All Episodes
Previous Next
Sept. 11, 2021 - Rudy Giuliani
49:14
September 11 Eyewitness Account: Beth Hatton, Executive Assistant to Mayor Giuliani | Ep. 169
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hello, this is Rudy Giuliani and we're back with another episode of Rudy's Common Sense.
As you know, we're doing two on September 11th and talking to the people who were there who went through that experience to really describe it in a way that you can understand it, particularly those of you who weren't alive when this happened, and also to give some reflections on where we are now.
And one of the people that you've heard talked about in the other interviews is Beth Patron, Beth Hatton.
Beth was my assistant since 1983.
Right, Beth?
Yeah, I was only six when I started.
She was 14 years old, we got an exemption for underage work, and Beth was with me in the U.S.
Attorney's Office, and then when I was in law practice for four years, in between the first time I ran for mayor and the second time, and then when I was in City Hall, and then after.
But this would be in 2001 and she ran my office.
She was in charge of the office and she was in charge.
She knew everything about it.
She knew more about it than I did and she was invaluable.
And she was obviously in that job on the day that this happened.
Many, many Strange things happen when you're mayor.
Emergencies, schedules changing, high-level officials, heads of state visiting.
But this had to be, for many reasons, the worst day of her life, as it was for just about everyone else.
But I want to talk to her about it and have her describe it in her words.
Beth, how are you?
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm very, very good.
So Beth, it was 20 years ago.
And we'll start and then we'll go back and explain everything.
But we'll start with, what was your, explain your job, the work, you know, your official position on September 10th, 2001.
I was the executive assistant to the mayor and I oversaw the functioning of your office, the correspondence, the schedule, the meetings.
Briefings, you name it.
Right, and we've been together almost about 20 years.
You have been with me as a U.S.
attorney since 1983-93.
So yeah, almost 20 years.
Almost 20 years at that point.
And continuously, U.S.
attorney, law practice, several law firms, and then we went into City Hall, which was like a whole new experience for all of us.
But by this time, you were a veteran.
This was seven and a half years into being in City Hall.
You pretty much had it organized the way you wanted and you knew how it ran.
And you knew that every day was a new... It was never boring.
So did you think, before September 11 happened, Did you think that pretty much now that we've been there seven and a half years, you pretty much have seen everything?
I thought so, yeah.
So did I. That's why the day came as such a shock.
I thought, I don't know, somewhere going into that last year, I thought, well, there'll be a repeat of what we saw, but we've seen everything.
And if you remember, I was writing a draft of a book on leadership.
I kind of thought, like, well, I should really write this book, because we've seen everything.
Almost arrogant, like, we've seen everything.
And then tell us a little of your personal background.
You got married several years before.
Yes.
And you got married to?
I got married to Captain Terrence Hatton, who was the captain of Rescue Company, one of the New York City Fire Department.
Who I think you met, because he spent more time in City Hall than anyone, because he got more medals than anyone.
It always seemed to me like I was giving Terry a medal every week.
In fact, the first time I met Terry, it wasn't the first time I met him, it was the first time I saw him doing something heroic.
It was an earthquake.
Now New York City doesn't get earthquakes.
But there is a fault line that goes down, comes down from the north.
It actually comes through Manhattan and it crosses around 63rd Street.
In Manhattan, right below Greasy Mansion.
Because when I was getting dressed that morning, my house shook a little.
I didn't know what it was.
And it went through.
It did no damage.
And we get them every once in a while.
We just don't know it.
And it did tremendous damage, for some reason, to a diner in Queens.
I think it was an historian.
The diner, like, blew up.
And this woman got knocked into the ground.
I'd say what would be the equivalent of about four stories.
And when I get out there, I think Safer was the fire commissioner then.
And he briefs me and he says, we got everybody out but the one woman who was serving, she got knocked into a hole in the ground and we don't know if we can get her out.
I said, was she okay?
He said, yeah, we have Terry Hatton is with her.
He's below the fire there?
Yeah.
I said, should we get him out?
He'll be all right.
He will.
So I stayed there for about an hour and a half.
He stayed with her for an hour and a half.
He really stayed with her to keep her from panicking.
And then he was able to, you know, lift her up and take her up.
