BEVERLY, Mass. — When disaster strikes -- the Massachusetts Task Force is ready to respond.
They are one of 28 federal tasks forces across the country that are made up of volunteers and are called into action to help local agencies in times of crisis.
Twenty years ago, Mass Task Force 1 was called up for their first real search and rescue deployment.
It was New York City after two airliners crashed into the World Trade Center.
“We got there, there was nobody in charge. It was all chaos” said Mark Foster, Program Director for the Massachusetts Task Force.
Foster and Gerry Giunta sat down with Boston 25 News to talk about being called into action on September 11, 2001.
“No color at all. Everything was just one gray” said Guinta, a Mass Task Force member and retired Salem Fire Chief.
They rented an RV, filled two school buses with volunteers and drove to New York City that day.
“We were so busy trying to figure out what we were going to do that the process of what actually happened. We saw one little clip before we left and we weren’t watching TVs, we didn’t really listen to the radio too much about what was actually going on.” Giunta said.
Steel beams were all that remained when they arrived -- a lasting image Foster will never forget.
“I just remember that thing in the street and I forget why...that was my first view of what was left of the World Trade Center.” he said.
They spent eight days in lower Manhattan sleeping with other volunteers in the Javits center.
Located in Beverly, Massachusetts, MTF1 was created as part of FEMA’s national Urban Search and Rescue Response System just five years earlier.
Now a museum located just inside their compound remembers the deployment.
Foster showed us around the museum pointing out pictures, equipment and letters when they returned from New York.
“Thousands of letters from kids. They kept saying, Thank you for helping us.’ I’m getting welled up just thinking about it. I guess they just needed someone to look up to,” he said.
They’ll never forget what happened that day.
Twenty years later, they worry a younger generation will.
“It’s just a milestone in the road, I guess. You know part of it is, you have people that don’t remember 9/11,” Foster said.
“It’s something we have to make sure everyone has to remember. It’s a very important part of history,” Giunta added.
The Mass Task Force will be holding a ceremony on Saturday to commemorate the September 11 attacks at their facility in Beverly.
It starts at noon and gates open to the public at 11AM.
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