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In addition
to the “determined but calm” (as Gill describes it) crowd,
there was the smell, an acrid stench of civilization burning. The Harvey
immediately pulled up to the seawall at Pier A, south of the World Financial
Center, and took on about 150 survivors. No sooner was the crew headed
north than the fire department radioed them to quickly discharge passengers
and return downtown to help pump water. They were now officially Marine
Two, the Harvey’s old designation. She was back in active
service.
There
were problems. Although the owners had used the deck pipes many times
for amusement, much of the old fire-fighting gear was inoperable. But
Ivory hooked the fire hoses directly to the deck pipes, and the Harvey
was soon doing her share to replace water mains crushed in the collapse
of the buildings. Furber went ashore with his welding gear and spent the
day and that night cutting people and corpses out of wrecked vehicles.
Welles went ashore, too, and then came back for Gill. Later in the afternoon,
Ivory also walked inland. He recalls: “Everybody was quiet. There
was no traffic making noise. You could hear some generators and firetrucks
running, but that was about all. The ash that had come from the buildings
blanketed everything, so there was no dimension to it. Everything was
the same shade of gray, so it was like a large black-and-white scene.
Even the people were totally covered except where their sweat or tears
made creases.”
The
Harvey stayed on station until Friday. Welles returned to his family
Tuesday night; Gill stayed until Wednesday (regulations require a pilot
to be onboard at all times), when he was relieved by Bob Lenney, a retired
FDNY pilot who had served on the Harvey. By then Jessica DuLong, the boat’s
assistant engineer, was aboard, allowing Ivory to get some sleep.
“I
got on my bike about five,” Gill recalls, “and went from this
surreal world to the real one. It was like going through the looking glass.
People were staring at me as if I were some monster that had crawled out
of the sewers, and it was there that I lost it. I burst into tears. It
all came home. When you’re down there, it was its own world. When
you get out, you suddenly have a perspective on it.”
The
Harvey spent more than 40 hours pumping water until the street
hydrants were restored, and then she quietly slipped back into retirement.
But she is not forgotten. The National Trust for Historic Preservation
bestowed on her a special Preservation Honor Award for her involvement
in the WTC disaster. On October 6 past, she turned 70 years old; she remains
open to visitors at Pier 63.
Roy
Attaway is a freelance writer and photographer.
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