Latest / The City of Frankfort Podcast / Ep 37: Frankfort First Responders Remember 9/11

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Ep 37: Frankfort First Responders Remember 9/11 · The City of Frankfort Podcast

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From Capitol Halls to Bourbon Balls, this is the City of Frankfurt podcast for the Frankfurtians.
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In today's special episode, we're stepping away from our usual format to commemorate
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the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, a day that changed all of us.
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For many people, the memories of that morning are still remarkably clear.
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Where we were, who we were with, what we saw, and the moment we realized that our world had changed.
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But for the men and women who serve as first responders, September 11 also became
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something more It was a reminder of the responsibility that comes with running
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toward an emergency when everyone else is trying to get away from it,
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As we mark the 25th anniversary of 9-11, we wanted to remember that day not
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only by looking back on what happened But by listening to people who have dedicated
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their lives to public service right here in Frankfurt,
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In this episode, we're hearing from several of Frankfurt's first responders,
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firefighters, police officers, emergency personnel who remember where they were
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on September 11th, what they remember about the days and weeks that followed,
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and how that experience shaped the way that they view their own careers.
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These are the memories of people from Frankfurt looking back on a day that remains
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part of their lives and their work.
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On this 25th anniversary, we're remembering those who were lost and recognizing
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the public servants who continue to answer the call.
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I'm here with Johnny Carpenter, Fire Chief for the City of Frankfurt.
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And, Johnny, can you tell us just where were you on September 11, 2001?
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September 11, 2001, when the towers got hit, I was actually at vocational school in masonry class.
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And there weren't a lot of TVs or anything there, so I didn't really know about it.
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And then when I got back to regular high school at 10 o'clock,
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it was blasted all over every TV.
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And it was just a silent school when TV's playing and the towers on. That's wild.
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Post 9-11, how did that experience shape your career or what did you see changing in the field?
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I'm from Nicholsville, which is a fairly small town, a lot like Frankfurt.
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So a lot of the kids I went to high school with were taking the path of military.
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So after I graduated high school, it was kind of like, do I go do that or something else?
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My dad was a firefighter and he was a battalion chief for the city of Nicholsville.
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So I ended up, after high school, starting to volunteer as a firefighter rather
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than go into the military to do that. Okay.
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Excellent. So post 9-11, hazmat and terrorist stuff all got real big.
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There were tons of grants out there, federal grants, which is why we have a
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lot of the equipment we still have today from post 9-11.
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Okay. That is hazmat monitoring equipment and hazmat cleanup,
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and there's tons of terrorist classes you can go take now.
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It's just, they added another realm of firefighting to the job. Interesting.
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Thank you so much for sharing your perspective with us. No problem.
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Well, now I'm here with City Manager Jason Monroe. And although you're City
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Manager now, I understand your role was different at the time.
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Can you tell us a little bit about what you were doing September 11,
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2001 and what your position was? Yep. So September 11, 2001,
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I was actually in Arizona.
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I had been a firefighter for two years and just received my paramedic license at that time.
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Um, uh, then from there, I was actually just got back from state fire school,
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uh, took some classes down there, came home.
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It was one of my days off the fire department, turned on the TV,
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saw the buildings on fire, didn't even know what was going on at that point.
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And at that point, the second plane, it crashed into the second tower.
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So that's when I realized it was the, you know, what was going on.
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Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to kind of comprehend.
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And it was, it was, uh, it was a different time back then. And it was unique
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being in the fire service at that time.
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Just because of all the special attention we were getting, we were used to not
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having attention at that point in the fire service, which is,
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I think, one of the biggest changes we have now is the fire service gets all
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kinds of attention. Public safety is all kinds of attention with police,
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fire, emergency management.
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Back then, we were just kind of the people that showed up when you called us.
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And other than that, everyone kind of left the fire department a lot. Left you alone, yeah.
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It was a unique time to be in the fire service.
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That's back in my way younger days.
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25 years ago. So, like I said, I was just starting. I've been two years on the
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job. So, then just three years later, I was here at Frankfurt. Okay.
