Thurs., 13 Sept 2001 - Dr. Sandy Haber

Hello. None of my telephones are really working on a consistent basis, and I feel the need to check in with all of you with a bunch of random comments, somewhat haphazardly put together. It's really quite a mess here. I have a number of patients in the financial district; I think they are all ok, but they havent all checked in yet. I just found out that people on my block are missing. One knows the news will only get worse. I just came back from Samantha's school to help out with the teachers. At this point, one child's father is 'missing". A number of parents worked at the WTC and were either somewhere else on Tuesday or were able to get out. It's good news, but they are still pretty upset. Many of the teachers are quite shaken and have requested a few days off. My daughter burst into tears when she reached me in my NYC office on Tuesday. She didnt know where I worked in relation to the WTC. I think her tears made the magnitude of the event real for me. Right now, the kids alternate between upset and business as usual, as one might expect. A number of questions have come in from parents of teenagers who attended Stuyvesant HS (right near WTC) and were outside watching at the time of the plane crash/building destruction. Yesterday, I was called at 6 AM to go the a NYC police precinct to help . (I had volunteered) About 40 other mental health workers showed up. They didnt know what to do with us (snafu in communcation), sent us to Bellevue, who sent us to the Red Cross. It was heart warming to see the hundreds of volunteers at the Red Cross from all the different mental health disciplines. You would all be very proud. Waiting to be deployed at the Red Cross was a trying experience. We learned that the chief headquarters of the Red Cross was in the WTC, as was the Mayor's Office, so you can imagine the difficulties in re-organization. Also, this is an enormous problem. At about 8 PM, 30 of us were sent by Red Cross bus to Channel 13 on West 33 street to work at a phone bank for the Missing Person's hotline. The phones rang incessantly. Friends and relatives from all over the US and Canada were looking for people. We didnt do much grief counseling--are perhaps it could be looked at as the earliest stage of grief. Right now, or at least last night, denial (or hope) still ruled. Two conversations that stood out for me were with a man who was trying to find his daughter. He told me that she really didnt work in the WTC, she was just there for the day as a consultant. He talked about not knowing which hospital she might be in, and that he was sure it was because she left her purse (and consequently all her ID) when she evacuated. She was on the 105th floor. He talked for awhile about how women leave their purses in an emergency. This was a hard conversation. The other call that stood out was from a woman whose two brothers were firefighters. She was thinking that they might be one of the 6 that were rescued earlier that day but she couldnt figure out which hospital they would be in. That conversation also stands out in my mind. The constant ringing of the phones and the endless list of missing persons was mindboggling. At about 11:00 PM someone came in and shouted for us to not pick up any more calls. We were to evacuate the building immediately because there was a bomb scare in the Empire State Building (34th STreet). So we went down the stairwell and proceeded west, away from the Empire State Building. Eventually, we found out, via cell phones, that it was a false alarm. BTW--the air smelled like burned rubber, even uptown. I spent the night at a friend's house, since transportation was a problem (bridges and tunnels closed again, cabs not running, subway feeling unsafe due to bomb threat etc). When I awoke, there was a paper under the door saying 7 firemen from the neighbhood firehouse were missing. I then went home and later that morning went to my daughter's school. I learned that half of our local fire company was missing. We are close to lower Manhattan, and apparently, they were deployed early on Tuesday. My daughter tells me she is afraid for me to go back to the Red Cross (in Manhattan) and she doesnt want to fly to Europe over Xmas break (we were discussing this lasat week). Understandable, given the events, and quite appropriate, but it is sad for me to hear the fear. I think about the PTSD that will set in within the next few weeks; the magnitude of this is enormous. Thanks for listening. Im glad email is working.

sandy

From: Sandra Haber <DrSHaber@AOL.COM>

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