And then about four days later, we had a ceremony in City Hall and I gave him the medal.
Then I remember giving him a medal for taking somebody down from a building, going into a building and taking a firefighter out.
And then I was There was a big sign on Times Square that fell.
I think it was the building next to the famous building that fell.
And it smashed up a car.
And there was a person who was trying to fix it that was hanging.
And when I got there, I looked up.
And it was the weirdest thing.
I was walking along.
I got a call that there was a threat on Andrew.
So I had to call the police to get extra security for Andrew.
Somebody had threatened to kill Andrew just at that very moment.
And I'm looking up and I'm looking up.
Before I even ask, who is that?
I said, holy shit, it's Terry.
But who else would it be?
Of course, he got there before ESU.
ESU's all upset.
Well, that was the big competition.
They will not understand this.
We have two rescue operations in the city.
We have the fire department, and they do it through the rescue companies, of which there are five.
And they are the elite unit.
They're like our special forces.
I think people would understand it that way.
But then the police department has something called ESU, which is their special forces.
Now, mostly one is for fire and the other is for bad guys and hostage and stuff, but they like to do the The most dangerous ones.
And whoever gets there first used to go right at it.
And and I think September 11 worked better because we had sort of made peace treaties with them and decided in advance who the who the commander would be of special operations.
But Terry was up there.
And when I went up to him, there was a police captain or the police inspector running it.
But Terry was doing the operation.
He was kind of No.
But I said, was Terry here first?
He said, well, we're not going to leave the person waiting for the policeman to show up.
So you got married when?
1998.
By you.
By me.
Yes.
So Beth, where were you on the morning of September 11, 2001?
That morning you were at a breakfast.
Normally I'm at City Hall by 7 a.m.
Normally she was at City Hall at 7 a.m.
We had a meeting at 8 a.m.
I'd say 95% of the time, 90% of the time.
Sometimes we had it at Gracie Mansion.
And sometimes there were town hall meetings where we'd go to different boroughs.
We'd have those cabinet meetings where we'd go to different boroughs.
But mostly the routine was City Hall, 8 o'clock, Beth got there at 7 to get things ready.
But this was a holiday, more or less.
I declared it a holiday because it was primary day.
They were voting for the Republican and Democrat candidate to succeed me because I was term limited.
And I just decided that we weren't going to have much work that morning, that the work would come in the afternoon when they all started to complain about the election.
Usually about four o'clock, the losing candidate starts to complain that the winning candidate was cheating.
So I told all of my staff, we'll have the meeting late at four o'clock so I can be ready to do a press conference about the election at five.
And also there was scheduled a breakfast at City Hall for the people who were going to donate to the Jackie Robinson Pee Wee Reese statue for the Met Minor League Field in Coney Island.
And Mrs. Reese and Mrs. Robinson were there.
So really things weren't going to get started.
I probably was scheduled to get in around 10 just to make closing remarks to that breakfast.
Time to take a short break.
I accomplished a lot in 2020 exposing the truth, establishing the relationship with you, working tirelessly for America.
And I came to know the work and value of the people at American Hartford Gold.
You see, you buy gold, not only for what you know, but you buy gold for what you don't know.
American Hartford Gold is the company you can trust when it comes to buying gold.
They sell physical gold and silver delivered right to your door or inside of your IRA.
In the precious metals industry, they are the highest rated firm in our country with an A-plus from the Better Business Bureau and thousands of satisfied clients.
Give them a call and tell them Rudy sent you.
And be sure to ask them what I bought.
And if you call them right now, they will give you up to $1,500 of free silver on your first order.
Folks, these are uncertain times.
The one thing you can count on to protect what you have worked so hard for is physical gold and silver.
So don't wait.
Call them now.
Call 833-GOLD-777.
That's 833-GOLD-777.
Or text Rudy to 65532.
Again, that's 833-GOLD-777.
Or text Rudy to 65532.
Thank you for returning.
777 or text Rudy to 65532. Again, that's 833-GOLD-777 or text Rudy to 65532.
Thank you for returning. So I had gone to breakfast and you were getting ready.
I was getting ready for work.
To come to work.
Terry left for work at 7.
And, you know, woke me up and said, get to work.
So I started to get ready for work at that point.