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So, how did that experience kind of shape or change your career path or...
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I don't know if it really changed my career path. I think it,
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I saw a bunch of changes in the fire service as a whole.
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Just the major focus on, you know, weapons of mass destruction and the terrorist
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responses and going through all those changes as a first responder when,
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you know, they were in, some of y'all remember, we were going through color
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codes of what the threat level were for the days.
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That was even as I was here, just a few years later, we were still going through
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that in the city of Frankfurt.
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The large amounts of money that federal government dumped into hazardous materials
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responses and those kind of things.
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I think that's where I saw a lot of change. But I saw that here in Frankfurt,
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those changes. Okay. Because that's when I was, that's when all that money was,
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a few years after, that's when all the money started hitting.
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So it changed kind of some of your basic functions.
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Mm-hmm. It changed kind of the functions of it. Interesting.
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We all had hazardous materials response, things like that back then,
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but it wasn't as standardized as it is now. Okay.
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Well, that's a positive. Yeah. I think now I've made most departments have everyone's
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a hazmat tech, everyone's this now, and that all stands from 9-11. Interesting.
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Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Absolutely.
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Got Sean Caldwell here, and Sean, we were wondering if you could tell us on
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September 11, 2001, where were you?
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What was your experience professionally? At that time, I was a firefighter in
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2001 at Station 4, which is the fire station on Spaghetti Junction.
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And the news hit just like first there was breaking news and then it was just
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every channel was on the same news.
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And at that point, I was in the middle of getting ready to take one of our fire
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trucks to get a repaired window.
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And I didn't want to leave because I wanted to see what was going on.
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Being at Station 4 and then doing that, I still had to go and get the window
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repaired, dropped the truck off, came back, then we was glued to the TV.
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Everything was just, I don't know, it's like an ominous of suspense and sadness
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and anxiety and tension.
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Because you didn't know exactly what was going on. You just knew that we were under attack.
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You didn't know what was next, what city was next, what building was next.
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So it was a random thing that's just going through my head. Yeah,
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just kind of too much to deal with all at one time. Right, process all at one time.
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So following 9-11, what impact did that event that day have on you and your career?
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Or maybe you're the risk manager now. Maybe what have you seen in your current
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job in terms of security that was impacted by that event?
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Um, I think at that point, I think a lot of stuff went through my head.
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Um, matter of fact, I can tell you that I went to the recruiting station to
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re-enlist and actually went all the way through the process of, uh,
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getting processed to, for re-enlistment.
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The only thing that stopped me from actually going was my age at that time.
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And then I didn't want to leave my family at the time. Sure.
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It's understandable. Yeah.
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Far as the development in my career, a lot of things have changed.
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We looked at, the biggest thing was we started that code system for emergency awareness.
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There was a lot of,
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profiling going on. There's a lot of.
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Tension with just outsiders being in Frankfurt that you didn't recognize.
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And I grew up in Frankfurt, so I kind of know a lot of people and recognize
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a lot of people. But people that worked here, and I never will forget,
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we was collecting for Crusades for children.
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And at that time, we used to stand out in the middle of the road collectively.
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But at that point, it was one of those things that we was just really cautious
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of because even though we were standing right out here in front,
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the station doors had to be closed because everything was on lockdown and everything
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had to be secure, even though we were standing right there in front at the station, but we didn't know,
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what was going on. So, yeah.
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Very different from how you were just operating a few days before.
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Right, yeah. Yeah, interesting. Okay.
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What about your current function as risk manager for the city?
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Do you think that that event has shaped the requirements on you currently?
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Well, definitely. So, yeah, I think out of 9-11, a lot of Department of Homeland
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Security started to grow,
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and they became the head agency, and underneath that agency became all the little
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females in the alphabet suit.
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So, you know, but at the same point, it was one of those things that,
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Every agency had a priority to focus on.
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For example, FEMA was on definitely preparation and preparedness and knowing
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what to look for in weapons of mass destruction.
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And all these classes started popping up and all this training started. So,
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growing from that into my position now, it gave me a lot of background on things
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to look for. Like, subconsciously, I do stuff that I don't even recognize I do.
