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[Music] [Music] this is Mike us and today we have Joseph feifer from the New York fire department
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he is the chief of counterterrorism and emergency preparedness for the City of New York and he's a city Citywide
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command chief for the City of New York responsible for commanding major incidents uh in the city Joe great to
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have you here and I'm going to begin Joe by asking you about basically your career with the the department you
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joined in 1981 and during especially your early years what have been some of the most
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informative experiences that helped you learn how to lead people into uh sometimes in the Harm's Way many days
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are routine but some days are not in the life of a firefighter so your your formative moments if you would well when
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I first came into the fire department as a probationary firefighter I was told the most important thing is to know the
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job know what you need to do so I started reading reading a lot of the fire manuals and procedures um but
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that's only half of it the other is actually experiencing um firefighting there a tcid knowledge of of of how to
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force a door how to climb an aerial ladder 100t in the air um but to be a good firefighter to be good at anything
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is is really having the competency and and knowing uh what to do um as I became an officer it was it was more than just
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knowing what to do is being responsible for firefighters and that point was made
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um actually after 9/11 I was uh in command of a third alarm fire up in the Bronx so we have about 100 firefighters
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at the scene uh about three dozen pieces of apparatus and the fire goes out and I'm leaving and I have this firefighter
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running down the block after me and says chief chief chief and I stop and he turns and I turn around and he says
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Chief I just want to let you know that I'll follow you down any hallway now for firefighting for
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firefighting the most dangerous part is is a hallway becomes like a uh like a chimney and all the smoke and and heat
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fills into the hallway and I thought wow this is this is a very nice compliment and then when
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I got back to my car I realized he was saying just more than I'll follow you he
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was saying that I'll follow I'll be with you I'll follow you and I want you to
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keep us safe see leadership is about um not giving orders but it's about sharing
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the sharing the danger and that firefighter was saying that that that that because of what I've done in the
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past that he'll follow he'll be with me uh during the next uh major event uh an
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awesome responsibility I could actually feel that pressure of of the responsibility for others and uh and um
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he meant what he said a formative moment very much so Joe let me ask about a set
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of documents that I know you help prepare a set of checklists of the New York fire department reference
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particular incidents if you will so you have a checklist if there's a radioactivity release you have a
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checklist in case of a building collapse you have a checklist that has the title
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the MayDay checklist talk if you would about why you develop these checklists and then how they're used in practice by
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members of the New York fire department we use a checklist as shortcuts um and and for a radiological
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incident there's a we don't do that a lot of times so we need a a list to
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follow what procedures but as a shortcut is it's it's how do we deal with the
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stress of a situation so during a fire as the fire becomes more and more complex and and uh and we have to make
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decisions the stress level increases one of the most um difficult times as as a commanding Chief would be
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a mayday Mayday is a message from the firefighter that the firefighter is in trouble that the firefighter is um
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trapped doesn't know his or her way out of the building that something's
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seriously wrong a life and death situation immediately the stress level goes up and and you have to deal with
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that and at the same time fight the fire so we use a a checklist and and an acronym um the word we use is lunar what
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what we want to know is the me M's location his or her unit the assignment um and what resources do we
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have available um in the person's name um that is critical critical information
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so we can make sure that firefighter gets out of the building alive um it it helps to to to uh know what to
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do right away and it and it's very focused another thing we're we're
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dealing with now is how do we use technology as a checklist and instead of of writing words where there's a
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checkbox we look at at visual cues so for example we're developing electronic command board or or what I
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like to call a command pad very similar to the iPad we're able to see where our
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units are deployed uh they're within a a a building uh um structure and one one
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of the important things for for safety is to do searches of of every floor that there's there's fire and even floors
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that there's not fire um we're required to do that within 15 minutes so as a
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checklist we use visual cues if the search isn't is not completed the primary search is not completed within
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15 minutes on that command pad they it'll the floor will turn red and instantly that's a cue to The Incident