And what time was he on?
You knew when he was going to be on duty.
Well, he started at 9 a.m., but he always got in an hour or two ahead of time.
You know, just for the transition from the night shift.
So he was the captain in charge of Rescue 1.
And then he had a number two.
Who substituted for him at night.
Right, there was a lieutenant.
A lieutenant who acted at night.
So he was relieving him, basically.
Yeah, but as an aside, we always had the radio on at night.
Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
You're getting ready to come to work and coming a little bit later than usual because of the breakfast.
Because you were at a breakfast so I didn't have to be in as early, which was a special treat.
And I was watching the Today Show and that's when the first plane hit.
And I reached for the phone.
I called my father-in-law.
But when the first plane hit, what was your understanding of the first plane?
That it was a Cessna small engine plane, but that there was a lot of fire.
And it looked bad from what the helicopters were capturing.
On the Today Show, so I called my father-in-law, and I said... And your father-in-law was a... A deputy chief.
A retired deputy chief of the fire department.
Very much like his son and the father were very much like.
His father was a very high-ranking and very respected member of the New York City Fire Department, now retired, but known by everybody in the fire department.
But I called him and I said, Dad, are you watching this?
How do we get him out of there?
It looks really bad.
And he said, don't worry.
It's going to be OK.
He's trained for this.
He knows what he's doing.
It's going to be OK.
And I calmed down and I grabbed my stuff.
If he said that to me, that would be somewhat comforting because I knew how good Terry was.
I mean, I knew he was the best at his job.
Yeah.
Was that somewhat comforting or not?
It was at the time.
It was at the time.
Yeah.
Of course, he also had gotten out of many, many situations.
Yes.
That you could have thought was equally as dangerous as this.
Right.
But at that point, it was a Cessna.
Right.
And it was a small thing, smaller anyway, but not a small thing.
But not terribly different than stuff we had handled before.
Right.
And by the time I got to the office, the second plane had hit and we understood we were under attack and it was an airliner.
And at that point was when I really couldn't control the worry.
We were trying to communicate with you.
Of course our phones were ringing off the hook.
The phone lines were jammed and then we eventually lost cell communication also.
The computers went down.
You couldn't reach me because at the time you were headed there.
I was trapped in a building.
Right.
But the last communication that I received was that you were coming back to City Hall.
Right.
By the time you got to City Hall, we had gotten out and we were walking up Church Street.
The second plane hit.
We ran a bit, then we ran back to get people.
And we had made the decision that we were going to go to the firehouse in South Village, because it's big, and we could have room to call the governor, figure out where we're going to put our command post.
We had pretty much figured on the police academy.
I'm sorry, we pretty much figured on the on the police academy and
So you were at City Hall and then what happened?
And the second plane hit.
Now you're very worried because you know it's way beyond anything we ever dealt with before or he ever dealt with before.
Right.
And what else did you know about it?
Well, City Hall was evacuated.
I stayed behind with a handful of people thinking you were coming back.
And when we tried to eventually, then we heard you were going to the firehouse.
We left the building and the first tower came down.
Now, the first tower came down while you were in the... Oh, yes, you left the building.
Right.
You were on the steps.
We were exiting to meet up with you.
And we had to go back into the building because the first tower had come down.
Now, when you say we, who did that include at this point?
It was Bobby Waldman.
So Bobby Wallman was the wife of Judge Wallman from Philadelphia, who was a very close friend of mine from the Justice Department.
But she also worked for Merrill Lynch.
She was in charge of, had a lot of responsibility for the charitable giving program.
So she was at the breakfast with the people that they were asking to raise money for the Pee Wee Reese Jackie Robinson statute.
Right.
And those people were evacuated.
But Bobby, because she knew Beth and she knew all of my staff and everyone, she came back to be with you, to stay with you.
Right.
And Kate Anson was there, Jana Mancini.
And I think mostly everyone else had evacuated.
But we, the three of us, had stayed behind.
And then Lynn Tierney from the fire department had come into City Hall.
And obviously the police officers who, you know, were usually on post there, were there.
And we were leaving City Hall when the first tower came down.
And we had to come back into the building because there was so much ash.
Did that happen immediately?
Did the ash?
It's only, it's less than a mile, people should know, between the tower and City Hall.