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So, like, when we have, well, we haven't had one here, but.
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When we have drills and we tend to run these drills, there's certain little
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things that you look for to make sure that, hey, what was the person wearing?
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Hey, what were they headed? What were they doing?
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How's their height, their color? Okay. Just little different things you pick up on.
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Okay. Interesting. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to share your
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experience and your thoughts on the event and how it's shaped you. Well, thank you.
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So, Marshall Marshall, tell us about where you were, what your experience was on September 11, 2001.
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So, 2001, I was actually, so it's crazy when you talk about it now that we're.
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We hire like so much younger. We hired 18.
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So when we talk about 9-11 with our rookies, like some of them weren't born yet.
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Oh, yeah. And so I can remember it just like it was yesterday,
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even though we're going to really celebrate the 25th anniversary.
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I was a senior in high school, and we were just finishing our first hour on Skokane High School.
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And I was leaving, believe it or not, AP Calculus.
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I know. You wouldn't think I was in honor class, but I was leaving AP Calculus
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and everybody started like all in turn the TVs.
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So we had like a little TV up in the top corner of the classroom,
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just like a tube TV, nothing fancy.
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And the teacher, Stacy, turned the TV on And you could see, like,
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one of the towers was already hit.
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And there was smoke coming through. And we were like, you know,
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is this real? What's going on? Sure. It's kind of confusing.
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And everything is kind of, like, standstill. Like, the whole school.
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And everybody's, like, paused.
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And then you hear the bells ring in the hallway to, like, change class.
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And they're, like, just sing class, hang out.
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Like, we'll see what's going on. And we're watching it.
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So, eventually, like, I said, okay, everybody kind of go to your next hour.
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So, we go, my best friend and I, Chris Travis, we move to the next class,
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we have classes together, and TV's on, we just sit down and we're all just watching
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the next one hits, and you're just like, what is going on? This is crazy.
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Yeah, it's a lot to take in. Nice.
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So, post 9-11, how do you think that that experience changed you or changed
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the field of firefighting?
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Yeah, so, for me, you know, 17, high school kid, you look at the world a little
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different, but like then, it's kind of, the world stands still for days,
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weeks, but like here in Kentucky, you get back to normal life like you you have
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to go to school you have to go to work so you know i'm still going to school
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on the world playing baseball whatever,
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and you just see what's on tv and it's still a distance from you to what's going
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on in new york and you know you hear that people were there you hear that people
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have died it hasn't affected you directly,
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and you watch you know president bush on tv and you you don't know exactly what's
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going on exactly like unless you're
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affected with somebody that's there or somebody that's in the military.
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But in the fire service, everybody, or even in police, like,
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you're like, those people are heroes and they've.
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Served, and they've lost their life, and they've saved somebody's life.
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And so it changed because policies changed as far as they added more jobs,
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more protection. It allowed.
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When I got hired, I became, there was added jobs called, there was a grant called
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the Safety Grant, and it allowed you to have more firefighters on a truck.
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So that allowed me to be the fourth person on a fire truck when I originally
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got hired in Georgetown.
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So they used to ride three on a fire truck.
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A federal grant called a safety grant allows you to hire more people to be four
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on a fire truck. So that's what gave me a job.
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Wow. That's, yeah, a very direct impact on you personally. Well,
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thank you for sharing that with us. I appreciate it. I'm here with Chief Velti.
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Can you tell us a little bit about where you were, your experience on September 11th, 2001?
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Sure. I remember quite well. I just finished a shift at Montgomery County Fire
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and EMS. I worked there at the time and can't drive home and was asleep.
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And it had been a rough shift, so, you know, I had gone to bed. And I remember...
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Within an hour or so of going to sleep, the phone started ringing.
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And at the time, of course, I had a landline and a cell phone.
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I turned my cell phone off, but the landline kept ringing, ringing.
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So finally, I get up, answer the phone, and it's my wife.
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And she says, do you know what's going on? And I said, no. And she says,
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I think that you need to get up and turn the TV on.
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And so I did. I got up, turned the TV on. And at that time, the first tower had been hit.
