HOWARD, WI (WTAQ) – The 9-11 attacks on America sent the country into shock and perhaps no more so than for the people who live and work in the lower Manhattan neighborhood that was the home of the World Trade Center. Going through the rubble, searching for victims and trying to return the area to something approaching what it was before the planes hit the towers, takes a toll. A Green Bay firefighter was sent to help. Not with the physical work…but with the very heavy emotional lifting.
“I think it really was just the whole sense of can this really be happening.”
Ann Watzka has worked in the fire-fighting business for 40 years and currently serves as the assistant Fire Chief for the Village of Howard. On 9-11, 20 years ago, she was with the Green Bay Fire Department. She was also a member of a Peer Support Group….a specially trained team that many states have, that respond to trauma situations to talk and listen to the people on the scene.
“Very often we find. I think all the disciplines in public safety find, fire, EMS, police, that often making that initial contact with someone who’s a peer and in the same field gives you a comfort level, opening up.”
Within a few days after 9-11….
“We were notified that the international firefighters union had started to send teams of these trained peer support individuals to Ground Zero. And they asked if Wisconsin would be interested in going?”
As a member of the team, Ann Watzka had gone to casualty scenes before….but this was different and she was concerned. Would she be helpful ? Would she be effective ? They brought her to Ground Zero and everything was grey and dust.
“I don’t think I was ready for the fact that the rubble would be in a pile so high. 3, 4 stories high with bulldozers on top of it.”
She would walk the site, spend time in the portable mess halls, and in a nearby church, wearing a vest that identified her as peer support person and available to talk.
“But a lot of times those conversations started out casual would then grow into, without prompting, would be you know we were there that day or this is what my family is dealing with.”
Watzka says it was easy to see the burden the Ground Zero crews were carrying….working in a hole or on a pile of debris everyday after suffering personal losses.
“I’ve worked here 12 hour and tomorrow morning I have 3 funerals to go to. There’s so many directions.”
It took a toll on her as well. Ann kept a journal during her week at Ground Zero to help with that and needed time to decompress after returning home to Green Bay before going back to the job. Her work and personal family gave her the space she needed.
“That support, between my co-workers and my family and friends that eventually, you just like everything else you have to, and you do.”
Ann Watzka continued her public safety career after coming home. She hasn’t been back to Ground Zero since that visit….but is glad to have had a chance to help her brothers and sisters. And there’s one memory that has never gone away.
“I think a lot about the person who approached me to tell me about their partner, who they were sure was suicidal and they couldn’t reach. And I think about that a lot. I wonder what happened ?”
Coming up tomorrow….
“You know to me, everyday is 9-11.”
Why this man continues to relive a horrible day and what he’s done with it.
