BY NORAH SHEPPARD-HUTCHINS
Daily Post Staff Writer
During September 2001, members of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District were deployed to Ground Zero in New York City to search through the rubble of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Twenty-five years later, members of the fire district’s Urban Search and Rescue Team, , Task Force 3, who helped in the aftermath vividly recount three weeks of endless searching for human remains and the long-term effects of being in the midst of the tragedy. Task Force 3 is sponsored by the fire district, and is a multi-agency team that responds to local and national emergencies. Members mainly consist of firefighters, civilians and those who work for other public safety agencies.
It is one of 28 teams with the FEMA National Urban Search and Response system. Eighteen Menlo Park firefighters were tasked with recovery on what is known as “the pile.” The pile refers to the wreckage and debris left from the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.
Harold Schapelhouman, Task Force 3 Leader
Schapelhouman was one of the firefighters from Menlo Park who were deployed to New York City days after the initial terrorist attacks, and was captain of the task force. He later became the fire district’s chief.
He said the force was unsure if they would be sent to the Pentagon or World Trade Center until the military aircraft they were on landed in New York City, where the force would work 24/7 for about three weeks.
Schapelhouman was also one of the firefighters deployed for search and rescue after the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995.
“It’s another terrorist event, but you got to shove all that (anger) back and get ready to take people literally into a battlefield and hopefully come back with everybody as healthy as they can be,” Schapelhouman said.
Some losses were personal
Schapelhouman said some members of the New York City Fire Department who died that day were friends of his, including Chief Raymond Downey, who he considered a mentor. “It was personal for me. He (Downey) was a good friend. A lot of those guys were friends, acquaintances, people we saw at training, at meetings we communicated with. So unlike Oklahoma, it was more personal,” Schapelhouman said.
He said another difference between 9/11 and Oklahoma City in recovery efforts was the size of body bags; as with 9/11, more remains were found scattered rather than intact. “In New York it was smaller body bags. Maybe the size of what you’d have a sandwich in if you are making lunch for somebody” Schapelhouman said. “And that’s what we dealt with every day on the pile, just the nature of how bad the collapse was and how much people were pulverized.”
Lingering health problems
Most of the task force came back with long-term health issues.
He said the Environmental Protection Agency described the air quality as better than it was, and did not tell them to wear chemical cartridges until day five.
“It was the worst environmental disaster ever in the history of the United States,” Schapelhouman said. “70% of our team members came home either sick at that point or got sick later with respiratory issues.”
Schapelhouman said that after the attacks, it was difficult to manage the “celebrity” that comes with being recognized as heroes.
“How do you balance the celebrity versus harsh reality that we didn’t rescue anybody?” Schapelhouman said. “You’re getting acknowledged for things you don’t want to talk about, and things you hope nobody ever has to see.”
Schapelhouman worked for the fire district for 40 years, starting as a firefighter and ending as fire chief, until he retired in July 2021.
Mark Meyers, Logistics Specialist
Meyers began working with the force in 1996, after seeing their work helping with the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing which inspired him to join.
Meyers said the task force was split into teams, and his team initially worked in structural collapse, because the New York City Fire Department couldn’t take care of other incidents going on in the city.
However, as time passed his team was sent to the pile.
“Just seeing that pile at first was really hard, because where do you start? It’s just this huge pile, stories tall, of rubble,” Meyers said. “It was hard to hold back and assess the situation because as the days passed it was less likely to find a survivor the further into it we got.”
Meyers worked with search dogs and bought a dog in 2002 because of the dogs he met on the pile. He recalled one specific dog, a doberman named Sunny, who he said was the best dog he’s ever met.
Meyers said the dogs started to get depressed after not being able to find anyone who was still alive.
“And so what we did, as the search and rescue guys, we got in little hidden spots in the building and let them come and find us. That changed their whole attitude,” Meyers said. Meyers said from the minute the task force left the military plane, they worked 24/7 for 13 days.
“I remember coming back and seeing my wife and son, and my whole physical thing was relieved. I just took a deep breath like, ‘I’m home,” Meyers said.
Bill Trollan, Medical Specialist
Trollan worked as the medical director for the task force, and initially went to Ground Zero expecting to find live rescues.
However, rescue efforts quickly turned into recovery as there were only human remains.
Trollan said work days would typically range from 16 to 18 hours long on the pile, however sometimes he would work two to three days straight.
