# Joseph Morelli oral history interview conducted by Julie Broihier, August 13, 2010

Joseph worked for NYC Department of Environmental Protection as a pipe corker on 9/11/2001. He was at work installing two wet connections underground when his helper told him a plane had crashed into the Trade Center. Soon after, he heard over the work radio that all crews should report to the local office on Pike Street in Lower Manhattan. He remembers that "Traffic was mayhem, it was crazy getting downtown." Joseph also remembers the initial chaos, that "They locked the city down, you couldn't get a car in or out, you had to walk over the bridges. . .cell phones weren't working, nothing was working." Joseph's local office was on 30 Pike Street, about a mile away from the WTC towers. He remembers that "It was disorganized at first, it took a good seven hours before we got word from our higher ups." While they were waiting at their local office, he remembers seeing people walking away from the WTC area covered in dust and said, "It looked like the movie, the Night of the Living Dead." Once they got crews assembled, Joseph mentions that, "The plan was to set a perimeter up and just cap all the water mains that were going into the Trade Center." He said, "A crew would be myself and three laborers digging up, exposing the main, cutting it, capping it and that would stop the water from traveling in that direction." Joseph worked around the clock on 12 hour shifts for as long as three days stopping the water from blowing up. They had to coordinate with other trades like the…

- Kind: Interview
- Year: 2010
- Runtime: 38 min
- By: Morelli, Joseph
- Genres: History
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2015048_043/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/afc2015048_043?play=1)