Well, and I also recall, too, when the tower came down, all we could do was stand there and just stare.
Did you see it?
Yes.
We were standing outside.
How much of it could you see?
It just... How much of the tower could you see?
The top part of it.
From the steps of City Hall?
From the steps of City Hall, the top part of the tower.
And it just pancaked down.
Must have been a complete shock.
That it could happen.
Yeah, how could that happen?
I mean, I think most people who live through it still can't wrap their mind around the whole thing.
Right.
Even when you look at it on a film, it's hard to believe that it happened in seconds.
All of a sudden it disappeared.
And then the second building came down shortly thereafter.
So because of that, the police put you back in City Hall.
Back into City Hall.
Almost immediately, the debris has arrived at City Hall.
Right.
Didn't take long.
And we went back in.
And we stayed there.
And I think the police were also trying to figure out if there were any threats on any other, at any other locations in the city.
The city hall might have been one of them.
Right.
So they, Lieutenant Brian Patton, Time to take a short break.
Big tech monitors us, censors us, deplatforms us.
and took Jana, Bobby, Kate, and I up to the firehouse in the village.
Time to take a short break.
Big tech monitors us, censors us, deplatforms us.
Conservatives have been helpless to do anything about it until now.
On Getter, you can talk with friends and family and express your political beliefs without fear of Silicon Valley liberals coming after you.
Join Getter, the social media platform that supports free speech Getter is led by former Trump advisor Jason Miller, who saw what big tech did to President Trump and decided to fight back.
Getter is the fastest growing social media platform in history.
with over 1.6 million users and growing, including prominent conservatives like Mike Pompeo, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Steve Bannon.
Join Getter.
It's in the App Store, the Google Play Store, and at getter.com.
Longer posts, longer videos, sharper and clearer pictures, and unlike the Silicon Valley oligarchs, Getter will never sell your data.
Send a message today.
Join Getter.
It's time to cancel, cancel culture.
Thank you for returning.
So, so, and, and when you were driving through, there must've been debris.
There was three feet of ash on the windshield.
The windshield wipers were going, couldn't keep up with knocking the ash off the windshield.
We looked like little Doughboys.
Now, you got that from just the time of going from the city hall down the steps into the car, which is like a one-minute walk, if that.
Right.
You got totally covered.
Totally coated, totally covered in ash.
And we went up to meet you.
So you came to the firehouse, and we were inside the firehouse or we were already starting to leave?
You were inside the firehouse.
We were inside the firehouse.
Yeah, I would say.
Within say within about five or ten minutes we left.
Mm-hmm.
About that?
Yeah, I would say.
We weren't there long at all.
Right.
And then we went immediately to the police academy.
And I remember coming up to you.
You still had stuff.
You were somewhat cleaned off, but you had stuff on you.
Yeah, I was still.
And I, all of a sudden it occurred to me that Terry, I looked at you, you were just putting things together.
Because we moved into an office, we took an office there.
Yeah.
And you were putting things together.
I grabbed my Rolodexes when I left, I grabbed my books, my Rolodexes.
And I looked at you and I asked you to do something, I don't remember what, and then it hit me.
We were calling the Situation Room at the White House.
It was nutty.
But it just hit me.
I looked at her, and I said, what about Terry?
And I asked you, I went up to you, I said, how are you?
You hugged me, and I hugged you, and I said, I think I said, was Terry at work?
And you said... I said, well, he wasn't technically on duty, but I know he was on the truck.
And I said, oh, uh, I must have said something.
And you said, he'll be okay.
And I said, no, no, he's gone.
I know he's gone.
You said it to me like matter of factly, like for sure.
He's gone.
It clearly was the case.
Uh, and I said something like, well, you know, he's so good.
I felt it in my, in my chest.
I felt it cold.
Did you, was it a particular moment that you felt it?
When the building came down.
When the building came down.
I knew he would be as high up in that building, as close to that fire as he could get.
And I knew he was gone.
He was. So when I was there at the scene with Pete Gansey, I saw his truck.
I remember exactly where it was.
His truck was, we were on the west side, we were near the Merrill Lynch building, which was catty-cornered to the two towers so that Pete could see both of them.
