Excerpts of Robert Weisberg oral history interview conducted by Julie Broihier, October 1, 2010

About

Robert Weisberg thinks of 9/11 as his generation’s Pearl Harbor. An accountant working across from the WTC, he was also a trained volunteer firefighter and EMT in his suburban Long Island town. He was just getting off the subway under WTC when the first plane hit. Thinking it might be a car bomb, he rushed to the nearby NYPD Liberty Street firehouse to offer his services and was immediately put in charge of triage. He heard the second plane fly over and hit the second Tower and heard people outside screaming as they watched jumpers. He tells how the 8 firemen who left on a search mission were killed almost immediately by the first Tower’s collapse; how a jet engine fell onto the firehouse, obliterating the nearby ambulance; and how a 140-mile an hour wind gust generated by the collapsing south Tower threw him against an inside wall. He began treating injured carried in by their co-workers. Dispatch instructed him and two firefighters to evacuate 90-120 people from buses near the Staten Island Ferry. Robert then fell in with a group from the Fire Marshall’s Office and set up a command post near Battery Park. Unable to get back to Long Island, he caught a ride in a fishing boat to Jersey City, where his Hoboken friend found him and took him home. For months afterwards, he worked his day job and then volunteered evenings at St Paul’s Chapel taking care of rescue workers.

Archive

Library of Congress, in Library of Congress

Licence or status

Rights statement at the Library of Congress, as the Library of Congress states it.

Credit

Library of Congress

Language

English

Country

United States

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