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Was on fire, and you see FDNY is doing their thing. The city seems to be in quite chaos.
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They're trying to take care of, you know, the situation, in which they've had
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planes hit buildings before.
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So initially, you're thinking, you know, what just happened?
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And, of course, the reports coming in was it was intentional.
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You know, we were under attack.
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And so at that point, you know, we stayed glued to the TV.
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Up until the first tower collapses. And then she calls back and she's in tears. She's crying.
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And she says, do you hear it? And I said, yes, I hear it.
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And what she was talking about was the personal alert alarms on our SCBAs.
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You could hear multiple ones going off.
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And so, you know, she was very emotional about that because at that point we
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knew firefighters were not moving, basically.
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And so, you know, you stay glued to that.
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And thinking about that, then the next tower, of course, it had been hit as
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well, and then it collapses eventually. And then that adds to,
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you know, the number and the chaos.
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I remember distinctly that the next tower, Especially the following few days,
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but more specifically that night, I was due to teach a first responder class in Flindingsburg.
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And so we still had class, but all the air traffic was shut down.
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And, of course, that was the topic of the class.
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I don't know that we really had class other than, you know, we talked about
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what's happened. We walked outside, and of course, normally,
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you know, you see air traffic, you'll see claims of the blinking lights at night,
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and we didn't see anything. And it was kind of an airy sight to...
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You know, you don't think about the planes at night until they're not there,
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and you don't see the lights. And the following days after that,
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we had, of course, you were on heightened terror level.
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They wanted firehouses locked up.
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You know, they wanted, you know, don't leave the ambulances running,
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keep the keys with you, things like that, just out of the precaution of the
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unknown. We didn't know that, you know, was anything else going to happen?
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Is, you know, where else? Of course, we knew, you know, New York City being
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one of the biggest cities in the country.
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They just didn't know what else was coming, if anything else was coming,
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to keep everybody on that alert.
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And that stayed like that for a long time as far as, you know,
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the heightened security.
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And of course, in the following months, you had numerous fire departments.
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Of course, you have to realize that.
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Fire Department of New York lost 343 firefighters.
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They lost every single rescue company that they had and numerous apparatus.
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So firefighters across the country were going there to help manning the cause, basically.
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Some people were going to help the efforts, the recovery efforts at Ground Zero.
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And there was a lot of folks just raising money.
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You know, we did GoFundMe type things now, but then it was just collecting money
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from anybody and everybody.
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And I think at the time, our chief at the time, Wayne Welch,
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he collected some money, you know, four or five thousand dollars,
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I think it was, and hand delivered it.
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So they drove up to New York, met with FDNY personnel and presented them with money.
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And so you had a lot of attention, you know, in that duration.
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I know that as far as career-wise, you know, every year we honor,
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we think about, you know, September the 11th and the ins and outs of everything that occurred.
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And still where we're at today is we still think about it. You know,
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it's been 25, it'll be 25 years coming soon. And, you know, it's every September
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you think about it, firefighters think about it.
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Um, most places will have some type of ceremony or remembrance, you know, of it. Um.
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It's, you know, we say don't forget or never forget. For me,
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it's hard not to forget because, like I said, I remember exactly where I was
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that day, what we were doing.
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And then the following days, you know, recently I had the opportunity,
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Chief Clayton and myself had the opportunity to go to FDNY at Stanton Island
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and stand honor guard and present flags.
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They added 61 names to the National
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Memorial, and those were all post-9-11 illness, cancer-type deaths.
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And so, in doing that, and as prestigious as that is, we got to talk to their
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chief, their commissioner at the time, several members of the FDNY,
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and they still have a very high vigilance, you know, of what happened.
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And each firehouse recognizes their members that they lost and you have numerous,
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numerous returning families, you know.
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And in that particular case, the FDNY personnel presented each flag or they escorted each family.
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We presented flags to their chiefs and then the chiefs in turn presented the flags to the families.
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So even today, it's still ongoing and who knows what that number is going to be.
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Each year at the National Memorial, and we've helped with that for probably the last 15, 16 years.