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Commander to check on the status of the Searchers if we do a primary search it turns yellow and if we do another search
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afterward a secondary it turns green so we use the intuitive knowledge of a stoplight red yellow green to give the
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instent commander the same cues or a checklist but now we're doing it in in a
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visual format you know looking at the mday checklist there looked to me my outside
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eye that you've got a good number of items they all look pretty Mission critical and you probably want your
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officers to get through all of those and one in particular that caught my attention having gone actually through
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your training program with seven of my colleagues a few months ago on the MayDay command we learned I think it's
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part of the checklist protocol that when you say Mayday if you're a trap firefighter uh you have to repeat that
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three times so tell us why is that important it's important because we're
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dealing with Wireless Communications we're dealing with radios um and what we
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wanted we want to make sure that message comes across so for firefighters in trouble the firefighter will go mayday
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mayday mayday and then give a message it it it um makes sure the message gets through and it's also tells the other
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firefighters to stop talking on the radio and listen um so in just three words there's a lot of communication
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being done speaking of Mayday uh as fate would have it on the morning of 911 you were down near the World Trade
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Center checking on a a gas leak it was a pretty routine day uh you did look up uh a few minutes
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before 9:00 8:46 a.m. to be very precise and you saw the first flight hit the uh
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the North Tower uh you were the ranking Commander that close to the World Trade Center you played a very important role
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uh in bringing firefighters and emergency service people in there and then you were The Incident Commander in
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the North Tower just take us from that 8:30 or so moment the morning to 911 just talk us through the next couple
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hours if you would on the morning of 911 we were at a a gas leak in the street and it was
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pretty much a routine emergency for us and then at 8:46 in the morning we heard this loud roar of a plane
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and you never hear um a plane going overhead in Manhattan because of the height of the
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building and um we saw the plane actually aim and crash into the North Tower and at that moment we knew we were
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going to the biggest fires of Our Lives um I got on the radio and I gave a message um to transmit a second alarm
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for a plane into the building and I told the people that I was with the firefighters to respond in with me
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about a minute later um I had it I had just a little bit time to think and I gave another message and very clear I
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asked them to transmit a third alarm more resources coming and then I said to the dispatcher that the plane was aiming
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for the building um I knew at that moment that this was not an accident that this was a
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terrorist event and then I I uh proceeded to give further orders where I wanted firefighters to stay and where I
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wanted them to to go in and I can remember stepping into the World Trade Center um into the lobby um it looked
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like the plane actually hit the lobby um there was debris all over the place Glass Broken people injured some people
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were burnt um and I went up to the fire safety director and I was told that the fire was somewhere above the SE the 78th
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floor so as firefighters came in uh they came in and I um I gave an order and the order was to go
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up to evacuate the people from the building and to rescue those that couldn't get out by
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themselves and I told them to go up to the 70 70th floor I figured at the time eight floors was a good measure of
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safety we would regroup and then try to get people out that were above the fire and then
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um as we were doing that a little bit before 9:00 we gave the order to evacuate the South
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Tower but a few minutes later at 9:03 that morning we heard another loud roar and this was um the second plane
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crashing into the South Tower at that point we um we uh divided our Command there was one command in the
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North Tower one in the South Tower and and our chief of Department was across the street over over all um the person
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in charge um firefighters came in and they started to climb and they started to encourage people to to come down don't
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stop keep goinging down keep keep moving down um get out of the building and then at at 9:59 that
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morning we heard we heard the crashing sound um and we moved oh about about 20 M from
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where we were standing um in the lobby to a passageway uh that that led across West
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Street and um that the the lobby that was um was covered with dust and with uh and went
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completely black um now for firefighters being in darkness is not a big deal we operate in
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that all the time um but at that moment some of the other chiefs were saying we had to get out of the building something
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very important to do we had to we had to move out we couldn't command in the
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lobby we had to leave but I knew how to get out of the building see this was my building um I
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was there hundreds of times so that brought me some time to think and that few seconds to think I
