"My God, we are under attack"

Sea Power, Sep 2002 by McGranachan, James

"After the collapse of the first tower," he continued, "we expected the beginning of a mass evacuation. Because of the police report that the second tower may come down into the harbor, we ordered our boats to stand back and prepare for a massive waterborne evacuation. The police department warned us that the city's bridges and tunnels were closed, that the city's subways were either demolished or closed, and that tens of thousands of people were heading for the water."

Ronan made several important and immediate decisions. "We had a report of two more hijacked commercial aircraft and were not sure what else to expect," he commented. He deployed a Coast Guard crew to a Sandy Hook Pilot Boat to head offshore into the main shipping channel into New York Harbor for possible ship boardings. He also closed New York Harbor-except for the fleet of more than 100 public and private tugs, and tour boats, that he had commissioned to evacuate, by water, as many as five million people.

"Frantic and Confused"

As burning debris from the WTC towers and other buildings thundered into the city's downtown streets, Coast Guard personnel calmed and directed masses of frantic and confused people to evacuation points that had been hastily established at the water's edge. "The number one priority at the moment was the evacuation," Ronan said, "but we also had to bring in as many Coast Guard vessels as possible to protect the harbor's infrastructure."

The Coast Guard's daunting rescue challenge soon became even more complicated. When the Trade Center's second tower collapsed, it carried with it the tall antenna on the top of the building that was used to transmit a wide range of communication signals for television stations, the telephone company, and the Coast Guard. All phones at ActNY, and at the Coast Guard's Battery Park Building only blocks from Ground Zero, went out when the second tower collapsed. All communications after that were through VHF radio and cell phones.

Ronan had an additional worry-one of a personal nature. His three teenage children were in school on Staten Island when they learned of the WTC catastrophe. They knew that their father had a meeting scheduled in Manhattan that morning. They did not know where their father was, but Ronan's children did know that he spent a great deal of time at the Port Authority offices in the WTC. When the phones went dead, communication was impossible. Once service was restored, Ronan arranged for his brother-in-law to bring the children to his home and care for them there. In light of what had already happened, Ronan knew that he would not be returning home for perhaps a very long time.

Operation Guarding Liberty was launched almost immediately after the attack. Cdr. David Martin, chief of the ActNY's Administration Division, set up a logistics section to support the more than 1,000 personnel from 95 Coast Guard units throughout the New York area-and other, more distant, locations-who were reporting, as fast as they could and by any means available, to the command to assist in emergency operations. "We had to fulfill the needs of vessel, facilities, and naval engineering logistical support including food services, security, transportation, medical, berthing, supplies, procurement, and force optimization," he said. Later, Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta noted in his Secretary's Unit Award he presented to ActNY that almost all of these numerous and difficult tasks were accomplished within 72 hours. Simultaneously, ActNY began the distribution of humanitarian relief provisions to 5,000 fire, police, and emergency workers.