Pete Gansey was the chief of the fire department and was in charge of the whole operation.
I was going to ask him where Rescue 1 was and I was almost about to answer, I could see his truck.
And his truck was like…you know they used to have driveways going down into…his truck was parked like halfway down, not even halfway down that driveway.
And that's why I asked if he was at work because I made a note of the fact, well there's Terry's truck.
And then I didn't think about it until I saw you.
But first of all, I knew his company had to be there.
The minute it was that kind of an operation, the rescue companies would be used.
Their main mission is to save other firefighters, but it turns into everything.
And therefore, they would go to the highest point.
I mean, they would go up to the very top to make sure they could get people out.
So you knew in your heart and soul, even though we couldn't confirm that right away, you knew that he had died.
How did you function that day?
I worked.
I know you did.
I put it aside.
I knew he was gone and I just...
I focused on the job at hand.
At the same time you must have had moments where you were ripped apart.
I could still feel the cold in my chest.
So then you'd go home.
Did you stay at the apartment?
I stayed at the apartment.
Then you came to work, we had a… We were at the police academy for a few days.
Three or four days and then it was too small and we moved to the pier where we had a gigantic amount of space.
And I would look at you at times and I would wonder how is she doing this?
Oh, it kind of saved me from falling apart.
Because you felt you had a responsibility.
I had a responsibility.
It kept me busy and I had to keep my composure.
Had to.
There's no way to describe busy.
It was crisis management.
It was crisis management 24-7.
We were busy beyond the amount of time that we had to do it.
So you could not do all the things you had to do.
And then we kept moving, which meant that you had to keep reorganizing.
So we went to the police academy.
We arrived at the police academy about 12.30 on the 11th.
We stayed there the 11th, the 12th, the 13th.
The 13th is when the governor and I decided to move the family center,
because we originally selected the armory in the middle of Manhattan,
because it would be easier to get to.
And all the people complained it was too depressing.
And I didn't believe it, so I went to see it.
It was too depressing.
It looked like Ellis Island.
I mean, if you weren't depressed already, which you probably were, when you got there, it would just drive you nuts.
So we moved to the pier.
And then we decided to move the whole operation to the pier because there was a pier next to it and we were there by the Monday.
I think we were there by the Monday after.
So then you had to set up the whole operation there and there were 5,000 calls a day.
More?
Probably.
Well, yeah, not all handled by me.
Yeah, but in a way going past you, going around you, right?
All going around you.
And then when you went home, would you feel it?
Yeah, obviously when I went home, I was... And as the days went by, even though his body wasn't found for about three weeks, right?
Or a month?
I remember there was a false alarm.
Yeah, it was late September.
I remember there was a false alarm when we thought we found him.
And someone, Tommy, someone notified you that we thought we found him?
Yeah.
And then I was told it wasn't him.
I had to explain it to you.
I felt terrible.
Time to take a short break.
Not long ago, Mike Lindell, the inventor of MyPillow, and his team fit me for my very own MyPillow.
They also introduced me to their wide assortment of other incredible products, like their mattress topper, their sheets, towels, slippers, and more.
Sleep is incredibly important to me, and I can assume for all of you.
It's time you give MyPillow a try and see for yourself.
Listeners have helped build MyPillow into the incredible company it is today, and Mike Lindell wants to give back to all of you.
You can get great discounts on MyPillow products by going to mypillow.com right now and seeing each of the specially priced items, including those in the Radio Listener Special Square.
You're going to see rotational offers up to 66% off on products like their pillows, mattress topper, geezer sheets, but also new products like their slippers, weighted blankets, robes, and waffle blankets.
All MyPillow products come with a 60-day money-back guarantee.
Enter promo code Rudy for these great specials.
That's mypillow.com.
Thank you for returning.
We're discussing September 11 with Beth Hatton.
So Beth, we're at the point where you're now coming to work every day, first at the police academy, then at the pier.
You're dealing with absorbing the loss of your husband and man you love.
Was there some feeling in you that you were completing the work that he was doing?
In a way, he was sort of working on the same thing he was working on.
That's true.
This was an attack on America.
He defended against it, and now we were attempting to... We didn't know if we'd get hit again.
And we were defending against every possibility and trying to put the city back together.
