Jessica DuLong is a journalist, historian, book collaborator, and ghostwriter, as well as chief engineer, emerita of the retired 1931 New York City fireboat, John J. Harvey. Her latest book, Saved at the Seawall: Stories from the September 11 Boat Lift (previously released as Dust to Deliverance), is the definitive history of the largest ever waterborne evacuation. Her first book, My River Chronicles: Rediscovering the Work that Built America, won an American Society of Journalists and Authors Outstanding Book Award for Memoir. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, CNN.com, Newsweek International, Psychology Today, Huffington Post, Newsday, and Maritime Reporter and Engineering News. She appears in Spike Lee’s HBO docu-series “NYC Epicenters 9/11→2021½” and, in cartoon form, in Maira Kalman’s picture book, Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey.
On September 11, 2001, nearly half a million civilians in Lower Manhattan escaped by water when mariners conducted a spontaneous rescue. This was the largest waterborne evacuation in history, but has gone largely untold.