Like millions of people on Sept. 11, 2001, Santa Barbara County Fire Department Capt. Howard Orr watched the terrorist attacks unfold on television.
Days later, he drove through New York City, where images and descriptions of the missing victims lined the streets on his way to the area that became known as Ground Zero.
His story was shared on Friday during a memorial in the Santa Barbara Courthouse’s Sunken Gardens, where the community gathered to recognize the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office, the Santa Barbara Fire Department, the Santa Barbara County Fire Department and the Santa Barbara Police Department hosted the event, which featured a ringing of the bell for Last Alarm, a 21-gun salute, “Taps” and a flyover of Santa Barbara County Air Support.
Beyond keynote speaker Orr, speakers included Sheriff Bill Brown, Santa Barbara Fire Chief Chris Mailes and county Fire Chief Garrett Huff.
During the attacks, Orr was on a military base in Tacoma, Washington, where he and others were training with their FEMA-certified disaster search dogs. His partner was a chocolate Labrador named Duke.
Orr said that when he arrived in New York, search teams were given a single mission: Find the missing.
“Over the next several nights, Duke and I navigated through the twisted steel, searching for the missing and … searching (the) surrounding buildings,” Orr said.
He described finding concrete turned to dust and glass that turned back into silica.
Duke was trained to wag his tail when he found a survivor, but sometimes his tail would stop wagging — a sign the person was no longer alive.
Orr also remembered a nightly ritual that developed among him and three New York City firefighters, who gathered in the same place every night to spend some time with Duke.
He said the nightly gatherings made him realize Duke was not just there to search for the missing, but to support the rescuers, too.
“Twenty-five years have passed, but there are things from those eight nights that have never left me,” Orr said.
“The faces of the missing that lined the streets in Manhattan. The firefighters who stopped each night to spend time with Duke. And the silence when his tail stopped wagging. Along with the enormous responsibility that we took on every time we stepped onto that pile. It was an honor to be there.”
Orr ended his speech by asking the audience to remember the people who answered the call and gave their lives on that day and the days after.
In his speech, Brown highlighted not only the people who died in the initial attacks, but the first responders who died in the years after.
While the reported death toll of the attacks is 2,977, Brown stated it is estimated that an additional 9,000 people have died in the years since from illnesses related to the event.
“Many who worked in the aftermath to clean up and rebuild have suffered debilitating health problems and mental health issues as a result,” Brown said. “All of these people were also victims of that terrible day, and they have suffered greatly.”
Brown also spoke about Rick Rescorla, the Morgan Stanley head of security at the World Trade Center.
Rescorla was known for his strict adherence to safety protocols, sometimes to the frustration of employees and management, Brown said.
On the day of the attacks, he led roughly 2,700 people down the South Tower while singing songs from his hometown of Cornwall in the United Kingdom.
He then re-entered the South Tower to help evacuate more people, but died in the collapse. His body was never found.
“Preparation isn’t glamorous,” Brown said. “Usually, nobody thanks you for it, and on exactly one morning out of 10,000, it was the only thing standing between 2,687 people and their demise.”
Brown added that while the day is one of tragedy, it is also one of triumph. Even though the attacks were designed to bring the United States to its knees, it instead brought Americans to their feet.
“The attacks united us, they strengthened us, they made us resolute,” he said. “They renewed our sense of patriotism and sense of love for our country.”
