Hoosier State Press Association - The Indiana Publisher - Better Newspaper Contest
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/96748
Division 3 Best In-Depth Feature or Feature Package/Category 10 First place 9/11 remembered Katie Duffey, Scott Allen & Chad Husted, Herald Journal (Monticello) Comments: This is an excellent record of the local impact of a tragic event in our national history and the part that the local community played in it. The articles are riveting, relevant, creative and well-rounded. Second place Series: Crime and punishment in Hancock County Noelle Steele, Daily Reporter (Greenfield) Comments: The articles in this series cover important issues. The articles on the plight of non-English speakers in the court system and the benefits of treating prisoners more humanely are especially forward-thinking in bringing significant issues to the community���s attention that they may not have known about otherwise. Third place Spice still a danger Matt Getts, The Star (Auburn) Comments: This is a very informative series of articles on the serious problems communities are facing with the manufacture and use of synthetic drugs. The articles are filled with information ��� relevant, well-researched and thought-provoking. 9/11 remembered Katie Duffey, Scott Allen & Chad Husted Herald Journal (Monticello) While eight total firefighters with local departments headed to New York City in the days following Sept. 11, 2001, Kevin Mohler was the first as he dropped everything and went. Mohler, who had just become a full-time firefighter with Monticello Fire Department, was on the road to NYC at about 3 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001. His instinct to go early put him at Ground Zero, aiding what was then a rescue effort and was even the first to inspect nearby buildings for survivors. He had just arrived home from dropping his daughter off at preschool when his neighbor informed him of the disaster in New York. ���I turned on the TV and watched everything as it was going on,��� Mohler said. ���Later that afternoon, I heard they were calling in help from anywhere they could get it.��� After discussing it with his family, he packed a bag of clothes and left, hoping to fill a void left by some 343 firefighters who perished at the World Trade Center. At about 4 a.m. the morning of Sept. 12, he was in New York City. ���The only problem I ran into, there were so many people heading out,��� he explained. ���Once you got past all that traffic, you had all these checkpoints.��� Mohler had already called the Red Cross and found an address for a staging area. ���They had me grab my gear, throw it in the back of a truck and drove me down to the command center,��� Mohler said. He witnessed what rescuers, at the time, were calling ���piles���: the rubble of the World Trade Center towers. ���There were still buildings on fire when I was there; the piles were still on fire,��� Mohler said. He was teamed up with an FDNY crew. Page 34 ���For the first 12 hours I was there, I did the bucket brigade,��� he said. ���All the way up and down were just lines of people, from the base to the top. You���d pass a bucket to the top, fill it with concrete, steel, whatever would fit in them. ���Basically we were trying to eliminate some of the pile in hopes of rescue. There were a few body recoveries near where I was; there were no rescues.��� The rescue effort later became an effort to recover the bodies of victims. ���The bad thing was, they had for probably a full mile, ambulances just lined up waiting for a rescue,��� Mohler said. ���The sad part is, you saw them just sitting there, never going in to rescue someone. ���That���s one situation you hoped for an ambulance run.��� He explained that at one point up on the pile, someone working yelled ���run.��� ���You had like a thousand people working; we all just started running. We had no idea why. We ran like 10 blocks, clear over to the Hudson River,��� Mohler said. ���You���re looking up thinking, ���Something���s going to hit us.��� ��� In the midst of hysteria, Mohler said he saw a sight that stopped him. ���I looked up and said, ���There���s the Statue of Liberty,��� and I took a picture,��� he said. Earning an odd look from another firefighter as he snapped the shot, Mohler explained to him it was his first time in New York City. They finally figured out that a piece of metal had shifted under the rubble and the thought of collapse had sent the rescuers running. ���It was only a little shift in the debris, but we thought it was another attack,��� said Mohler. An image that will always stick out in Mohler���s mind were the trees and streets surrounding Ground Zero. ���For several blocks it looked like it had just snowed,��� the firefighter said. Trees were covered in paper and the streets were covered in more paper and ash. ���Destroyed trucks, fire trucks, were everywhere. The (truck) bodies were just destroyed. Everywhere. Police cars, ambulances; it just looked like a junkyard for emergency vehicles,��� he said. ���The ash and debris were mixing with all the water they were using and it was just a mess. ���It looked like a war zone; that���s the only way you could describe it.��� After his 12-hour shift, he slept on the floor of his minivan before an eight-hour shift. Mohler then joined a NYC fire captain who was taking a break whose name he���s since forgotten. ���He and I went around some of the other buildings that had (damage) and checked them for stability,��� Mohler said. They were structures that hadn���t yet been checked because rescuers were so busy making rescue efforts at Ground Zero. Unfortunately, the area surrounding Ground Zero was blocked off by National Guard soldiers as security for President George W. Bush���s arrival. The blocks were fenced off, as well, because of thefts: people were taking pieces of rubble and even articles off of bodies. Mohler was joined by other firefighters from White County, and they assisted at a First Aid station for a few more days before making a weary trip home. But the decision to go to New York City was a natural one for Mohler. ���When you see something like that on TV and it���s close enough you can get there, you just have that desire to go,��� he said. ���It���s the nature of the business. I wasn���t going to wait. You could see they needed help from TV. If I have training in that, I���m going to help.���