“ ‘9/11/01’ “ and Great People: Firefighters of the Fire Department of New York

Never forget, indeed, the more than 346 of the FDNY who gave their lives in trying to rescues victims trapped in the WTC North and South Towers on September 11, 2001.

In September of 2020 I wrote a piece for the Flipping the Script blog on my We Are Revolutions and You Are Here to Shine (again, both true, I think, whatever Agenda 2030 may allege) Website. The piece is titled ‘Brave Firefighters in the Twin Towers’.

The piece focuses on Orio J. Palmer, Chief of the Fire Department of New York’s Batallion Seven, and his immediate colleagues in the South Tower of the World Trade Center between 9:43 amd 9:58 of the 9/11/01 morning. Chief Palmer and his companion, Fire Marshall Ronald Bucca, and the Chief of Batallion Seven, Dennis Devlin, and Joe Leavey, commanding Ladder 15 and its three groups, are working hard as they can between Floors 40 and 78 (the Sky Lobby) of the South Tower. Smoke and flames are constants around them, but they advance up the Adam and B Stairs and chop through walls of failed Elevators. By 9:52 Palmer and Bucca have climbed from Floor 69 to 78, the Sky Lobby. They encounter dozens of Morgan Stanley employees who have survived initial impacts. Palmer reports “numerous 10-45 Code Ones” (fatalities), too. Still, he’s confident that with two “lines” (hoses) and with two more firefighters they can “knock down” the “two isolated pockets of fines” that he sees in the Sky Lobby. Groups from Ladder 15 battle to reach Floor 78 over the next five minutes. Palmer and Bucca work with “a house line: in the Sky Lobby. Then—at 9:58—radio communication cuts off between the Batallions and Ladder Companies. Then, the South Tower has started to plummet in an explosive/implosive collapse that will complete itself 15 seconds later.

Jim Hoffman’s wtc7.net Website is source for the harrowing set of photos above—recording destruction of the South Tower ‘at about 5, 5.9 and 7.5 seconds after its top started to fall.’

Now, below, please find excerpts from the ‘Brave Firefighters …’ piece. May their heroism and sacrifice always inspire us. I’ll add some bolding for 2023.

‘Orio Joseph Palmer was 45 and 20 years into being a firefighter. He grew up in the north Bronx, near the Cloisters and not far from Yankee Stadium. He called himself "Cookie" to take away sting from his given first name. He played three sports at Cardinal Spellman High School. He turned a schoolmate on to Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir."  He had an Associate Degree in Electrical Technology and wrote articles about improving radio communication in highrise fires. He married another student from the Bronx, Debbie, and they had three children, Allyson, Dana, and Keith. He liked to play the Rascals' "It's A Beautiful Morning" for them over breakfast. He finished the New York City Marathon and won the FDNY's award for physical fitness fitness five times. Among his mottos were: "Dance like nobody's watching" and "Treasure every sunset.”

"Orio J. Palmer became a figure to admire for me in August 2002, as I wrote my first book about tragedies, deceptions and realities of September 11, 2001,  ' '9/11' ": Facing Our Fascist State.

A " 'lost tape' " came out for semi-public listening in that month of August 2002.The New York Times had helped to force its release by higher-ups within the FDNY. 

Survivors of 16 firefighters heard the tape in a New York City hotel on August 2, 2002. They listened and read on a screen: Exchanges between firemen climbing that Tower to perform rescue of about 700 civilians, many of them from the Morgan, Stanley firm, who were trapped on or above the Sky Lobby, the transitional 78th floor of the South Tower.

More detailed and evocative records of the firefighters' exchanges are available through Jim Hoffman's 911research.com and through two videos, one posted by Orio Palmer's son Keith and one, '9/11 Audiotape ...',  that more comprehensively presents firefighters' exchanges.’

Let’s look again at each of the Twin Towers’ nearly half-billion TONS of steel and concrete, their huge 47 core Columns and their 236 perimeter Columns and their likewise substantial beams.

