FDNY, Twin Towers and Organizational Change

Organizational change requires energy. People must feel a need, either to stop doing something that they are doing or to start doing something that they aren’t doing. Organizational trauma can create such a need, but utilizing that felt need for change falls to leadership. For example, a traumatized organization can turn inward or look outward.

The tragedy of the Twin Towers led FDNY not to cover up but, quite the contrary, to turn outward and, so, to change.

Prior to the events of 9/11, FDNY qualified as a uniquely insular department. It possessed enough equipment and personnel to never need outside support. Firefighters and higher-ups came from around the world to learn how FDNY operated. Rarely, if ever, did FDNY venture out to learn from others. FDNY taught itself, learned its lessons internally, and created tactics and procedures from its experiences from within the city’s boundaries.

By the fall of 2001, all senior leaders had gained tremendous firefighting experience during the “War Years” of the ’60s and ’70s. Simply put, they knew how to fight fire and didn’t feel the need to look outward for help. This insularity led former FDNY Commissioner Sal Cassano to declare that the department had “150 years of tradition unimpeded by progress.”

The collapse of the World Trade Center killed 343 FDNY firefighters, including many of its senior leaders, and destroyed hundreds of firefighting vehicles. Convulsed, FDNY could have turned inward, took its own counsel and treated the events of 9/11 as a black swan, one never to occur again. It could have defined renewal as rebuilding of what existed on 9/10. Instead, FDNY allowed outsiders in, accepting their help, and began its own passage to becoming a more open and learning organization.

The staggering work of rescue and recovery that followed the collapse of the World Trade Center opened the department’s eyes to the greater world of emergency management. Several events help to delineate the stages of change in insularity from before 9/11, to FDNY’s transition, to how the FDNY emerged, renewed and altered.

Before 9/11

A senior firefighter, who also was a member of a suburban volunteer fire department, wanted to attend a course at the National Fire Academy. He believed that the course would be extremely useful for his role as an FDNY battalion chief. He approached a staff level chief for approval to attend the course.

The staff chief asked, “We can send people there?”

The battalion chief explained further.

Upon hearing that there would be no cost to FDNY for the course or lodging, the staff chief was incredulous. “Okay, I’ll let you go, but if any of this is BS, there will be repercussions.”

Transition

FDNY Deputy Commissioner Tom Fitzpatrick related that on Sept. 11, 2001, he was in contact with federal counterparts at FEMA. They indicated that the scale of the incident called for deployment of multiple all-hazards incident management teams (IMTs).

“I was very nervous allowing an outside agency into an FDNY operation,” Fitzpatrick said. “As far as I know, it had never happened before.”

The FEMA officials convinced him that this was the right call.

FDNY Chief Peter Hayden offered these comments about the arrival of the Forest Service, aka the Tree People, in the days after the collapse, in full forest ranger regalia: “Here’s a guy from the Grand Canyon. I said, ‘I’m in the canyons of New York. How is this guy going to help me?’ … They relieved me of so [many] other problems … The impact that they had on the ability of the chief officer … the IMT helping the incident commander and managing an emergency.”

After

The interaction and assistance of the IMTs in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks proved successful. As a result, FDNY jumped at future opportunities to train within the National Incident Management System (NIMS). NIMS principles and terminology were integrated into FDNY protocols.

In 2005, federal funding for local preparedness grants became conditional on NIMS compliance. FDNY had a four-year head start. In fact, FDNY became a trusted partner of NIMS, aiding in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and, in 2021, taking over incident command of a Montana wildfire from a beleaguered forestry service.

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