9/11 First Responder Shares His Experience With Wildomar

When they arrived in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 12, 2001, the FEMA-managed Riverside County Search and Rescue Team was intent on finding people alive in the ruins.

Days later, after frustration and exhaustion set in, the team learned that the last World Trade Center survivor was found before they ever arrived at Ground Zero.

“It was rough. We were in rescue mode,” said Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Beach, who was on the team.

As part of a 9/11 Remembrance at Wildomar City Hall Tuesday night, Beach shared with the community his personal experience as a Ground Zero first responder.

For the small audience gathered in City Council chambers, Beach pulled from his mind 10-year-old memories, and he offered a slide show of images shot during the recovery efforts. He detailed the logistics of flying out of March Air Force Base on Sept. 11, 2001 -- with personnel and 3,000 pounds of search and rescue supplies -- to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.

The wait to get airborne was “slow as molasses,” and the late-night flight on a C-41 transport was “loud, cold and miserable,” Beach recalled.

The team landed in New Jersey at approximately 5 a.m. Sept. 12, and had to truck the 3,000-pound payload to a strategic command center set up at NYC’s Javits Center on West 34th Street.

The drive, Beach said, normally takes about 20 minutes from McGuire. On Sept. 12, 2001, it took two hours.

“There was utter chaos,” he said. The team had to physically manhandle abandoned vehicles out of the roadway in order to pass, and the streets were littered with debris. Locals lined up to find their missing loved ones.

“I can count on three fingers the number of times in my career I’ve been scared to death,” Beach said. “This was one of them.”

At Ground Zero, the scene was surreal, Beach said.

“Every citizen in Lower Manhattan was crawling over the piles. You can’t tell people to get the hell out because they probably have a relative at the bottom of that pile.”

Using dogs and remote control pole cameras, the team peered into every space that could possibly lead to life below the surface.

No one was found alive.

Beach said he doesn’t know how many bodies were recovered during the team's efforts.

"Bodies is a loose term," he said, without going into graphic details.

After 11 days, the Riverside County squad left McGuire bound for home. Beach said a media frenzy followed. The team obliged with interviews – but then they finally shut down.

“Two weeks into it, we said ‘stop,’ and we hid in a closet. Enough was enough,” Beach said.

His family saved news clippings and other 9/11 mementos in a box for him, but a decade later Beach said he still hasn’t wanted to go through them.

“For now, they’ll stay in the box.”

Besides memories, Beach and his fellow team members all share health problems as a result of their Ground Zero service.

“Respiratory protection wasn’t what it should have been,” he said.

Beach, who had never been to NYC prior to the 9/11 attacks, said he hasn't been back since.

When the chief concluded his presentation, Wildomar resident Fabiola Sturcke wiped tears from her eyes, while local residents Greg and Linn Biegel gathered their four children, ages 12 and under.

Linn has family and friends in New York.

"They were all ok," she said.

As the Biegel family made their way toward the exit door, Greg said he came to Tuesday night's remembrance because he wants his kids to know what this date in history means.

“It’s important to keep this memory alive,” he said.