Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, two retired Miami-Dade firefighters are sharing their memories, their expertise and the images they say they will never forget.<\/p>\n
Retired Miami-Dade Fire Capt. Gabe Nemeth was deployed to New York as part of Miami-Dade\u2019s Urban Search and Rescue team.<\/p>\n
As his team approached Lower Manhattan, Nemeth remembers the dust, debris and crowds.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we were approaching the area, lower Manhattan, you could see the dust still, paperwork, all kinds of debris and people, crowds gathered around,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When they reached the World Trade Center site, he said the scale of the devastation was overwhelming.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then when you approach the site where we approached it from, it was almost overwhelming \u2014 the sheer size of it,\u201d Nemeth said.<\/p>\n
Their mission from the start was to find survivors.<\/p>\n
Nemeth said rescuers knew from previous disasters that people could sometimes survive inside voids and spaces created by collapsed structures.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s documented after documented even back then of people surviving in what we call voids and spaces,” he said. “And so that\u2019s where it was focused on, to try to search and rescue the survivors.”<\/p>\n
But for his team, there would be no rescue.<\/p>\n
What has stayed with him are the families and friends desperately searching for loved ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crowds, the signs of family members, friends missing \u2014 those things, those images do not go away,\u201d Nemeth said.<\/p>\n
Retired Miami-Dade Fire Assistant Chief Carlos Castillo was sent by FEMA to help lead the Urban Search and Rescue response at the Pentagon.<\/p>\n
He remembers approaching Washington, D.C., and seeing smoke rising from the building.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing I remember was as we were crossing over in Washington, D.C., where you could see the color of the smoke coming from the Pentagon, and it was an awesome sight,\u201d Castillo said. “Arguably one of the most secure buildings in the world had been penetrated by an aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their priority was still to search for anyone alive. Their work later turned to recovering remains and preserving evidence.<\/p>\n
After 10 days at the Pentagon, Castillo continued his work in New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were photos everywhere,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople would be around with photos asking us if we\u2019d seen them, and that was always difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also remembers subway walls covered with photographs of people who were missing.<\/p>\n
A total of 2,753 people were killed in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. Another 184 were killed at the Pentagon. Among those who died in New York were 343 firefighters.<\/p>\n
For Castillo, the loss was deeply personal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was personal because firefighters and some friends were among the ones that died,\u201d he said. \u201cThat changed me forever because knowing that every time we have a mission, that\u2019s a possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nemeth said that 25 years later, he also hopes Americans remember how the country came together after the attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things we can look back, especially today, is how this nation came together,\u201d he said. \u201cRemember that we came together as Americans, as a nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that people should not only remember the lives that were lost, but also \u201cwhat we\u2019re capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both men spoke with us at Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Station 3, a station dedicated to honoring the 343 firefighters who lost their lives on Sept. 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, two retired Miami-Dade firefighters are sharing their memories, their expertise and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51700,123,125,124],"class_list":["post-397393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-9-11","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}