So in a way, you were working on the mission that he was involved with.
Amazing.
So then there was the false alarm that we had discovered his remains.
And I believe a few days after that, you called me on the helicopter.
Why don't you explain what you said to me?
I had come out of my doctor's office and the doctor explained to me that I was pregnant.
And I called you on my first call because I wanted you to know that something good happened.
That something good came out of all of this sadness and horror.
And that's what you said to me?
I found out 11 days after he was gone that I was pregnant.
So he never knew.
It was 11 days after?
So he never knew before he died.
God willing, he knows it now.
Well, I'm convinced he sent her to me.
I'm convinced he sent her.
So, I think he knew.
Now, when we were talking before, and I asked you how you got through this, you said that was the thing that really saved you.
Oh yeah, it was my daughter.
Now, did you go to the doctor thinking you were pregnant?
I, you know, I took a home pregnancy test.
Why?
Usually you take a test like that because you feel something.
Well, no.
What had happened was, I guess with all the craziness, I didn't realize that I was late.
And it was unusual to be late, so I took a home pregnancy test.
But it could have been the trauma, too.
That's what I thought.
And when I saw the positive test, I said, it's the stress.
It's the stress from what's happening.
You saw a positive test that you were pregnant?
Yes.
One that you took?
Yes.
At home?
I didn't believe it because we went through all sorts of fertility.
You should describe that.
You were trying very hard to have a baby.
Yes.
I had two miscarriages, and we did in vitro for six months, and then we gave up.
And we had given up the year before, and we just thought it was just going to be the two of us.
And 11 days after he was gone, I found out I was pregnant.
As soon as I saw the test, I made an appointment with my doctor, and she confirmed the pregnancy.
So that test was about a couple days before you went to the doctor?
Yeah, it was a day or so.
So you made an appointment to go to the doctor to have a test, to see if the test was accurate, but you didn't think it was.
No.
I thought that it was probably just a blip, just a false positive.
Because I didn't think I could get pregnant.
I went to the doctor and I said, I'm sure this is a false positive.
Can you just double check?
I went to the doctor and I said, I'm sure this is a false positive.
Can you just double check?
And she told me I was pregnant.
So I was born that way.
My mother and father tried for a number of years to have a child.
My mother had a miscarriage.
And then her doctor told her, you know, it's just not going to happen.
I think it was a longer time, too.
It was like five or six years.
And for a year, they were convinced they would think about adopting.
And then she got pregnant.
I guess it's when you give up.
Well, my mother had a theory.
I mean, she wasn't a doctor, but she had a theory that sometimes it's when you relax Mm-hmm.
That some of the things that are preventing it stop.
Because she would always talk to people, and she'd find people who had the same experience.
Mm-hmm.
So then she would say, it's when you, like, every once in a while in the family, there'd be someone who was trying for a year or two, or just stop for a while.
Well, so the doctor took the test right there.
Mm-hmm.
Gave you the answer right there.
Yeah.
What did you think?
You were convinced now that you were pregnant?
Yes.
Then I knew I was pregnant.
Then the doctor confirmed it and you were my first call.
You called me and I know exactly where.
I was on a helicopter heading to Brooklyn to a... I think I was headed to a wake.
Oh, a funeral!
Probably headed to a funeral.
I was headed from one funeral to the other.
And you called me on a helicopter and you said, And you said that I told you… You said I have good news.
I have good news.
You know, in all this horror and craziness, I have good news.
I'm pregnant.
And I almost jumped out of the helicopter.
No, I was so happy.
It was very happy and then there's a sadness and a happiness.
And then I thought, this is wonderful.
This is life going on.
And it was Terry coming back to me.
And what an exceptional guy like that.
You should have a child with an exceptional woman like you.
I know Beth has always been extremely humble.
It's very hard to tell her how talented she is and how effective she is and how she can do what four people can't do and that everybody loves her.
She's a very, very good, wonderful person and you were the ideal couple.
He was.
I'm sure he was the most decorated firefighter.
If he wasn't, he was legend.
He was he was very close to it and he was just legendary.
And there really was a feeling that until.
Probably when I told you that he made it, I probably was lying to you.
I probably believed that he didn't.
I didn't think once the building came down.
