With the Port Authority’s release Thursday of the transcripts of emergency calls made on September 11–which include the identified voices of 19 Port Authority police officers and 14 civilian Port Authority workers who did not survive the attacks–the PAPD figures it is in for another round of painful detail about that day.
But for most of the officers and staff who work here, there is no need for reminders. They couldn’t forget September 11 if they wanted to (and at times, they confide, they have wanted to). The Kennedy Airport command station lost three of its officers in the attacks, including police inspector Anthony Infante, the commanding officer at the time. But most people at the station knew many of the 34 other Port Authority officers who died as well. In all, the PAPD lost more than 3 percent of its force, including many top officers–the worst loss of life in a single event ever suffered by a police department in U.S. history. “There is a void,” says Lt. Danny Carbonera, who narrowly survived both the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. He adds: “Our mantra now is ‘We will not forget’.”
Unfortunately, members of the PAPD at times feel as if others have. “These men and woman are often not even acknowledged,” says Mary Ann Maniscalco, whose husband, Ray, 49, is one of the officers who rushed to the World Trade Center with Carbonera on September 11. (Maniscalco also survived the attack.) “These people lost their kid or their spouse and don’t even know they are appreciated,” she says. “It’s very painful.”
For weeks after September 11, members of the Port Authority police station at Kennedy Airport passed a billboard each day on their way home from work that specifically thanked the FDNY and NYPD but made no mention of them. Finally, a member of the Port Authority police union called the association that had purchased the billboard space, and “PAPD” was added. (The Fire Department of New York, which has more than 11,000 firefighters, lost 343 in the September 11 terror attacks; 23 officers from the 40,000-strong New York Police Department were killed.).
It’s often an unintentional oversight. Visitors to New York–and even some residents–can mistakenly think the Port Authority officers are part of the New York Police Department (in fact, they serve two jurisdictions: New York and New Jersey). And “PAPD” takes more explaining than “NYPD” (and could be mistaken for a Pennsylvania police department), so it rarely appears on the commemorative T shirts and baseball caps sold by sidewalk vendors and tourist shops.
In addition, the Port Authority officers–like the New York police and firefighters–are often uncomfortable, talking about September 11. Rather than dwell on what happened to him, for instance, Maniscalco prefers to list the names of others from his command station who also left for the World Trade Center on the morning of the attacks. “There are so many others,” says Maniscalco.
Coming back to work was not easy for any of them. The September 11 attack hit particularly close to home: the World Trade Center was owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (as it is formally known), which had offices there and was in charge of security. “The World Trade Center was ours,” says Carbonera, whose former office had been located there. That office was destroyed in the 1993 terrorist bombing five minutes before he arrived for work.
He had similar luck on September 11. Carbonera had the day off, so when he arrived at the station after hearing word of the attacks, he asked three of his officers to wait while he changed into his uniform, figuring he’d be more recognizable in the mayhem. Maniscalco says that 10-minute delay likely saved their lives. Meanwhile, Carbonera credits Maniscalco’s request to park their car closer to the North Tower than they’d initially planned; had it remained where they’d first parked, the car would have been crushed when the walkway over West Street collapsed.
Carbonera was just several feet away from the south tower, the first to collapse, when it came down. Falling debris missed him by inches as he dove behind a concrete barrier. And he nearly choked to death on the cloud of ash that rose up, coating his mouth, nostrils and eyes before he could crawl to an emergency truck where another officer pulled him inside. He spit up several times, washed his face, picked up a 30-pound oxygen pack and went back out to try and rescue survivors. But as soon as he neared the north tower, it started to come down, too. This time, he was just far enough away to outrun the falling debris.
Some of his colleagues were not. The body of George Howard, an officer at the PAPD’s Emergency Services Unit at Kennedy Airport, was later pulled from the debris. Maniscalco and Carbonera had known him for years, the former had coached him on the squad’s hockey team.
For months after the terror attacks, just the sight of the command station building made Carbonera sick to his stomach. The 56-year-old commanding officer also suffered from recurring nightmares of being trapped in a burning building. “I got to the point where I didn’t want to sleep,” he says.
Maniscalco says he was exhausted all the time but also unable to sleep. Clive Madden, the officer who’d driven the car that morning–slowing, in vain, to try and avoid the bodies in the street–suffered from bouts of high blood pressure and had to take time off from work. Carbonera recognized many of the symptoms as those he’d experienced after combat in the Vietnam War. The men were told later they suffered from post-traumatic-stress disorder.
But they had little time to recover. For 21 months, the station was on heightened alert and officers worked rotating 12-hour shifts. Even now, two years later, Carbonera says it’s hard to allow himself time to think too much about that day. He supervises 60 to 70 people at the airport command station, so he tries to put on a brave face. “For me, there’s been very little mourning and micro bursts of tears,” he says. “I can’t fall apart in front of them.”
On the first anniversary of the attacks, Carbonera allowed himself to shed some tears at the six memorial services he attended. This year, he plans to spend the day with his colleagues at the airport command station, where a private memorial service will be held beside the two-month-old plaque just outside the front door of the building. It was paid for with $50 donations from each officer at the station.
The granite plaque lists the names of all the Port Authority officers and one K9-unit dog killed that day, alongside the words NEVER FORGOTTEN BY THE JFK COMMAND and sits atop a rusty chunk of one of the steel beams that used to hold up the towers. Every day, Carbonera places his hand on the names before he goes through the doors to work. “It’s my way of saying ‘I remember you’.”
