Interview with George Tamaro

This transcript is based on videotaped interviews conducted by Great Projects Film Company for the documentary "America Rebuilds: A Year at Ground Zero," and has been edited lightly for readability. The interviewer's questions have not been included; the interviewee's initials indicate where answers to questions begin.

George Tamaro (GT): I received a phone call from my daughter who was two blocks away from the World Trade Center. She called me to tell me that apparently a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. With that I turned on the radio to listen to what was going on. When I was chatting with her I told her I thought it was, you know, some stunt -- that somebody did something really stupid. With that, my son who's three blocks away from the site calls me and he says that the plane had hit again -- run into the air -- into the building. I was listening to the radio and I'd heard that a second aircraft hit. At that point my daughter called me again. She said that she was concerned that it was some kind of attack going on. My son called and we had some conversations about what to do. My daughter decided to evacuate. She went to the lobby. They told her to stay in the building. She went back to her office. Meanwhile my son was evacuating, and he went over and he picked her up. They met on the street and they walked up to my son-in-law's office. My son-in-law then walked with the group over to me with two other people that evacuated: Somebody from Singapore and another one -- one of the brokers that works with my son.

All of this time I was listening to the radio. I really didn't turn on a TV or look at a TV. Frankly I was sitting in disbelief because I just couldn't conceive of the buildings coming down. In '93 I was interviewed on the '93 incident. I remember saying very clearly that I thought it was a very robust building and I couldn't imagine it being blown up, as was suggested. And that it was complete disbelief. I didn't believe it could happen.

GT: It was just over the radio. I was listening to the radio. I was trying to work and keep my mind on something other than that because I realized where I was. I couldn't do very much to be of any assistance at that particular moment. The fire engines and emergency vehicles were all running past my window on 34th Street. So I knew that there was an awful lot of activity going on. I sensed very much that I couldn't be of assistance at that particular moment.

GT: When I went home and I finally collected all my family and I knew my family was secure. I was calling my son in Washington -- he's with FEMA -- and he had gone into the Pentagon. I wanted to just get a sense of where everybody was. Once I had gotten home and I'd collected everybody, I started watching the incident, and realized that there was the potential of problems in the basement structure. I went in the basement and collected all of my photographs from 1967 and 1968 when we constructed the basement walls. And I collected my photographs of the World Financial Center, which is the construction across the street, west of the World Trade Center. I thought that photographs of that construction could be useful to the emergency personnel and the rescue personnel, so they would understand what the facility looked like without the buildings and the debris in it. I just put it aside and suspected that somebody would call me sooner or later.

On the following morning, my wife and everybody went off to do their thing and I sat in the house. I had my hard hat and my vest and whatever ID's I thought that I could use to get into the site -- and the photographs. I had my wits about me and I just waited. The phone call came at ten and I got to the site at eleven on Wednesday.

GT: Richard Tomaseti called me and said that he was working with the Department of Design and Construction in inspections of buildings and that he had remembered that I had been involved in the original construction of the World Trade Center. He thought that I could be of help. He had spoken with Commissioner Burton and Commissioner Burton suggested I come down to the site. Dick Tomaseti was trying to arrange a police escort, but I just got in my own car. I had this old Port Authority World Trade Center pass and I kept driving south on the Henry Hudson Parkway and kept going through police control. I almost got to the site when I finally couldn't get any further because of all of the construction vehicles that were obstructing traffic. I parked illegally somewhere and the police said they'd take care of the car. I walked into the site and identified myself. Dick was still trying to arrange a police escort.

GT: When I arrived there, Thorton/Tomaseti people were arranging for building inspections. I felt that they had a suitable number of people and I really couldn't be of that much help to them. I was concerned that people were not sensitive to the PATH tube problems, to the problems of the structure that's out over the street, where they could be putting cranes and heavy equipment that could possibly fall into the basement. They were not quite aware of the fact that the Winter Garden is built all over water and that you couldn't put big machines there, because there are massive pipelines and ramps that would go into the basement. I just didn't want fireman getting hurt and falling into these things or having water come from the river directly into the basement. I identified these as problems and before I knew it, I had a Fire Marshall with a gun marching me around and I began focusing on the below grade structures. The Fire Marshall brought me to the command center at Vesey Street and West Street, where I was introduced to about four or five Chiefs who were managing the fire and the recovery efforts. I explained to them that I was doing this all by recollection and I told them about all of the different problems that they had: That this equipment was really over a thin slab over seven stories of basement and if they were not really careful, this machinery could collapse through. At the conclusion, I made a tour of the site with a Chief and firemen. When we returned to the command center, I told the Chiefs I thought that it would be very helpful if I prepared a drawing -- more like a cartoon -- that told them where the open water was, where the deck structure was, where the piping was, so that they didn't either harm themselves or do something that could be detrimental to either the PATH tubes or to the basement itself and the slurry walls.

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