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FDNY is adding names you know there's still yet adding names to that memorial,
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directly related to 9-11 and what happened,
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So we're here with Ray Kinney, Frankfort-Franklin County Director of Emergency
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Management. Ray, can you tell us on September 11th, 2001, what were you doing?
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Where were you? Well, I was at home.
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I believe I was on midnight shift and I was off that night or had woke up and was at home and,
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Caught it on TV during that morning and afternoon.
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It was pretty shocking. I could remember because that never happened before.
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Right, yeah. I've been in law enforcement since 1987.
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We'd had trainings on, of course, domestic terrorism, extremist foreign terrorism,
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those kind of things. And there have been a lot of names thrown out there about possible attacks.
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There had been attacks in the United States.
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But it just wasn't a super forefront thing.
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There was more domestic violence, domesticated violence attacks here in the
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United States, not the foreign terrorism that we'd been trained on.
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Okay, so it's kind of an all-new territory.
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It was a big deal. You know, just the total shock of, you know,
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the airplanes crash and multiple different targets,
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you know, one plane flying actually back toward Kentucky, U-turning and landing,
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I think it was in Pennsylvania up that way.
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So, you know, just multiple attacks involving aircraft.
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Just so, so unusual.
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You know, later that day, my mother called me and said my brother was all right.
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And then I was confused by that.
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Come to find out, he had been in the military and was actually at the Pentagon
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when it got hit by a plane.
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So there was a lot of family dynamics there that, you know, there's a very close,
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personal connection to, you know, the terrorism at that point.
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He was fine. Glad to hear that. He was fine. But, you know, it was just brought
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to realization, you know, we are vulnerable.
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And, you know, just laid a hold of a course of actions in my career. Okay.
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Well, that's actually a good lead into what I was going to ask you, which is,
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After 9-11, how has that event and the happenings around that time,
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how has that shaped your career or your current function as a emergency manager?
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I'll back up just a little bit.
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In the spring of 2001, I went to the FBI National Academy on a leadership course
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and was there for 10 weeks.
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And at that time, the FBI was really drawing down their federal work that they
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were doing. We knew they did bank robbery.
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They did some terrorism, things like that, a lot of crimes, but they're really
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down. It was a small, small academy event.
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Things drastically changed after September 11th, 2001. And, you know,
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that totally changed the body. The FBI did things, a whole lot more federal
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work and training, just gobs and gobs of training.
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Lots of money went into domestic protections. Okay.
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And just today i was earlier today in a conference in louisville and we were
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talking about communications interoperability that was the big key words that
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came out a lot of these disasters that we had,
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with these attacks that people could not talk to each other they didn't know
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what was going on so 25 years later we're still you know,
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Because of that day, talking about how people can talk on radios,
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all these fancy channels and capabilities that we have now to make people understand
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quicker, better, more resilient,
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all kind of different new technologies out there.
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Sounds like there's been a lot of grace in that area. It continues to grow.
27:18
It took a couple of years, 10 years or so before we really got a lot of that
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money from the federal government. But, you know, it put a lot of a lot of safety
27:27
things into the communities.
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Building things, education, you know, the fact that people can come here,
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that they're embedded in the communities and those kind of things.
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Thank goodness, you know, there's not been a whole lot of that.
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A lot of folks that we have now working in emergency response,
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firing MS police, weren't even born when this had occurred. So they're just
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seeing the memorials and the ceremonies that go along with it.
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We did live through that time and there was a lot of fear of what could happen.
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Okay. Well, thank you very much for sharing them with us. Is there anything
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else you'd like to add? You know, it's just, it's awareness.
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You know, we, in our office of emergency management, we do all types of emergency management.
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It's not on there. We are also Homeland Security. There's not enough words to
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put on the show. So, you know, we do Homeland Security also.
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Okay. Under state law and federal law, emergency management and Homeland Security
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have been wrapped together because Homeland Security involves more than just
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police or fire. It's all of our public works. It's our infrastructure,
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our schools, our roads, our transportations.
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That's more encompassing of what our emergency management looks for every day.