He said it’s been documented that he had over 300 hours of exposure to the toxic air, and the Environmental Protection Agency did not take his and the task force’s concerns about the hazardous conditions seriously.
“I have literally had eight X-Ray-documented pneumonias and as recently as last year, I got a reactive airway disease where it was a low-grade pneumonia,” Trollan said. “It went away, and then 1 had a cough for three months; I was on inhalers, and I was on steroids and all this other junk.”
Going back
Trollan said he visited the 9/11 memorial in New York City this July with his wife and family. The juxtaposition between how the area looked in 2001 and now, 25 years later, was eye-open-ing for him.
“We walked over to a church nearby and I remember people would take solace sitting in that church just to get away from Ground Zero, and remembering that there were (missing persons) flyers all over the place, and it was horrible because people would hand you flyers when you’d go through the fences every day,” Trollan said. “I remember where the fences were and the crowds of people go-ing, ‘Please look for my husband, please look for my daughter, and how horrible that was — and now it’s a very beautiful area.”
Martin Mijangos, Communications Specialist
The 9/11 attacks happened only two weeks after Mijangos completed his training to join the task force.
“I got a call and they asked me if I wanted to go, and I chose to go. So as a civilian, first time ever out the door, first time ever doing anything like this, I got to go to the big show pretty much,” Mijangos said.
Although Mijangos was a communications specialist, he said then-Capt. Schapelhouman taught him the importance of being able to take on multiple roles in large-scale disasters.
“Harold is the type of guy that, just because you go in as one thing, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do other things,” Mijangos said. “So not only did I go as a comms guy, but then I turned into a tech guy in documentation, then I turned into a guy searching for bodies.”
Mijangos has been a firefighter with the fire district for almost 23 years now, and said his experience helping with recovery at Ground Zero motivated him to continue his passion for public safety. He is also a reserve officer at the Atherton Police Department. “As an immigrant who immigrated to this country and to be able to become a U.S. citizen and then to serve my country now that I call home, is a blessing and an honor for me,” Mijangos said.
John Wurdinger, Search Specialist
Wurdinger went to Ground Zero with the task force, and his work there led him to reenlist with the Marine Corps Reserve.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I got there. I spent 2-3 weeks digging American’s teeth out of my boots,” Wurdinger said. “They would put us in kiddie pools and then they would use screwdrivers to take people’s remains out of our boots, wash us off and put all the remains in little orange Home Depot buckets.” For the three years after 9/11, Wurdinger said he struggled with his mental health and suicidal thoughts.
From November 2004 to December 2005, Wurdinger was a sergeant for the Marine Corps, while still working for the task force.
Wurdinger is now a battalion chief for the fire district. He is also president of the San Mateo County Firefighters Association, where he founded a peer support program. He said about 40 firefighters went through behavioral health training to help with suicide prevention, through the program.
While most of the people who responded with Task Force 3 were doing recovery efforts on the pile, others were helping with clearing the structure.
John Osteraas, Structures Specialist
Osteraas started working with the task force in 1990, and was also deployed for the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995.
Osteraas said he went to Ground Zero two weeks after the initial attacks, and his job was to coordinate with the four major contractors who were on site and the New York City Fire Department to figure out how both operations could take place simultaneously.
“The contractors have big cranes and they’re interested in picking up large pieces of steel or cutting pieces loose and moving those away, and simultaneously, there might be firefighters who are down in void spaces under the pile searching,” Osteraas said. BK Cooper, Heavy Equipment/Crane Operator Cooper owned a crane and rigging business and worked with the task force as a heavy equipment rigging specialist.
He said he was able to get into meetings every morning that included Department of Design and Construction and FBI members, and the four contractors that oversaw the rescue, recovery and debris cleanup at Ground Zero.
“New York was pushing for this incident to become not a rescue but a recovery. I kept hearing, ‘We’re losing $2 million a day, let’s get this place cleaned up,” Cooper said. Cooper said he advocated to continue searching for victims, however they decided to transition operations to a recovery.
Cooper said the enormity of the disaster was over-whelming, and witnessing the toll it took on those working on the pile.
“One of the crane operators had encountered some body parts, and he was pretty upset and asked for a chaplain,” Cooper said. “The operator was praying with the chaplain and crying, and then pretty soon, the operator hopped back up and went back to work.”
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