About the Bookstore Browse Aisles Search Desk Shopping Basket Book Trade Terms Just Released! Return Policy Help Here is the full reference card for this book... If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113. In the Midst of Chaos. My 30 Days at Ground Zero by David W. Ausmus 302 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1369; ISBN 1-4120-1000-4; US$25.50, C$30.00, EUR21.00, £14.50 Walk with the author into the mayhem and chaos of 'Ground Zero'. Tasked with safety, he shares his experiences, thoughts and emotions of a place he can only call 'Hell'. Read more! about the book      about the author      sample excerpt      catalogue info About the Book In the Midst of Chaos is the story of a volunteer safety representative's 30 days in the middle of the World Trade Center disaster. His task was to assist the rescue and recovery teams, construction workers, and volunteers in protecting themselves from injury in the debris field of WTC Tower 2, where thousand of victims lay buried. Urged by his wife to keep a record of his experiences for their children and grandchildren, he documented the daily sights, sounds, smell, frustrations, and profound tragedy of Ground Zero. Staggered by the horrible sights of death, grief, and the uncertainty of his own survival, he frequently turns his own thoughts inwards. He allows the reader to experience the reality of the disaster, his innermost thoughts and fears, the painful, personal emotions, and the life altering changes taking place within. About the Author David W. Ausmus, 50, is a construction safety representative. He and his wife Janice are natives of Monroe, Michigan and are currently residing in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. They have six children and four grandsons. David went to the World Trade Center disaster in late September 2001, spending the next month working 12 hours a day in the rubble of World Trade Center #2 and the surrounding damaged area. This is his first book.

Sample Excerpt

This day was so incredible that I will never be able to describe it adequately enough. My God, what these mad men have done.

The amount of dust covering the several square blocks is staggering. It covers everything. Any place you look, there is a thick layer of this gray concrete dust. There are also vast amounts of paper mixed in with the dust. These papers are from files or were sitting on a desk in the towers before they collapsed. People have written the names of missing friends, fire department numbers, cities and towns they came from, messages to Osama Bin Laden, and to the world in this dust covering windows and vehicles.

Occupying every available space it seems, on the sides of buildings, signposts, and windows are signs written with fluorescent paint directing you to the locations of the morgues, first aid, food, and anything else you need to know. Intermixed with these signs are hundreds of posters of the missing people. Their families and friends have put them up in hopes their loved ones survived, but so far are unable to call home. The faces in the pictures seem to stare out at you. These are so difficult for me to look at. I know that these people are under that pile and never going home again. Reading some of them was too much for me to take. Families have put any information on them that they think will assist in finding them. The clothes they were wearing that day, height and weight, what floor they worked on, and the ever-present plea for someone to call with information. Others have personal messages such as ' please come home Dad' that made me cry for the first of many times today.

Dozens and dozens of vehicles of all kinds, taxies, fire department, police, and privately owned are located all over the streets or already loaded onto the backs of trucks. Some are just flattened to their wheels and others are in various stages of ruin, whether it is broken windows, debris stuck into them, completely burned out, or just filled with dust. One vehicle appeared smashed into the pavement a few feet deep and could not have been more than a foot thick in spots. It is damaged so badly that I have no idea if it was an automobile or a truck.

The surrounding blocks have dozens of damaged buildings. Most have the majority of their windows blown out with the remaining dangling glass falling to the street when the wind blows. On several occasions, I heard the tinkling of glass breaking on the street within feet of our location. Many of these buildings have netting in place or boarded windows now to keep the glass and debris from falling onto people below. However, many do not have anything up to prevent people from unknowingly wandering into these dangerous areas.

There are places in the streets, around and in the debris field that you could fall twenty feet or farther into a mess of jagged steel. No barricades or covers are in place to stop you from walking right into one of them. At any given moment, there is so much dangerous activity in every direction to watch out for that it would be easy not to notice a gaping hole in the street.

Then our tour group made it right up to the World Trade Center complex. The damage done here is just unbelievable. The two, 110-story towers, are now just a pile of smoldering rubble. It is almost unfathomable that buildings of this tremendous size are now the piles of debris laying here. No matter how you look at it, there does not seem to be enough rubble to equal what had been here before September 11. The tower façade columns look like some giant threw a box of his giant matchsticks on the ground. They are lying on or stuck into the pile in every position imaginable. The remainder of the debris pile looks to be just dust, paper, piping, wire, and pebble sized concrete pieces. The façade portions that are still standing uncannily resemble the Roman coliseum ruins. Thoughts of comparison to the fall of that ancient empire fluttered briefly through my mind. Could this be the beginning of the fall of another empire?

Search and rescue teams are almost everywhere around the perimeter of the debris pile, sitting on the ground, or just standing and watching the many other teams work. These teams, their personnel laden with equipment such as ropes, hooks, radios, and more, are crawling all over the debris pile following all different types of dogs in, out, up and down hills, holes and valleys of destruction. Some of the dogs are wearing what look to be booties or socks to protect their feet from sharp objects and the heat coming from the pile. Other dogs seem exhausted from their search and are sleeping around the perimeter in anything that looks halfway comfortable. They sleep in stretchers, beds of trucks, or on a pile of firefighter's gear. They never flinched or woke at the ground shaking and roar of the semi-trucks and massive construction machines passing a few yards away. These Search and Rescue teams have their home cities and states printed on the backs of their shirts. They have come from everywhere, California, Florida, and Britain, to name just a few.