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Okay. Food, water, sewers, all of those public works.
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And you know from working on the public works ends, you know,
28:53
we can't have life, we can't have buildings and communities without all of those
28:58
essentials that, you know, we call critical infrastructure.
29:02
And so, you know, we still, you know, work with Kentucky Office of Homeland
29:05
Security, work with the federal partners and share that information between police and fire.
29:11
Daily, it's daily. I mean, we get emails, information, you know,
29:16
if you see something, say something.
29:18
That, you know, we preach that, even if it's a simple call, suspicious package,
29:23
unattended package, to people who shouldn't be where they are in a facility or.
29:30
Doing potentially things with cyber attacks and things like that.
29:34
So it's a lot that we look out for with a lot of different people and a lot of different agencies.
29:41
But, you know, it's really great to bring people together in our position to
29:45
get the best talent we can and the best, you know, the best,
29:48
the views and share it and just make it a safer place. Absolutely.
29:52
I've got Detective Ricky Lynn here, and I wanted to ask you,
29:56
Ricky, if you could tell us a little bit about your experience or where you
29:59
were on September 11th, 2001.
30:03
I was standing in Fayette County District Court waiting to testify,
30:10
and one of the assistant attorneys had their TV on,
30:16
and I was standing just outside her door, and she called me in because that's
30:20
when the first plane hit. Okay.
30:23
Wow. And so we sat there and, like, as the news got out, like in the courtroom,
30:31
there was probably 25 officers there.
30:34
Like, it slowly made it to the judge and the court stopped.
30:38
And it was just a really eerie feeling. And by the time I was supposed to go
30:47
up and testify, the second plane had hit the second tower.
30:52
So now we're getting politics involved on television different things were going on and.
31:04
At that point everybody in america was basically glued to a table sure yeah,
31:09
absolutely okay so following following that day 9-11 how how did that experience
31:18
or that event shape your path,
31:21
or what kind of changes have you seen in the field since then? So from...
31:28
From that day, I didn't know what to do. So I had some friends that worked at
31:34
the New York City Fire Department and Police Department, and I couldn't get a hold of them.
31:41
So I drove to New York City. Oh, really?
31:44
And you couldn't get anywhere near Ground Zero, but I went to the firehouses. They worked.
31:50
Everybody was okay except one.
31:53
Uh and at that point we didn't know whether he was helping or but but he ended
31:59
up being deceased uh from 9-11 so with me being there about a day and a half,
32:08
nobody's still knowing kind of what to do i get an email back from lexington
32:13
pd going everybody's working for the next two weeks it's like,
32:19
16 hours on eight hours off uh all days off are canceled so we worked i don't
32:26
know two solid weeks but it was probably the most,
32:30
eerie feeling in the world with no nothing in the sky no airplanes now like.
32:38
Normally if i saw a plane i wouldn't even notice it but you did notice nothing in the sky. Right.
32:45
Uh, and, uh, at that point, we all talked about terrorism and we,
32:54
like it never, it was always someplace else. Uh, you know, God.
33:03
Yeah, Kentucky's in the middle of,
33:07
the country.
33:11
I came from upstate New York. That's where my first career started.
33:15
And I worked for IBM Federal Systems Division.
33:19
So I had a concept of the military.
33:23
You know, I was never in the military, but you were building products for the military.
33:29
So you had a little tiny concept of what terrorism really was until that day.
33:36
And it was, but it changed the world forever. Yeah, I agree.
33:43
I got a friend right now that's at the 9-11 Museum today.
33:47
And he said it's the most eerie, solemn place you ever want to visit.
33:52
Thank you for joining us this week, fellow Frankfortians. Our community's thoughts
33:56
and prayers remain with those whose lives were lost 25 years ago and for all
34:00
the first responders who dedicate their lives daily.
34:04
We'll catch you again next week on the City of Frankfurt podcast.
34:07
Don't forget to follow the City of Frankfurt podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok,
34:12
and make sure you subscribe to our show feed on Podbean or wherever you get
34:15
your podcasts to get weekly episode notifications. Thank you.