Molokai grad aided Crawling through dark spaces searching with other firefighters for survivors amid the rubble of the World Trade Center, former Molokai resident Alan Naeole hoped he would find someone alive. He did not.
search for survivors
in New York
The Los Angeles firefighter spent
10 days sifting beneath the ruins
of the World Trade CenterBy Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.comNaeole, 43, a Los Angeles firefighter sent to assist in rescue efforts, said what he found was a city of grateful people who gave him enough encouragement to continue his work for 10 days.
"The support we were getting from the people of New York was outstanding. It gave us more energy to work harder," he said.
"We want to look for life. We want to get some people out. When you don't, it's kind of disappointing. Emotionally, it was a roller-coaster."
Naeole along with Los Angeles firefighters Tom Haus and Tommy Kitahata appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night and talked about their rescue efforts in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
In an interview with the Star-Bulletin, Naeole said he and 61 other fire department specialists left Los Angeles on the night of Sept. 11 and worked 12 to 16-hour shifts for the next 10 days, returning to California on Friday.
Naeole, a 17-year veteran of the Los Angeles Fire Department, is part of the elite "Urban Search and Rescue Task Force" that is sent out to assist in times of national disaster, including the terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City.
As part of the task force, sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Naeole was trained as a rescue specialist and cross-trained also as a paramedic.
Naeole, a 1976 graduate of Molokai High School, said the news photographs he saw did not begin to show the extent of the disaster.
"The magnitude of it was more than I could have ever imagined -- the debris, the rubble, the cave-in -- unbelievable, it was overwhelming," he said.
Naeole said the World Trade Center had at least 10 floors below street level -- floors for a train, subway, shopping, and parking.
"Some areas caved in so many different levels," he said. "You're looking down a valley of five stories and next to that was rubble pile six, eight stories high."
He and other rescue workers on his team crawled down three stories below street level, looking for "void spaces" where there might be survivors, such as a cafe roof held up by a nearby escalator.
Sometimes, they drilled through walls and used a video search scope to look for survivors. At least once, they lowered a rescue worker on a line to check a space.
At other times, the rubble and steel were too thick for boring and they tried to find crawl spaces elsewhere, while keeping in mind the structural nature of the collapsed building.
"It's kind of spooky, but through our training, we kind of know what's above us," Naeole said.
Naeole said he never gave up hope of finding a survivor under the rubble, although the chances diminished considerably with each passing day.
Even now back in Los Angeles, he's still hopeful that fire rescuers will find a survivor.
"I know there are areas down below that may have not been searched. Youa always hope you will be able to run across a survivor," he said.
