How We Employees Responded, In The Aftermath of Sept. 11
by Ron Hall, Office of Communications

It’s common knowledge what happened in this country on September 11. What’s not so common knowledge is the way that USDA employees responded in the aftermath of those terrorist attacks.

Once the four hijacked jets had slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the countryside of Pennsylvania, one of the first questions being asked at USDA was whether the Department had any employees in offices at those locations.

USDA has a number of employees stationed in New York City and even within some proximity to the World Trade Center in Manhattan. However, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service actually had an adjunct office, located on the second floor within the office complex of the U.S. Customs Service, in Building Six of the World Trade Center. According to Mike Wright, APHIS’s State Plant Health Director for New York, based in Albany, that office was part of APHIS’s Plant Protection and Quarantine unit and dealt with PPQ inspection responsibilities on behalf of maritime cargo entries into the harbors of New York and New Jersey.

Dorothy Woodland, an issues analyst with the Food Safety and Inspection Service, passes on some information while staffing USDA's public affairs duty desk at the governmentwide Office of Homeland Security's Washington, DC-based Emergency Support Team. She was one of many USDA employees around the country who responded, either through their duties with the Department or through volunteer efforts, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11.--Photo by Liz Lapping

Elliot Weiss, an APHIS PPQ officer, was scheduled to work in that office on September 11, and was two blocks away, headed toward Building Six, when the first plane hit Building No. 1 of the World Trade Center. “The police wouldn’t let us go any further, even though Building Six was still standing,” he said. “So I called my boss, and then ended up walking for six hours until I could find transportation to get home.”

Willie Martin, APHIS’s director of the Port of New York and Brooklyn and Weiss’s supervisor, said that he conferred with Weiss on the phone after the first plane hit, and advised him to clear the area. “Then when I got off the phone,” Martin recounted, “from my office on the third floor here in Brooklyn I looked out my window and then watched the second plane circle in over Brooklyn, and go right into Tower Number 2.” The responsibilities of that adjunct APHIS office have since been relocated to facilities elsewhere in New York City and New Jersey.

Within three hours after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the Forest Service had deployed employees from its Southwest Region in Albuquerque, N.M., to participate in an Incident Management Team which--at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency--supported urban search and rescue operations in New York City.

According to Cathie Schmidlin, FS public affairs officer with the Kaibab National Forest in Williams, Ariz., this Team coordinated the reception and distribution of equipment, used by the eight state and local urban search and rescue teams, to rescue survivors. Their second mission was to prepare a Daily Incident Action Plan for the Fire Department of New York City. The Team, headed up by FS Incident Commander Van Bateman, remained on-site for over a month.

"Let's determine which of these priorities we want to tackle first," declares John Roberts, an FS fire management specialist. He is facilitating a briefing of an interdepartmental mobilization center management team at the World Trade Center disaster site, in the aftermath of Sept. 11. --Photo by Bob Nichols

“The Fire Department of New York City knew that the intergovernmental Incident Management Teams have lots of experience in planning operations beyond a 48-hour period,” Schmidlin explained. “So they requested that type of assistance-- and we were able to be extremely helpful to that aspect of the efforts.”

Mike Ferris, FS public affairs officer with the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area in Hood River, Ore., said that two Incident Management Teams, which included employees from FS’s Pacific Northwest Region in Portland, Ore., arrived on-site afterwards. Ferris said that Team 3, headed by FS Incident Commander Joe Stutler, had responsibility for reception and distribution of equipment, from a warehouse across from lower Manhattan in New Jersey, to support the entire recovery activities on-site. Team 2, headed by FS Incident Commander Mike Lohrey, also managed a reception and distribution warehouse at Pier 36 in lower Manhattan, within one-half mile of the incident site. “This included establishing tool caches onsite for use by emergency rescue workers,” Ferris noted.

The Food and Nutrition Service has 20 staffers in its field office in lower Manhattan, and they all made it home safely by the end of the day on Sept. 11. By the next day Joe Alston, an FNS food program specialist from that office, was staffing a FEMA Disaster Assistance Center in Edison, N.J., that had opened on Sept. 12, while fellow food program specialist Angie Mackey worked from her residence. By Sept. 13 Mackey was working at a FEMA center located blocks from 'Ground Zero.’

