On Sept. 11, 2001, part-time Hatteras islander Mike Regan was a member of the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department.
Sept. 11 was a workday for him — the first day of a three-day tour. He arrived at Rescue Company No. 39 as usual about 7 a.m., and the first task was to check out the equipment on the trucks.
Next was a team planning meeting, and during that meeting, the wife of one of the squad members called to say that a plane had flown into one of the buildings at the World Trade Center.
Regan and his squad members ended the meeting to watch on television what was happening in New York City, which happens to be his home town — he’s a “Brooklyn boy.”
That’s pretty much where all of America was on that morning — in their homes, at work, at businesses.
A second plane hit the World Trade Center and soon Regan and his squad members began hearing chatter on their radios from the Arlington Fire and Rescue Department, the department closest to the Pentagon.
Soon there was more chatter and it soon was apparent that a jetliner had flown into the Pentagon also. They assumed that they would be called out soon.
Actually, Regan was also a member of the Fairfax department’s Virginia Task Force 1, a team of specially trained personnel with expertise in the rescue of victims from collapsed structures following a natural or man-made catastrophic event. With the team, Mike had responded to events across the county and around the world, including the Oklahoma City bombing, the embassy bombing in Kenya, and several major earthquakes.
On the morning of Sept. 11, the task force was activated as part of FEMA’s response to the attack on the Pentagon, so Regan responded to the disaster as a member of the Virginia Task Force — the leader of nine men and women on one of the first search and rescue teams to head into the burning building.
When Regan and his crew headed into the Pentagon, it was just hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, killing 184 people, including 125 people working in the building and 59 passengers and crew members on the airliner.
Mike Regan generously sat down with me a few weeks ago to record an interview for “To the Point,” my weekly show on Radio Hatteras.
In that interview, he remembers many of the horrors of that day — the kind of things that you or I can’t even imagine having to see and cope with.
He remembers that the FBI gave him 50 little cards or pieces of paper with pins to use to mark bodies — or parts of bodies — and he used them all in 20 minutes. His team, he says, found the first body just five feet inside the door — a person who almost made it to safety.
He says the intense heat of the fire was incredible and the building was so filled with smoke that it was impossible to see anything at times.
The team worked 24 hours that first day and then another week or so in 12-hour shifts.
“It was the most physically demanding day of my career,” Regan says.
At the end of the first day, three members of his team were sent to the hospital to recover from smoke inhalation and dehydration. Regan was almost one of them, but recovered after getting three bags of intravenous fluids.
Regan was more than just generous and gracious about agreeing to do the interview, he was eager.
He’s been interviewed by many journalists, authors, and film-makers, including the authors of the book, “Firefight: Inside the battle to save the Pentagon on 9/11” and the creators of the PBS documentary, “Inside the Pentagon,” which made its premiere on Tuesday, Sept. 6, and is scheduled to be broadcast one more time this week — Sunday at 5 a.m. if you want to get up to watch or tape it.
You can listen to my interview with Regan on Sunday evening at 5 p.m. on Radio Hatteras, 99.9 WHDX-FM in Waves and 101.5 WHDZ-FM in Buxton, or stream live at Radio Hatteras.org.
You can also click on the link at the end of this part of the blog to listen to the interview.
You can hear Regan talk about his team’s search — they did not rescue any survivors — and listen to him reflect on that day, what it means to him now, and the reason he is so eager to talk about it.
Of course, this is the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
“It’s hard to believe it’s been 15 years,” Regan told me. “There are things about it that I still remember every single day.”
He thinks maybe people have forgotten why they have to take off their belts and shoes to get on an airplane. “They just consider it an inconvenience,” he says.
“I think people maybe have forgotten the real horror,” he continues. “Parts of America were unaffected by what happened in New York City, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pa.
“It can happen again,” he says. “Just because we don’t think anything will happen on Hatteras Island, doesn’t mean it won’t….Globally, I don’t know if they will ever be able to hijack a plane again but they can attack a tour bus.”
Regan retired from the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department on Dec. 31, 2011 after 34 years as a firefighter. He and his wife, Janice, who had been vacationing on Hatteras for years with their camper, bought a house in Avon in 2012. Janice hasn’t retired yet and the couple still have family in northern Virginia, but they still manage to spend most of the year on Hatteras.
On Sunday, Sept. 11, Mike Regan — outfitted with the same gear he wore into the Pentagon 15 years ago — will join Hatteras Island volunteer firefighters and other first responders for the fourth annual Memorial Climb of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.
The climb was started on Sept. 11, 2013, by members of the Buxton Volunteer Fire Department as a way to honor their 343 brethren who died at the World Trade Center in New York.
The public is invited to support the firefighters and other first responders as they solemnly climb the 257 steps to the balcony of the lighthouse by attending the event, which usually begins about 8:46 a.m. — the time the first plane hit the World Trade Center.
Also on Sunday, the Cape Hatteras Baptist Church will host all first responders at a lunch buffet from 12:15 to 2 p.m. with lots of good food provided by the island’s restaurants.
Mike Regan has this one final thought about the events of 15 years ago and the fourth annual Memorial Climb of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.
“A lot of sacrifices were made that day by firefighters and police officers,” he says. “Some people would say that they shouldn’t have been there, but they were exactly where they should have been.”