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knew that if we couldn't command that we need to get the firefighters also out so I picked up my
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handy talkie radio um and I said command to all units in Tower one evacuate the building and the firefighters started to
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come down but being many floors above it took a long time to come down what we didn't
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realize at the time was that we were running out of time um and as firefighters came
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down um they didn't think of just themselves one Lieutenant I could remember
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stopping and around the the ninth floor and directed other firefighters to another stairs because the stair they
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were coming down would have led to the uh the courtyard where the debris was um another unit lad 6 stopped and
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and noticed a woman that couldn't um couldn't continue any longer so they picked her up and started
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the carrier down we made our way out into the street and standing in front of the the
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World Trade Center um we couldn't tell what happened it was covered with dust and
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debris um and we were never told that an entire 110 story building just collapsed
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to the ground and then at at uh 10:28 that morning we heard the uh the crashing and
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the Roar of the North Tower collapsing and we be began to run but with bunker gear you can't run that fast
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or that far um so we crouched down behind a behind a truck and and this beautiful summer morning
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that was full of of sunshine to turned completely black where you couldn't see the hand in front
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of your face and you could hear the the steel crashing all around us and we were just
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waiting for really um to be crushed because we knew we were too close to the Trade
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Center and then the steel stopped and it became silent there was no more talk on
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the radio there was just this Eerie sound of total silence it was like a new snowfall you just heard nothing it was
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just this muffled sound when we got up and we walked back to the Trade Center or where the Trade
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Center was we saw this Rubble uh um and couldn't believe that the buildings The Two Towers just
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crashed to the ground I heard um on my radio I heard a call from L 6 L 6 to command were
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trapped in the be stairs on the fourth floor while I looked out on the pile and I knew the building well and I had no
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idea where the captain was see that was the captain carrying the woman down and by slowing that
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descent they were able to to survive in a little pocket um that Captain got his unit out
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and and the woman out alive miraculous story um but other stories that Lieutenant from engine 33 and and 343
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firefighters that day died um in total we lost uh 2750 people in New York but amongst the rebel and amongst the
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the uh the uh the pain we we saw glimmers of Hope um see terrorism tries to take away
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um people's hope but we what we saw that day is people helping each other what we
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saw in the days and the months that follow was the silhouette of a firefighter on on the pile at Ground
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Zero searching for to to to make rescues initially and then to recover those that
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are that were lost um it's it's important that we uh we don't Focus just on the on the
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sadness of the of that day because we did save 20,000 people and 911 is is something different
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it's not just an event for New York City or just an event for the United States
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is it an International Event because no matter where you were in the world you experienced it through the through the
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media a type of global trauma but 9/11 10 years after it gives the International
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Community a voice that small roadside bombing that that uh um um Hotel bombing um it gives people a voice
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against terrorism it's a United voice a world voice that terrorism is wrong so
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as we look at at at the anniversaries um the 10th and other anniversaries is really an international
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event that gives all victims a terrorism of voice and Joe I know in the 10 years
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since 911 you have spent a lot of time thinking about that event its implications for leadership for getting
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through a crisis of that kind you work with 911 Commission you've written about
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what happened and some of the Lessons Learned talk if you would about a a couple of the
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leading call them lessons that you have now worked with uh since the the events of that terrible
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day I think the 911 Commission captured it well um by saying that there was a lack of information sharing certainly
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there was a lack of information sharing before the the events of 9/11 with the the the intelligence Community but there
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was also a lack of information sharing among emergency responders police and and fire department so I I think one of
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the the important Lessons Learned is that during a catastrophic event during a disaster uh we need to share
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information and there's a sense of of uh interdependency we we need to work together uh one of the things that
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um that that that I wrote about is that during any major event they'll always be
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organizational bias so as the stress of an incident increases groups turn into their own firefighters go to
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Firefighters police go to police emergency medical form their own groups but during a disaster we need