Armed police officers and U.S. Army soldiers stationed at intervals of what seems is every couple of yards, are stark reminders that I am in the middle of a war zone. These sentries have a searching, serious look on their faces as if they are expecting trouble at any given second. They intently scan our faces and check to verify that we have the proper badge to be here. Our badges are a new type recently issued and we have been stopped and questioned a few times. Our supervisor clears it up so we can continue.

Cruising continually back and forth on the streets are Humvees, jeeps, and troop transport trucks. Army helicopters are flying overhead, some transporting more troops and equipment to temporary bases nearby, others circling to protect us from enemies. Army vehicles equipped with large machine guns are blocking intersections around the perimeter. Each of these is staffed by a soldier gazing intently down the barrel of their machine gun, and their finger on the trigger. It is a heavily armed and secured area, New York City is prepared for a war on the streets of Manhattan. It is almost beyond my comprehension.

Firefighters appeared to be everywhere and involved some way or another in just about every activity. Their emotional and physical conditions seem to differ with each one you see. Some are just sitting on the ground with their heads in their hands and still in shock, others seem to be dead on their feet, as if they have not slept for days. Others just stand by themselves in the debris field watching the activities and others just sit in small groups quietly talking. After we met some of the fire department chiefs in our sectors, we talked to a few of the other firefighters that were with them while our bosses and the chiefs discussed the day's activities. All of these firefighters seem to be on the edge, some on the brink of crying at any moment, and all of them know someone who was lost. We are told that a few of these firefighters are looking for missing sons. I cannot even imagine what they must be going through. To lose a child is what every parent fears and is the worst thing that can happen. To lose them in front of your eyes and then desperately search for them in this rubble has to be Hell on earth. You can feel and see the glimmer of hope that they cling to for their children's survival fading with each stroke of the clock. I get the feeling they just have to do something, even if it is just being here.

Something that stands out so clearly in my mind is the desperation on everyone's faces as they try to find survivors, knowing that time is running out. It has been two weeks since the attack and the limit of human survival without food and water is at the point of requiring a miracle now. I cannot explain it other than to say you do not need any of your five senses to know that desperation is here. It seems to hang over the site like a fog, blanketing everyone and seeping into your consciousness. It is the most important race they will ever run and they are losing.

I had my first experience with the terrible reality of this atrocity this afternoon. As I stood on the edge of the debris field in front of tower 2. I watched as a dog and his handler from one of the Search and Rescue teams made their way back and forth over an area of the debris. During this crisscrossing of the rubble, the dog stopped to intently sniff a three foot square area for a few seconds and then started pawing the ground and looking at his handler. The man with the dog signaled to the nearby firefighters and they began digging with shovels, picks, and their hands at that spot. They slowly, but intently worked to remove metal, wire, piping, and concrete for approximately 45 minutes until they located and finished uncovering what only the dog had been able to sense and know was there, the body of a victim. Although I was at least 50 yards away, I could tell when they had found the remains because the firefighters and others around them stopped and formed a circle around the hole they had been opening up. They waited a few minutes until a firefighter chaplain or priest arrived and then they took off their helmets, bowed their heads, and he led in prayer. After this prayer service, they placed the body into a black body bag and placed it onto an orange plastic stretcher. Six firefighters then carried the stretcher over to one of the four-wheel drive All Terrain Vehicles (ATV) that the FDNY uses. The stretcher was loaded into the bed of the ATV and a firefighter began to drive away. The entire event did not seem real to me up to that point. I do not know if it was because it was the first time I have witnessed anything like this or it was shock. Oddly, whatever the reason, the sad scene, emotions, and the thoughts that would normally race through my mind did not overtake me and I returned my thoughts and attention to observing the machines performing the work activities.

A minute or so later, I was startled when the ATV drove right up next to me and stopped. I was neither expecting nor prepared for it. Although the ATV was there only briefly as the firefighter driving spoke to a colleague, those several seconds of staring at that body bag brought the flood of emotions and thoughts that had briefly been restrained. I could not help but to think of whom the person had been. Have I saw their face on one of the hundreds of missing posters I have seen today? Were they a stockbroker, insurance agent, or janitor? Who is waiting for them to come home? Someone's child, a parent, a brother or sister that is now wrapped in a plain, black plastic bag and being carted away to a tent for dead people in the middle of what can only be adequately described as Hell on earth. With these thoughts overwhelming my thoughts, the inevitable emotions and pain began. The wet, stinging eyes and the painful throbbing and squeezing sensation of my Adam's apple. It felt as if it was being squeezed by a vise and was now swollen too big to fit inside my throat. Inside my chest appeared that hollow, aching feeling that makes it hurt to breathe. I have not had these awful feelings with such intensity since my father, Kenneth, died almost ten years ago. I never expected that I would react this strongly to the death of a stranger. I had to walk around and find other matters to occupy my attention until I could swallow and breathe without pain again. It took me quite a while. This is how my first encounter with the recovery of a victim's body took place. It was such a strange, painful, sad experience and feeling. I know that this was just the first one of too many more people I will witness being dug out of this rubble before I leave this place. I wonder if they all will hurt as bad as this one.

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