Richard Picciotto was in the World Trade Center’s North Tower of Sept.11. He shared his memories of the day with attendees of an economic development forum hosted by the Osoyoos Indian Band on Oct. 22. Photo by Laurena Weninger - Click on picture for larger image

OSOYOOS TIMES-October 28, 2009

By Laurena Weninger - Osoyoos Times

Richard Picciotto, a fire chief in the New York City Fire Department, was between the sixth and seventh floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center when it collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Eight seconds later, I thought I was dead.”

But Picciotto didn’t die in the tower’s collapse, and he told his story to a full house at the Osoyoos Indian Band Economic Development Corporation banquet dinner on Oct. 22, as a guest speaker.

“What I am trying to tell you, is you have to put priorities on your life,” Picciotto said at the end of his presentation. “What’s really important is your friendships. The people that you know. Your culture. Your heritage. Don’t forget that.”

Picciotto told his story of the day he will never forget, taking the crowd with him on a trip starting at 8:45 a.m. when the fire call came in that the South Tower had been hit by an airplane.

Some thought it was an accident.

“I didn’t think it was an accident. I thought it was a terrorist attack,” Picciotto said.

He had been fire chief in 1993 when the World Trade Center was bombed and his job that year had been to evacuate the North Tower.

Each tower had 110 storeys and each storey was an acre in size, he told the crowd.

There were 99 elevators in the building, but only three narrow stairways.

When he got to the scene on Sept. 11, the second plane had hit the North Tower.

Fuel from the airplane was inside the building and had been dumped down the elevator shafts.

Explosions burned and killed people nearby.

People started jumping.

“Certain things in life you shouldn’t have to see,” he said. “That was one of them.”

The first fireman to die at the scene was because one of the persons who jumped from the building had landed on him.

Picciotto and his crew began to climb one of the stairways, trying to get to the top floors to rescue those trapped.

But when they got to the 30^th floor - fighting their way up while people evacuating the building fought their way down - they heard a noise.

Picciotto said they didn’t know what it was at the time, but it had been the South Tower, collapsing.

“I didn’t know what happened,” he said, and in that moment he had to make a decision. “They’re going to do whatever I tell them to do.”

He was referring to his crew of firemen, who, until then, were heading up the building to try to save more people.

“I gave the order to evacuate. Get out.”

They turned around and started to head down the stairs, which was clogged with people. The debris from the collapsing South Tower broke through into the North Tower, filling stairways with debris.

But another stairway was open and the chief continued to direct people out of the building - until they got down to the 12^th floor, where they found a group of people with disabilities, along with helpers who had committed to not leaving them behind.

First, he had to convince the able-bodied helpers to get out, that the firemen would help those with disabilities.

Picciotto said some of the “old guys” were the tough ones.

Some of them wanted to do it alone, without help.

“If they can’t run, we’re going to pick them up and carry them,” he said.

They got down between the sixth and seventh floor and the banging and shaking started again - and things immediately went black.

The floors of the North Tower were collapsing and the air rushed around them as each floor came crashing down.

It lifted them up and threw them around.

The South Tower took 10 seconds to come down, said Picciotto.

The North Tower took eight.

“I thought of my wife and my kids. For a lot of us, our kids are our lives.”

He said in those few moments, he thought his life was going to end, and he prayed.

“Please God. Make it quick. I thought I was going to die. I didn’t want to suffer.”

Then, he was freefalling in blackness.

“I thought I was dead.”

But he and others landed in a void, an air pocket created by the collapse.

And while it took several more hours until they found their way out, in the end 13 of them survived - 11 firemen, one police officer and one 59-year-old grandmother.

Picciotto spoke of the national tragedy and the focus that it gave people.

How people turned to each other, cared for each other and were kind to each other, for a while in the wake of the tragedy.

“A few years later, it’s back to business as usual.”

Picciotto said that faith helped him get well, and the spirit of people helping others helped him as well.

“In our time of need, everyone helped us,” he said, leading up to his closing remarks.

“Take care of each other. Thank you.”

reporter@osoyoostimes.com