Next Steps Forward with Chris Meek

Twenty-five years after September 11, 2001, one of the day’s most remarkable rescue stories remains one of its least known. This week on Next Steps Forward, Chris Meek is joined by Jessica DuLong, award-winning author, journalist, independent historian, and former chief engineer of the historic New York City fireboat John J. Harvey.

Built in 1931 and retired decades later, the Harvey was being painstakingly restored by a crew of volunteers when the World Trade Center was attacked. With water mains destroyed and hydrants buried beneath rubble, the retired fireboat was called back into service, pumping seawater to Ground Zero for four days and giving firefighters the water they needed to fight fires that otherwise couldn’t have been fought. Jessica served as one of the boat’s engineers during that mission.

She and Chris trace her unlikely path from writer to maritime engineer, what it took to keep a 1931 vessel running, and what she saw, heard, and felt approaching Lower Manhattan that morning. They also discuss the story at the heart of her acclaimed book, Saved at the Seawall: Stories from the September 11 Boat Lift, the largest maritime evacuation in history, in which mariners with no orders and no playbook carried nearly half a million people off the island of Manhattan in a matter of hours, surpassing even Dunkirk.

It’s a conversation about ingenuity, instinct, and what September 11 revealed about the very best of humanity.