I thought we would be lucky I thought we'd save 10 or 12, 15, 10, 12.
They'd get it to certain areas.
But when you saw the whole building come down, you had to realize everybody in the building by and large died, which is what happened.
But I still had hope.
So maybe it wasn't completely.
I'm not even sure.
Maybe I was still working on false hope.
My false hope didn't get extinguished until about five o'clock that night when I went to see the medical examiner.
And I asked him, how many body bags do I need and how many hospital beds?
Could he give me an idea?
Because we really thought we were going to get a whole bunch of people in that night.
So we cleaned out all the hospitals.
We took the hospitals near, like Bellevue and St.
Vincent's.
We moved everybody out that we could and sent them to hospitals north.
Further north.
Even in New Jersey and Westchester and Nassau.
So we had lots of hospital bags ready.
And then the biggest sadness for the doctors and nurses, because I went to visit them the next morning, they were crying.
Nobody was coming in.
They're sitting there with, you know, 30 empty beds in the emergency room.
They're waiting for the ambulances that come from the World Trade Center.
They even expected to have a whole bunch of them from the night before.
And when I went there, first, before I came to the meeting, like about 5.30, 6 in the morning, I went there and they said, Mayor, I don't know how to tell you this.
We don't have anybody.
You know what that means?
I said, I don't even know.
I don't know if I knew what it meant right away.
I said, no, there aren't going to be any survivors.
I said, no, no, no, there will be.
We'll get some.
Then I went to a couple of other hospitals and saw some people that were saved the day before.
And it was the biggest shock of all that we had no, we had nobody.
Well, the medical examiner told me when I said to him, how many beds, how many body bags, very matter of factly, just to get the emergency unit ready.
He said, we're not going to need a lot of either.
He said, we're going to identify these people by DNA.
So you... He said, you've already established a family center.
I said, yeah, we did right away.
He said, well, you tell them, like with Flight 800, because we had done this with Flight 800, to bring in toothbrushes and personal belongings of the people that they want identified.
And this is going to be the biggest in history that we've ever done DNA examination.
But we'll set up a software We'll put them in and then we'll compare them to what we find.
So this is going to be a massive operation.
He said, and thank God you have the… Howard Safer had convinced me to build a DNA center.
It cost $150 million.
And it was the biggest in the country at that point.
He said it's going to… And we never thought we'd ever need anything bigger than that.
We'll fill that up in about a week.
So we're going to have to start finding DNA centers all over the country.
And I said, are you telling me I'm not going to have any survivors?
He said, don't count on it.
God.
There were a few, but they were not enough.
It was very, very hard.
But so Terry Terry gets born.
There's a beautiful funeral for Terry.
I don't know if it was comforting or not.
It was one of the more beautiful funerals.
St.
Patrick's Day was filled.
People lined up and down Fifth Avenue.
You knew these were people that he had touched.
First of all, the fire department, police department, people he worked with.
But then you knew there were a lot of people that he saved.
For Warren, for Terry Hatton, they wouldn't be here, which is a remarkable thing.
And I remember that.
I can't remember all the eulogies.
They come together.
I remember certain ones.
And I remember the end.
I felt that was one of the most difficult because of you and him.
But I do remember saying at the end that I wanted my son to grow up like him.
And that one I didn't prepare.
That one just came to me just as I was thinking about it.
And I really think he's just a remarkable person.
During the days that we were doing this, Tommy and I would often say, I wish we had them.
You know, we lost our, I can't say our best people because that would make everybody else feel bad, but we lost our most, many of our most experienced people.
Yeah.
We lost the chief of the department, the deputy chief of the department, Ray Downey, who was the inventor of search and rescue.
He taught everybody around the country to do search and rescue.
He did it in Oklahoma City, brought all his people down to Oklahoma City to do it.
They all got medals from the governor.
You remember that?
Yeah, Terry was in Oklahoma City.
You remember that?
Remember the ceremony at City Hall?
Terry worked for Ray.
Ray taught Terry everything that he knew.
And Ray was, and we had just given a retirement party for Ray, which really was more like trying to tell him to leave.
I mean, he retired five times while I was mayor.
And so the last time he retired, Tommy said, let's give him a party, that'll get rid of him.
Nobody wanted to get rid of Ray.
