brendan, I went over and it was Brendan. Ok, and I said, You want to...you want to go your way and I'll go mine? You want to stay together?' He said, Yeah, whatever Dad, we'll just keep...we'll just look.' I don't remember. No I don't think so. Just be careful, you know watch where you're going. Pay attention to where you go into, there's a lot of voids and holes and what not. Yeah so I think Brendan, ah, you know, was going to you know stay with his company and work with them and I said, OK, you just,' you know like I said, be careful.' I went off, continued and you have to stop someplace in here and say OK, this looks, first of all, from what I could see was total, utter destruction and I could keep dropping into voids and looking into cracks and crevices, what looked like...and needless to say I did not know how big it was, but the area I did see, which was only, maybe, not even a fifth, of what was there...was like, Stop, let's think of something beneficial,' you know, besides just dropping into cracks, and...cause I haven't found one person alive...nothing. So I said, OK, What am I going to do now?' I said alright, let me just keep going this way and I kept going, which was going north, got back over the pile again, got down to the collapsed walkway, went underneath the collapsed walkway, and I'm figuring let me get up to West Street and see what's set up out there...West and Veezy...Vessey...Veezy. Um, I think I probably had gloves in the turnout coat. I didn't have them on my hand...I'm a little, you know, depends on how things are, if I'm going into a void and I'm going to be moving sharp objects I'll throw gloves on, but sometimes I just feel I can grab things better...Ye...you...you have...you have to be there to appreciate what I'm saying, you know, the...I don't wear them all the time. I had...in the pockets, this was somebody else's coat, so...yeah, there were, there were gloves, plus there was gear, ah ya know...I don't...I don't have a helmet, I don't remember the boots, to be sure...I'd like to say yes, but definitely a turnout coat...no helmet.