AUBURN - It was all a blur. The news, the call, the drive, the muster, and now - perhaps 12 hours after hijacked jets had destroyed the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan - Sharon McLean was lost somewhere in the south Bronx, looking for a bridge in the dark over the Harlem River.
This photograph, by Cayuga County Red Cross Emergency Services Director Sharon McLean, offers a clear view of the smoking remains of the southeast facade of the World Trade Center's south tower. To the far right, part of the south tower's northern facade rests. Photo provided by Sharon McLean
"It was the spookiest thing," McLean said. "There was no one on the streets."
Normally, this would be cause for some anxiety. But on Sept. 11, 2001, no one was allowing a Red Cross van to stay lost for long.
"Everyone saw the Red Cross van and waved at us," McLean said. "They knew where we were going even if we weren't sure how to get there."
Eventually, McLean and fellow Cayuga County Chapter Red Cross volunteer Vivian Cunningham made it to the Greater Manhattan Red Cross offices on Amsterdam Avenue in mid-town, a block off Broadway - a straight shot south to the smoldering remains of the WTC.
But there was little they could do until daylight. "We ended up sleeping in a garage in an underground garage somewhere near the chapter," McLean said.
It would be the best night's sleep she'd enjoy for the next few weeks.
Rapid response
McLean had joined the Cayuga County Chapter of the Red Cross 10 years earlier after a back injury curtailed her career as a licensed practical nurse at Auburn Memorial Hospital.
"I wanted to find something else, something where I could take care of people," she said.
A paid Red Cross staffer for more than four years, McLean, 53, the chapter's director of emergency services, was at a local emergency planning committee meeting that morning when she received a phone call about an unfolding calamity in Manhattan.
"We'd been talking about drills; about how important it was to drill," she said. "I didn't think, didn't dream, anything like that would happen."
Like millions worldwide, they watched on television as the second hijacked airliner struck the WTC and the towers fell.
Like millions of fellow Americans, they quickly realized what they were watching was not just a disaster or a tragedy, it was an attack - they had witnessed a mass murder.
"I was on phone with my counterpart at the Madison-Oneida (Red Cross) Chapter and the building had fallen and then, oh my God, another plane went down at the Pentagon, and then in Pennsylvania," McLean said. "We knew, both of us instantaneously, that we were under attack."
However, unlike the millions transfixed by the televised events, McLean and her fellow Red Cross volunteers were compelled to act.
"We knew we had to head out," McLean said. "We just didn't know where we were going or what we would do once we got there."
By 12:30 p.m., the initial vanguard of Cayuga County Red Cross volunteers was assembling. By 2:30, the five-person team was on the Thruway, headed for White Plains.
As they neared the city, McLean recalls, a sign on the Thruway flashed, "New York City Closed."
A short while after arriving in White Plains, a pre-designated assembly and muster point for Red Cross volunteers, McLean and Cunningham volunteered to take supplies to the Greater Manhattan chapter.
They never made it back to White Plains.
Compassion center
As a nurse that first post-9/11 morning, McLean was asked to stay at the Greater Manhattan chapter where she could be instantly dispatched to care centers if they were overwhelmed by a flood of injured survivors.
Within a day, it was apparent this would not happen.
The next day, Thursday, McLean was sent to the Lexington Avenue Army, the sprawling midtown home of the New York National Guard's 69th Infantry, which had been transformed into the "compassionate center."
"This is where they brought DNA to match with records of the missing," she said. "This is where the families waited to hear if their missing were found."
It was a trying, emotionally charged environment. But McLean was there - 14-15 hours a day, offering what comfort and solace she could.
"You could feel their grief. You could see the men sobbing," she said. "The kids, they didn't understand. Other than human compassion, there were no answers to their questions. That was just so hard. That was a tough job."
But there were some good moments. "All the days ran into each other," she said. "One day, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker, asking a family to come up front. There were thousands of people in the building, waiting. They called three times, then they announced: 'Your family member has been found alive.' A hush went over the building, then a cheer. It was a little glimmer of hope. 'Maybe my loved one will be found.'"
McLean worked at the compassion center for two weeks and then returned to Auburn. She knew, however, she'd be back.
"This was no two-week assignment," she said. "You could see this thing was going to be months."
In Auburn, with other area volunteers who had responded to call for help on 9/11, McLean was honored by local officials, and even received a key to the city.
She was humbled. "I couldn't talk. I wasn't in any shape to talk," McLean said.
Not everyone was tongue-tied, though. "When I came home the first time, my 7-year-old grandson, Matt, told me he'd been worrying about me 'down there with the tourists,'" McLean laughed.
Four tours in five months
McLean would go back to Manhattan four times between September and January, working at Pier 94 near the Javits Center as
well as on Chambers Street when the compassion center was moved downtown from the Lexington Armory.
She continued to work 14-15 hours each day, collecting detailed descriptions of missing people to turn over to police agencies.
