It didn’t take Scott Noakes long to realize the search-and-rescue mission that he and other first responders were undertaking at Ground Zero, a few days after the Sept.11 attacks, would soon be over.
The size and scope of the pile of smashed concrete and twisted metal that used to be the World Trade Centers staggered the most seasoned firefighters, including Noakes. He was part of a seven-member Longmont contingent of firefighters that helped comprise the Colorado Urban Search and Rescue Team deployed to the East Coast after 9/11.
The Colorado group arrived first at Fort Dix in New Jersey to train and to prepare for any further attacks before they went to the 9/11 site. Noakes said he and the other emergency workers tried to grasp the size and enormity of the task ahead.
“It was unbelievable the sheer enormity of it all,” said Noakes, 57. “Nobody had seen anything like this before.”
The Colorado group descended on the site of the attack on Sept. 24 to help sort through the disaster zone and look for survivors. Noakes said during their first night on the rubble pile, they were told to switch their attention to recovering bodies.
Organizers realized the chances of finding anyone alive had become slim to none, he said.
Nobody wavered or stopped. “Everybody just showed up and dug and dug,” Noakes said. New York City fire crews were especially dogged in their searches. “Those guys were amazing … they just kept going,”
The Longmont team worked 12-hour shifts at night, clawing through debris and inhaling dust from the pile for four days before they were sent home. To this day, Noakes gets a whiff from the stench generated by the destruction.
“It’s hard to describe,” said Noakes, who is a firefighter engineer with Longmont Fire Department. Noakes also helps head up the department’s wildland fire efforts. “But it just comes on me at times, and it gives me a jolt.”
He said he also gets his lungs checked every six months as a result of his exposure to the 9/11 debris.
Noakes is the last remaining member of the Longmont team that responded to Ground Zero. Others have retired, passed away or work elsewhere.
He said an entire generation has emerged since 9/11, and he’s concerned that younger Americans have forgotten the impact of the attacks. It is similar to earlier generations that let Pearl Harbor slip into vague history, he said.
“I don’t think they see the gravity of it all,” Noakes said. “It makes me appreciate what we did after the attack even more.”
Noakes said the Longmont crew was among many fire departments from all over the country that tried to help out after the 9/11 attacks. Their work on the ground was as least as important as the morale boost they gave the country, he said.
“Everybody wanted to do something and that mattered to people in Longmont,” Noakes said. “I am proud of what we did.”
