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theBravest.com
has undergone many changes since Sept. 11, 2001.
The most significant of those changes is the deepening of the bond
between the two brothers/firefighters that own the company.
For the
story of how this website began, and everything else prior to 9/11,
click
here.
On the
morning of Sept. 11th, Tim Brown (one of the brothers who owns
theBravest.com, Inc) had recently arrived at his office.
Tim was working in a year and half long detail from FDNY’s
Res3cue to the NYC Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) located
in 7 World Trade, when
the first plane struck the
World
Trade
Center
tower. He immediately
responded to the command post set up in the lobby of WTC Tower One.
After the 2nd plane struck, he was directed to WTC Tower Two.
There he attempted to set up and maintain some type of command
structure in the chaos of the lobby.
While this
was going on, Chris was at home on a day off from the firehouse, watching
the events of that horrific morning unfold live on international news.
Chris was unable to reach his brother, but he knew Tim's office was
right next door to the WTC towers, and he knew his brother would be right
there. He also knew from his
brother's past experiences and his brother’s job’s responsibilities,
that Tim would put himself in the towers, right in the thick of it.
It wasn't an easy thing for Chris to watch, as the first tower
collapsed and the news agencies spoke of all the people we'd just lost,
all the firefighters and rescue personnel we'd just lost...
Just
before the first collapse, Tim had exited the lobby of Tower 2 and gone
across the street to gather up an
EMS
crew to assist the rescue efforts in the lobby of that tower.
He was just re-entering the lobby with
EMS
when he heard the rumble and felt the earth move.
Instinctively, he knew what was happening.
He and the
EMS
crew scattered.
Chris sat
at home, watching, as WTC Tower Two fell to the ground.
He tried to call his brother, his best friend, the other half of
theBravest.com. He tried to
log on to theBravest.com for any information about what was really going
on down there. But all
internet connections in the area had gone down, including theBravest.com's
servers. All he could do was
watch, and pray.
As one of
the world’s tallest buildings collapsed all around him, Tim ducked into
the first open door he could find, the doorway to the Tall Ships
Restaurant at the WTC Marriott Hotel, located directly between the towers.
There he found a substantial support beam, and held on for his
life, as the 110 story building came crashing down around him.
Everything went dark; the wind created by the collapsing structure
blew off his helmet, his phones, and his pagers and lifted him off his
feet. Then, as quickly as it
began, it ended. Tim managed
to escape through the debris to the street level, where he began to assist
in searching for trapped members giving “mayday” calls heard over the
radios.
Chris,
still unable to reach Tim, just sat and watched as the first tower, then
the second tower, crumbled to the ground.
He was struggling to come to grips with the fact that he may never
see his brother again. In
fact, Chris accepted the fact that he would have to live the rest of his
life without his brother, his best friend.
As WTC
Tower One collapsed, Tim was with the FDNY brass and city leaders at the
northwest corner of the WTC complex. He,
along with everyone else in lower
Manhattan
, ran for his life, again. Tim
ran north. As the dust cloud
began to overtake him, he saw two young women duck into an open door on a
side street. They were kind
enough to offer him refuge. There
he also found a working phone.
At 10:41
am, Chris' phone rang. It was
the call he and his entire family had been waiting for.
The first words he heard were, "I'm alive".
That's all he needed to hear.
That phone
call started another journey for these two brothers...
Through
the cooperation of the Providence Fire Department and Mayor Giuliani's
office, Chris was able to spend the next four months with his brother in
NYC working at Ground Zero and at the forward command post in the Mayor's
Office of Emergency Management (OEM).
The two brothers’ worked 18+ hour days to try to do their part to
keep OEM and the city’s other agencies, running smoothly.
A lot of ungodly hours were worked by a lot of seemingly
insignificant workers during the next several months to keep
New York City
the great city is still is today.
Tim and
Chris attended as many funerals during those days as time would allow, too
many. They, along with
hundreds of thousands of family members, friends, and brother
firefighters, bid farewell to their friends, colleagues and brothers
murdered by the terrorists that day. Unfortunately
Chris and Tim weren't able to attend them all.
Eventually,
Chris was called back to the Providence Fire Department. He
returned with reluctant willingness.
For the
story of how this website began, and everything else,
click
here.
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