During her third volunteer stay in the city, American Airlines Flight 587 bound for Santo Domingo crashed after takeoff from JFK into Jamaica Bay, killing more than 250 people.
Terrorism was eventually ruled out, but the crash rattled the city and McLean.
"How much more can this city take?" she recalls wondering. "There were people who lost people in the towers who lost people in that crash."
On several occasions, she ventured into Ground Zero in a Humvee to give away gloves, flashlights, coffee, kneepads and other supplies to workers.
While "the pit" retained a sense of reverence among workers, it had also become a work site streaming with equipment and laborers.
"Donations were pouring in from everywhere. It was unreal," she said of the way workers were treated by volunteers.
By now, an ad hoc community of volunteers was developing. "After a few times, I'd see people and they'd say, 'Sharon, you're back,'" McLean said. "It got so that you were part of a community. It was funny that way. The camaraderie down there at that time, it was unbelievable. Everybody respected everybody."
But, still, it came down to families, to people coming to grips with the reality that their lives would never be the same.
"Even in January, there were still families coming in for the first time; many seeking financial assistance because they had lost their jobs and had just started to realize, those jobs weren't coming back," she said.
After four stints, McLean decided she could do more good in Cayuga County than in Manhattan.
"It was back and forth with no time to decompress. There was so much going on," she said. "Up here, I knew I had to train people to be prepared; train them to go back down there."
No closure
After leaving Chambers Street in January, McLean didn't return to Manhattan until last Sept. 11 to help observe the one-year anniversary of the attacks.
"That one day was like that first trip. I felt like I was there for the first time. The unbelievable grief and sadness when they (victims' families) came down the pit for the memorial was positively sad," she said. "The dust and the wind was whipping up, at least an inch of sand had blown down on you. Family members were trying to squeeze handfuls of the dirt into bottles. There were pictures in the chain-link security fence. It was one of the saddest days of my life."
McLean felt strangely empty after the ceremony. "It was very emotional," she said. "I was hoping that I would find closure there, but I didn't."
McLean will soon start a new position as the emergency services director for the Adirondack-Saratoga Red Cross Chapter.
During the Aug. 14 blackout, McLean admitted she was quick to think the worse.
"I was driving and I had the radio on and I noticed traffic lights were going off and then I heard, 'New York City, no power; Detroit, no power.' I thought, 'Oh My God, we're being hit again.' It scared me. It really scared me."
But being scared doesn't mean cowering, it means being prepared, McLean said.
"Don't ever think it can't happen again. It's not if it will happen - it's when it will happen," she said. "Training, being prepared, is our only defense."
And sometimes, that defense isn't always in response to a physical disaster. There are deeper ways to be hurt and to heal.
"I'm still looking for closure. I'm still angry. I still don't know what the answer is," McLean said. "I don't think I'll ever get over it #- but I will go on."
Normally, this would be cause for some anxiety. But on Sept. 11, 2001, no one was allowing a Red Cross van to stay lost for long.
"Everyone saw the Red Cross van and waved at us," McLean said. "They knew where we were going even if we weren't sure how to get there."
Eventually, McLean and fellow Cayuga County Chapter Red Cross volunteer Vivian Cunningham made it to the Greater Manhattan Red Cross offices on Amsterdam Avenue in mid-town, a block off Broadway - a straight shot south to the smoldering remains of the WTC.
But there was little they could do until daylight. "We ended up sleeping in a garage in an underground garage somewhere near the chapter," McLean said.
It would be the best night's sleep she'd enjoy for the next few weeks.
Rapid response
McLean had joined the Cayuga County Chapter of the Red Cross 10 years earlier after a back injury curtailed her career as a licensed practical nurse at Auburn Memorial Hospital.
"I wanted to find something else, something where I could take care of people," she said.
A paid Red Cross staffer for more than four years, McLean, 53, the chapter's director of emergency services, was at a local emergency planning committee meeting that morning when she received a phone call about an unfolding calamity in Manhattan.
"We'd been talking about drills; about how important it was to drill," she said. "I didn't think, didn't dream, anything like that would happen."
Like millions worldwide, they watched on television as the second hijacked airliner struck the WTC and the towers fell.
Like millions of fellow Americans, they quickly realized what they were watching was not just a disaster or a tragedy, it was an attack - they had witnessed a mass murder.
"I was on phone with my counterpart at the Madison-Oneida (Red Cross) Chapter and the building had fallen and then, oh my God, another plane went down at the Pentagon, and then in Pennsylvania," McLean said. "We knew, both of us instantaneously, that we were under attack."
However, unlike the millions transfixed by the televised events, McLean and her fellow Red Cross volunteers were compelled to act.
"We knew we had to head out," McLean said. "We just didn't know where we were going or what we would do once we got there."
By 12:30 p.m., the initial vanguard of Cayuga County Red Cross volunteers was assembling. By 2:30, the five-person team was on the Thruway, headed for White Plains.
As they neared the city, McLean recalls, a sign on the Thruway flashed, "New York City Closed."