The photo and graphic-card above are from my 2019 piece about firefighters, the WTC Twin Towers and Building 7, and the overall Big Lie of " ‘9/11’ “.

You may remember that the South Tower was the second to be hit on 9/11/01, at 9:03 a,m., after the North Tower was struck at 8:47, and that the South Tower was first to fall.

We return to excerpts from the 2020 piece on donpaulwearev.com.

‘Reviewing the Towers' evident stability may help us to understand why firefighters were untroubled about their ability to rescue survivors in the first of the skyscrapers to fall.

‘The '9/11 Audiotape ...' begins at 9:25 with exchanges between Ladder 15 and an aide to Battalion Seven Chief Orio Palmer.

By 9:43 Palmer has climbed to floor 69. He and Battalion Seven Chief Dennis Devlin have a direct exchange.

Dennis Devlin asks Orio how he can help.

The "bank" refers to elevators that are wanted for transporting those trapped and/or injured inside the South Tower.

By 9:52 Palmer has reached floor 78, the Sky Lobby, with Fire Marshal Ronald P. Bucca. Bucca is 47 and also an endurance-athlete. Palmer reports to firefighters below.

We see and hear again that Palmer is sure of being able to put out "two isolated pockets of fire" with two FDNY hoses. He sees many dead--'numerous 10-45 Code Ones'--from the United Airlines' Boeing 767's impact and initial fireball.

Ladder 15 is commanded by Joe Leavey. Its firefighters continue their climb in the South Tower’s B stairway to join Palmer. They're now to 77, just one floor below Bucca and Palmer.

The group of 'Ladder 15 Roof' also keeps climbing.

Another group is stymied by an elevator failing, but persists.

At 9:57 Palmer is working to put out fires with a 'house line."

He then calls for firefighters above floor 79, saying that they "have access stairs."

The final communication from Battaion Chief Palmer comes in the last minute before the South Tower's collapse.’

Then, silence on the Batallions’ and Ladder Companies’ radios, followed by one of the most awful roars in humanity’s history.

We may imagine how it was to be a person in the Sky Lobby as the Tower in which you stood or lay plummeted and both exploded and imploded.

25 minutes later, the North Tower’s destruction was even more awful and deadly. (Again, we owe the set of photos to Jim Hoffman’s eye and artistry at 911researchwtc7.net

At least 140 of the Fire Department of New York died in the explosive/implosive destruction of the South Tower.

My piece of 2020 writes. ‘About 200 of the FDNY died in the North Tower's collapse and all civilians died above this Tower's 92nd to 98th Floor impact-zone, according to the New York Times upon release in 2005 of documents long-suppressed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

And: ‘Verification of fatalities has been hampered by the unprecedented destruction of human remains, too. As of 2010, barely more than half of the approximately 2780 fatalities had been identified.

Jim Hoffman writes: 'New York City Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch had the difficult job of informing the friends and families of the victims that the remains of their loved ones might never be identified. The forensic investigation ended in early 2005, when the medical examiner's office stated it had exhaused efforts to identify the missing.... The aircraft impacts and fires in all probability would not have destroyed a single body beyond positive identification. Nor have building collapses ever been known to destroy human remains beyond recognition. However, the buildings were destroyed in a manner that converted most of their non-metallic contents to homogeneous dust, including the bodies. This destruction of the bodies assured that no exact determination could ever be made regarding who was piloting the jets at impact, and the condition of the people on board.'

Had he lived, Orio J. Palmer would be 67, past FDNY retirement-age, in 2023. Likewise, many of his colleagues who are memorialized each September in Nassau County (Long Island), New York.

What we know for sure is that those ‘FDNY Brothers who gave it their all on September 11, 2001’, as Willie Wines posted on Facebook regarding eight of thoselost from Ladder 15, deserve justice. clarity and closure for their selfless giving.