No, we didn't want to get rid of him.
We wanted to get rid of him because he was too, He should enjoy the rest of his life.
I mean, everybody loved him.
And he would have come back anyway.
Like, let's say he had retired.
You know he'd have been in the car there.
Oh, yeah.
How many of them came back?
I mean, a lot of those people you saw working were retired FIFAs.
I mean, almost every one of them was in good health, came back, and volunteered, and took up the work And they did a lot of the work in Ground Zero, in the pile, because they could more easily adapt to that rather than to get into a role in a firehouse.
And the famous firefighter that held the horn with Bush was retired.
Yeah.
Was that Vigiano?
No, no.
No, Vigiano lost both his sons.
Yeah.
One fire, one police.
Very, very tough.
So you got to know all of them too.
So now we go 20 years later.
What was the September 11th like for you?
Like the first one and the second one and the third one.
Are they bad days?
What I tried to do initially when Terry was young, because obviously you don't want your child to see you upset, I would plan events.
Go to Disney World.
Do something sort of distracting.
Something distracting and that would take up your attention.
Yes.
And something for her to focus on her rather than to focus on what happened.
And I did that for a couple of years and I couldn't pull it off anymore.
And September 11th is tough because it's such a It's such a community grieving, especially in New York, for people who live through it.
Now there's a whole generation of people who don't know what we're talking about.
It's particularly focused if we're talking about the firefighters, because it's also the firefighter family, which is a family.
Even before this happened, it was a family.
And of course, the people who lost loved ones on that day have a real connection.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, you can't avoid it.
It's all around you.
And then, of course, it's on the television.
Right.
So you really can't avoid it.
I have to tell you, though, there's one thing that did give me comfort every year, and that was having dinner with you.
Every September 11th and being with the people that we were with on that day who understand what we went through and how we felt, it's very, very meaningful.
Something that you've done every year for 20 years.
You don't have to talk to them even.
I mean you don't have to talk to them about it, you can if you want.
Right, it's just comforting to be in their company.
You don't have to explain everything you've been through and they don't have to explain everything they've been through, you know it.
And if you want to talk about it, you can pick it up right in the middle.
Whereas if it's somebody else who hasn't been through it, they may be sympathizing with you and feeling bad for you, but you almost feel like… They're being nice, but they don't really understand.
On the other hand, the people who've been through it, they've all suffered big losses.
They all were there.
And they all understand.
They all got frightened out of their minds.
We're all feeling the same way.
Now, a couple years ago, Terry came and read Captain Hatton's name.
That was a beautiful, beautiful thing.
And then when I called you before, a couple of days ago, I asked you about Terry, and you said to me she's in the second year of college.
I almost fainted.
Yeah.
Yeah, time goes by, and I'm so proud of her.
I'm proud of her, too, but I'm proud of you, Beth.
Thank you.
I'm proud of you, too.
Well, we're a mutual admiration.
We got through a lot together, Beth.
Yeah, we did.
And we're here, and it's our obligation to carry on.
Yes.
Wow.
Well, we're going to get together this year.
Yes, we are.
Again?
Again.
Are you going to go to the ceremony?
I'm going to St.
Pat's Cathedral.
The fire department is having a mass.
I like that.
On Saturday afternoon.
Then I will see you on Saturday night for dinner.
Good.
Well, I love you.
I love you too.
There are a lot of terrible things, terrible aftermaths of September 11 and a lot of people who suffered tremendous grief, really can't be worse than Beth.
But it's also wonderful to see the way she handled it for the benefit of her daughter, so that her daughter would have as normal a life as possible.
And she reminds me that the worst part of going to the funerals for me was giving a eulogy when there were children there.
I could get through it and explain it.
I could explain it to the parents.
I could explain it to the wife or the girlfriend.
I can explain it to the older children, but when I looked at a two-year-old or a three-year-old or a four-year-old, it took every bit of discipline I had not to just break down and cry and just think, oh my goodness, look what they took from it.
But the wonderful woman like Beth, it's a miracle the way you brought her up, and God bless you.
Thank you.
And she did.
She turned something bad, that attack, into something good, a wonderful child.
That's the only thing you can do.
So, we'll be back.
▲
Export Selection