A short while after arriving in White Plains, a pre-designated assembly and muster point for Red Cross volunteers, McLean and Cunningham volunteered to take supplies to the Greater Manhattan chapter.
They never made it back to White Plains.
Compassion center
As a nurse that first post-9/11 morning, McLean was asked to stay at the Greater Manhattan chapter where she could be instantly dispatched to care centers if they were overwhelmed by a flood of injured survivors.
Within a day, it was apparent this would not happen.
The next day, Thursday, McLean was sent to the Lexington Avenue Army, the sprawling midtown home of the New York National Guard's 69th Infantry, which had been transformed into the "compassionate center."
"This is where they brought DNA to match with records of the missing," she said. "This is where the families waited to hear if their missing were found."
It was a trying, emotionally charged environment. But McLean was there - 14-15 hours a day, offering what comfort and solace she could.
"You could feel their grief. You could see the men sobbing," she said. "The kids, they didn't understand. Other than human compassion, there were no answers to their questions. That was just so hard. That was a tough job."
But there were some good moments. "All the days ran into each other," she said. "One day, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker, asking a family to come up front. There were thousands of people in the building, waiting. They called three times, then they announced: 'Your family member has been found alive.' A hush went over the building, then a cheer. It was a little glimmer of hope. 'Maybe my loved one will be found.'"
McLean worked at the compassion center for two weeks and then returned to Auburn. She knew, however, she'd be back.
"This was no two-week assignment," she said. "You could see this thing was going to be months."
In Auburn, with other area volunteers who had responded to call for help on 9/11, McLean was honored by local officials, and even received a key to the city.
She was humbled. "I couldn't talk. I wasn't in any shape to talk," McLean said.
Not everyone was tongue-tied, though. "When I came home the first time, my 7-year-old grandson, Matt, told me he'd been worrying about me 'down there with the tourists,'" McLean laughed.
Four tours in five months
McLean would go back to Manhattan four times between September and January, working at Pier 94 near the Javits Center as
well as on Chambers Street when the compassion center was moved downtown from the Lexington Armory.
She continued to work 14-15 hours each day, collecting detailed descriptions of missing people to turn over to police agencies.
During her third volunteer stay in the city, American Airlines Flight 587 bound for Santo Domingo crashed after takeoff from JFK into Jamaica Bay, killing more than 250 people.
Terrorism was eventually ruled out, but the crash rattled the city and McLean.
"How much more can this city take?" she recalls wondering. "There were people who lost people in the towers who lost people in that crash."
On several occasions, she ventured into Ground Zero in a Humvee to give away gloves, flashlights, coffee, kneepads and other supplies to workers.
While "the pit" retained a sense of reverence among workers, it had also become a work site streaming with equipment and laborers.
"Donations were pouring in from everywhere. It was unreal," she said of the way workers were treated by volunteers.
By now, an ad hoc community of volunteers was developing. "After a few times, I'd see people and they'd say, 'Sharon, you're back,'" McLean said. "It got so that you were part of a community. It was funny that way. The camaraderie down there at that time, it was unbelievable. Everybody respected everybody."
But, still, it came down to families, to people coming to grips with the reality that their lives would never be the same.
"Even in January, there were still families coming in for the first time; many seeking financial assistance because they had lost their jobs and had just started to realize, those jobs weren't coming back," she said.
After four stints, McLean decided she could do more good in Cayuga County than in Manhattan.
"It was back and forth with no time to decompress. There was so much going on," she said. "Up here, I knew I had to train people to be prepared; train them to go back down there."
No closure
After leaving Chambers Street in January, McLean didn't return to Manhattan until last Sept. 11 to help observe the one-year anniversary of the attacks.
"That one day was like that first trip. I felt like I was there for the first time. The unbelievable grief and sadness when they (victims' families) came down the pit for the memorial was positively sad," she said. "The dust and the wind was whipping up, at least an inch of sand had blown down on you. Family members were trying to squeeze handfuls of the dirt into bottles. There were pictures in the chain-link security fence. It was one of the saddest days of my life."
McLean felt strangely empty after the ceremony. "It was very emotional," she said. "I was hoping that I would find closure there, but I didn't."
McLean will soon start a new position as the emergency services director for the Adirondack-Saratoga Red Cross Chapter.
During the Aug. 14 blackout, McLean admitted she was quick to think the worse.
"I was driving and I had the radio on and I noticed traffic lights were going off and then I heard, 'New York City, no power; Detroit, no power.' I thought, 'Oh My God, we're being hit again.' It scared me. It really scared me."
But being scared doesn't mean cowering, it means being prepared, McLean said.
"Don't ever think it can't happen again. It's not if it will happen - it's when it will happen," she said. "Training, being prepared, is our only defense."
And sometimes, that defense isn't always in response to a physical disaster. There are deeper ways to be hurt and to heal.
"I'm still looking for closure. I'm still angry. I still don't know what the answer is," McLean said. "I don't think I'll ever get over it #- but I will go on."
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