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just the opposite we need for those groups to collabor collaborate um so as as we look at other major disasters
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around the world a an earthquake a tsunami another terrorist event it is really um groups coming together and and
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communicating and and working with it with with each other to deal with the the disaster at hand and I know you've
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spent a lot of time building that integration and ability to communicate since then as you've taken on additional
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duties now as chief of counterterrorism for the City of New York what keeps you up at night these days 10
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years after 911 with my uh my job there's a lot of things that keep me up at night but one
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of the things that I do worry about the most um is the type of an attack that we
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saw occur a few years ago in Mumbai well matter of fact this refer to a Mumbai style attack where there's multiple um
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active Shooters uh in different locations using um improvised explosive devices and using fire is those three
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weapons of of of of guns explosives and fire is the thing that keeps me up at night um because in
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combination they are the most deadly um the World Trade Center was brought down not by the planes it was brought down by
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fire and we see that terrorists are starting to learn from their own activity and um and it points to to that
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we also must learn so if for us to battle a a um a an event that uses multiple means of of weapons multiple
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means of attack we need to to work with each other and and to deal with a an event like that um but certainly it's
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something that worries Us in New York I'm in contact with uh London and it worries them um but I think by sharing
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information um within the city of New York and with other cities um we'll be
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better prepared to deal with that type of event if it would occur Joe a final question here you've been with the New
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York fire department for 30 years you were at Ground Zero and 911 for the last decade you've thought a lot about how to
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build out of that to prepare for whatever may happen in the future catastrophic events we all worry
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about they've been sort of brought more to home as we watch what happened to BP
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in the Gulf the Fukushima power plants in Japan the disaster in Haiti with that earthquake on the basis of your
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experience with the New York Fire Department 911 and the decade since then what advice would you have for people
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who are responsible in the private sector public sector maybe a nonprofit organization for thinking about how to
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get through a catastrophic event I think when we look at those events we want to we want to think of
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just how to manage it or um the military refers to command and control we want one person to to run the whole thing and
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I I think what we've learned since 911 and and looking at those major events
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that is not the leadership um that that's not what leaders do leadership during a catastrophic event does more
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than just manage the event they they did they do three other things they connect
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collaborate and coordinate connect when an event occurs the first thing that needs to be done is
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to hastily form networks at the scene of the incident among um firefighters Rescuers law enforcement medical
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personnel and and for them to start to communicate and work together away from the incident we have to connect to those
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Emergency Operations centers that we've created and have information passed from
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for example New York City to the state to the National Operation Center down in Washington
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DC once we we form these networks the incident commanders the people that are responsible for for
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dealing with the event need to get together and collaborate so there's this flattening of command not just one
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person but now we have the major decision makers getting together and figuring out what to do and what they do
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is is coordinate the resource that that that that we need to get a job done we take
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that resource but I think what we're seeing now is that it's not just one
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resource it's multiple resources so for example during the Hurricane Katrina in
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New Orleans we had the Coast Guard spot fires the Fire Department New Orleans fire department with the assistance of
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the New York City Fire Department went out and extinguish the fires but they also went out with law enforcement for
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protection so it was that combination coordination of of resources so when when we look at at leadership
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whether it's in the in a uh emergency response or in business or in uh in in
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nonprofits when there's a disaster it's the combination of what we call uh C5
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command and control connect collaborate and coordinate Joe thank you very much let
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me on that note bring it to a close uh let me thank you for 30 years a service to the city of New York let me thank you
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for uh putting uh your leadership and your life on the line on that very fateful morning on 911 and thank you for
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your insights that have come with a decade of thinking now and reflecting on 911 and all the threats that we face so
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that the rest of us can be more prepared to face those I ities that maybe are out
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there one day and we need to be ready to do what we have to do if heaven forbid we do face another disaster so Joe
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feifer thank you very much thank you [Music] Mike