dan nigro was his number two. >> nigro: so we went downstairs quickly, got in the car and headed overuld see the damage, see the smoke, see the fire. that's when i said to pete-- "pete, this'll be the worst day of our lives." and, you know, that was before i knew the half of it. >> peter ganci, jr.: car 3 to manhattan, k. >> pelley: pete ganci's voice was recorded en route. >> peter ganci, jr.: transmit a fifth alarm for this box, and get us a staging area chief-- chief, somewhere on west street, k. >> pelley: a "box" is a location." "k" signals the end of a message-- a throwback to the 19th century telegraph, which, on this day, was punctuating the greatest crisis in the department's 136 years. >> hayden: right away, i got a deep sense that we were going to lose a lot of firefighters this day. >> pelley: division one commander peter hayden met battalion chief joe pfeifer in the lobby of the burning tower. >> hayden: well, i knew that we weren't going to be able to put out the fire. so, the order of the day was to search and evacuate as many people as we could. and then we were going

>> yeah, i am thinking about the men i just talked to today, chief nigro, chief fifer.ost somebody on that day, i know many of them. thinking about amy hargrave, 24 years old. she was four years old when her father died in one of the towers, she talks about how all he missed, she will get married someday, the birthdays. it is a trauma for the country, but for people that lost someone, it is a human tragedy. mike barnicle, i'm thinking i have something unexpected this morning. i looked between the buildings here, i can see the control tower at newark airport across the river. that's the airport where flight 93 left at 8:42, four minutes before the first plane hit the tower. that group of people, those passengers on that plane got together voted and made a decision to go into the cockpit and take the plane down and prevent another tragedy perhaps at the united states capitol. heroes everywhere you look that day. >> no doubt about that, willie. as mika pointed out, our world changed forever on september 11, 2001. and a couple weeks ago, 13 americans were killed at the gate

rebuilt area, as well as all of new york city, rests on the shoulders of fdny commissioner daniel nigroldings is that they are safe. as the city continues to grow vertically, and that's happening at such a rapid pace, we hope we have the ability to keep up with it, but it is certainly taxing to our people. >> chief joseph pfeifer, who lost his brother kevin, a lieutenant in the fire department, has turned that personal trauma into purpose. >> the thoughts of my brother and losing him on 9/11 actually shifts a lot of my own thinking of how do we make it safer for our firefighters? >> he was the fdny's chief of counterterrorism and emergency preparedness. he's invited to speak around the world and went to paris after the november attacks. >> let me tell you some of my nightmares. >> to share strategies with the french first responders. >> the thing we're worried about is a vertical threat, multiple floors. >> one of the things we need to prepare for is to deal with a terrorist attack on high-rise buildings. the use of automatic weapons and explosives and the use of fire as a weapon. >> th