The ID card for NRCS's Tony Rodriquez, as a volunteer in New York City.

“Initially, Joe and I were there to assist in the distribution of agricultural food commodities as needed,” she said.

Other FNS staffers from its offices in New York City, Boston, and Washington, DC handled requests for assistance in nearly every one of FNS’s programs, most significantly its Food Stamp Program. FNS staffers found themselves in the position of working directly with the families of victims and those whose offices had been destroyed. “Besides expediting disaster assistance,” said Irene Fuoco, director of field operations for FNS’s Northeast Region, based in Boston, “many lent a comforting hand or thought to those in need.”

She added that some FNS staffers worked out of their residences, calling grocery store retailers to walk them through an alternate path to process Electronic Benefits Transfer transactions, since a communications disruption throughout New York City had affected some of those transactions.

Karen Ellis, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Office of Inspector General’s Northeast Regional Office in New York City, said that almost immediately after the terrorist attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation set up a toll-free hotline phone number to follow leads related to those terrorist acts.

“Inspector General Joyce Fleischman detailed five special agents from our New York Office to the FBI Counter-Terrorism Task Force, which was responsible for following up on those leads,” she said. Ellis noted that OIG agents concentrated on leads focusing on New York City and New Jersey, and performed such duties as conducting surveillance and interviews of witnesses and/or potential suspects. That task force was disbanded on November 20.

According to Dallas Hayden, Special Agent-in-Charge of OIG’s Great Plains Regional Office in Kansas City, Mo., OIG has about 30 special agents nationwide assigned to multi-agency counter-terrorism/financial task forces, and related investigations. Several agents from that and other OIG regions have been involved in “Operation Green Quest,” which was announced by President George W. Bush to identify and track possible sources of funding for terrorism. Other OIG agents are conducting dozens of biological threat investigations, many of which involve anthrax hoaxes. Ernie Hayashi, a division director under Audit in OIG, said that the Audit staff is working closely with USDA agencies to help identify weaknesses and find solutions for strengthening the Department’s operations from potential terrorist threats or attacks.

"We need to update our map on where the latest Fire Department of New York check-in sites are located," says Ed Paul (left), FS's fuels team coordinator from the Tonto National Forest in Payson, Ariz., as he confers with Pruett Small (center), a county firefighter, and Dan Oltrogge, a National Park Service fire management officer, both from Arizona. --Photo by Bob Nichols

USDA’s Office of Crisis Planning and Management has coordinated the staffing of its 24-hours-per-day, seven-days-per-week Emergency Operations Center at USDA headquarters since Sept. 12. “Its purpose,” advised OCPM Director Cliff Oliver, “is to ensure that USDA remains at a high readiness state, and is prepared to continue carrying out its vital missions, in the event of future threats to this country’s national security.”

Herb Dickerson, director of OCPM’s National Security and Emergency Management Division, added that from Oct. 18 to Nov. 17 USDA employees also staffed both an operations duty desk and a public affairs duty desk for the Department at the governmentwide Office of Homeland Security’s Washington, DC-based Emergency Support Team, 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

“The mission of our employees at that location,” he said, “has been to monitor breaking developments related to both homeland security and to USDA’s mission, and then provide liaison to appropriate USDA staff for guidance and action, as needed.” Since Nov. 17 those two USDA duty desks have been on an 'on-call’ operational status.

Many USDA employees around the country were motivated to offer assistance to victims of the terrorist attacks, either by traveling to the disaster sites or through activities within their own respective communities. For example, Tony Rodriquez, a Natural Resources Conservation Service soil conservation technician in Jayton, Texas, took a week of annual leave, and, along with several members of his local church, traveled to New York City on Oct. 18 to offer help wherever needed.

Rodriquez, who is also a volunteer firefighter paramedic, was assigned to drive a truck through New York City, transporting water, food, medical supplies, gloves, hardhats, and even donated stuffed teddy bears--and then delivering those items to fire stations, police stations, schools, area hospitals, and a local Emergency Operations Center. “Then,” he recounted, “in the evening we’d go to a disaster field kitchen in Brooklyn where we’d serve food and wash dishes until late at night--and then start the next day by 7 a.m.”

At the Pentagon, Jane Servais and Glory had teamed up to do recovery work at the site of the damage. Servais, head of the Trade Practices Section within the Agricultural Marketing Service’s Fruit & Vegetable Programs, and her Australian Shepherd dog Glory have been volunteering for rescue and recovery work in the Washington, DC metropolitan area for 10 years.

“But this was different because this terrorist attack resulted in a mass casualty incident,” she said. “My previous efforts have been to rescue or recover a single individual, as a lost person, a victim of a violent crime, or a victim of a natural disaster.”

“Glory is trained to use her sense of smell to locate--and then indicate to me the specific site of--human remains,” she said. “So from September 16 through 27 I’d work my job at USDA, and then Glory and I would work a 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift, every other day, at the Pentagon, based on administrative leave which my agency granted me for this activity.”

“I feel that we helped to bring closure to many family members and friends of those who died at the Pentagon.”

Other USDA employees around the country participated in such activities as fund-raising and blood drives. For instance, Lori Dreeszen, an NRCS fiscal technician in its Nebraska state office in Lincoln, organized a fundraiser among NRCS employees and other federal employees in Nebraska. “We then contributed our donations to the American Red Cross for the New York City/Washington, DC disaster relief fund,” she said.

18 employees from NRCS, the Farm Service Agency, and Rural Development, all based in Morgantown, W.Va., raised nearly $3,000 for a “September 11th Fund.”

“We set up a collection station in the lobby of our federal building, and took turns collecting funds from employees and customers,” recounted FSA state secretary Beth Hoh. “Donors enjoyed homemade cookies and punch,” added RD state secretary Cathi Ludwig, “while waiting to sign encouraging messages onto two large banners.” “Along with the money,” noted Jim Piper, NRCS assistant state conservationist for operations, “the banners were then sent to New York by the United Way.”

"Are you ready to go to work now?" asks AMS's Jane Servais, as she holds in her right hand a ‘tug toy' which is part of the reward system for search work conducted by her rescue dog Glory. Servais was exercising Glory in front of USDA's Whitten Building in Washington, DC--prior to heading for the Pentagon to help out in recovery efforts there, in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on September 11. She is dressed in the protective coverall suit she wears on-site, while Glory is dressed in a search vest with her name on it. A number of USDA employees from around the country assisted in a variety of ways in New York City and at the Pentagon, following September 11. --Photo by Cobby Williams

Pamela Phillips, communications chair of USDA’s Combined Federal Campaign efforts for 2001, said that the United Way’s “September 11th Fund” consists of two location-specific funds--New York City (Code 9012 in the CFC catalogue of charitable groups for 2001) or Washington, DC (Code 9011). “The Fund is designed to aid victims and families affected by the terrorist attacks,” she explained.

Jodi Cushenbery, an NRCS district conservationist based in Independence, Kan., was attending a training class in San Antonio, Texas, on Sept. 11 when the terrorist attacks occurred. “Our class was then dismissed until 1 p.m.,” she recalled, “so four of us decided to give blood in case that might help in any rescue efforts.” But they found that the waiting time was four hours--and, later that afternoon, when they returned after their training, the lines were even longer.

“Well, we wanted to volunteer there in some way,” added classmate Anna Moore, an APHIS animal health technician based at the agency’s Veterinary Services Area Office in Albany, N.Y. “So we helped serve food and drinks, picked up trash, and watched over children whose parents were giving blood.” Cushenbery noted that over 1,200 people volunteered to give blood that day at that site.

Bruce McFarlane, acting director of USDA’s Washington, DC-based TARGET Center, which is a state-of-the-art demonstration facility featuring the latest in technologies which enhance accessibility for employees with disabilities, said that he recently co-drafted suggestions to employees with disabilities on how to evacuate USDA office buildings in an emergency.

“That detailed information,” he noted, “is on USDA’s web site at www.usda.gov/da/usdaoperations under the category 'Occupant Emergency Plans and Emergency Information’.”

Barbara Beitscher, an FSA management analyst and editor of the “APDA Informer,” the newsletter of USDA’s Association for Persons with Disabilities in Agriculture and which is available at www.apda.usda.gov added that APDA’s publication has recently carried several stories related to that general issue. “Especially in light of the tragic events of September 11, this is a continuing issue of concern for our community,” she advised. ¤