{"id":8606,"date":"2026-09-11T09:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=8606"},"modified":"2026-09-11T09:38:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:38:00","slug":"what-9-11-was-like-for-veteran-post-police-reporter-nothing-could-prepare-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=8606","title":{"rendered":"What 9\/11 was like for veteran Post police reporter: &#8216;Nothing could prepare me&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Sept. 11, 2001, started out like any other Tuesday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I was getting ready for my job as a police reporter for The Post, when I saw on TV that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=8604\">Inside luxe life of OC football fanatic mom accused of stealing $400K from high school team \u2014 as husband speaks out<\/a><\/p>\n<p>By the time I got to Manhattan, the buildings had already fallen.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As I got closer to the devastation, the visibility was less and less \u2014 and a dense fog hung in the air.<\/p>\n<p>People were walking in 6-inches of ash \u2014 the result of tons of pulverized concrete from the collapsed buildings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When I got to Church Street, it looked like a scene from a movie where planets collided and nothing was left.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The only problem was there was no director yelling \u201ccut!\u201d This was real.<\/p>\n<p>On my right, dozens of ambulances were lined up with their doors open, waiting for the injured who never came.<\/p>\n<p>Coffee carts were sitting empty with donuts and bagels covered in ash. I thought, just yesterday I was in Century 21, now its windows were broken and it was badly damaged.<\/p>\n<p>Streets were buried beneath dust, twisted steel and concrete. Some piles were over 50-feet high.<\/p>\n<p>Smoke hung over the ruins creating a cloud that covered as far as I could see \u2013 which wasn\u2019t far.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The acrid smell was nauseating. I was covered in dust from head-to-toe.<\/p>\n<p>As I walked around, I stepped over body parts and saw a wheel from one of the planes.<\/p>\n<p>I had covered hundreds of crime scenes all over the city, reported on serial killers and talked to murderers in jail. I remembered when 87 bodies were laid out in a gas station on Southern Boulevard in The Bronx after the Happy Land fire.<\/p>\n<p>I remembered 8 years earlier, I stood on these same streets while covering the 1993 World Trade Center bombing \u2014 but even that was nothing like what I was now witnessing.<\/p>\n<h2>More coverage on the 25th Anniversary of 9\/11:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Breathtaking drone show of 2,977 lights illuminates NYC skies before 9\/11 anniversary<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>I was an NYC student during the 9\/11 attacks \u2014 the catastrophe still haunts me 25 years later<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>One of 9\/11\u2019s youngest survivors recalls Pentagon attack \u2014 and how she\u2019s now running 2,977 miles to remember those killed<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>He took the final WTC photos before 9\/11 \u2014 we used AI to bring them to life<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Cops and firemen were futilely trying to move thousands of pounds of debris by hand to find their brothers and sisters. Some were crying because they knew the chances of recovery were minimal.<\/p>\n<p>A couple hours earlier, it was a quiet morning and now the world had changed forever.<\/p>\n<p>As news of the plane strikes unfolded, I had called a friend I grew up with, who worked in the NYPD intelligence division, and he said, \u201cThey think it might be a terrorist attack.\u201d It was the first time I heard that phrase \u2014 which I\u2019ve heard thousands of times since.<\/p>\n<p>Just then, my editor called, yelling hysterically that the city was under attack.<\/p>\n<p>When I told her police were looking at a possible terrorist attack she asked,\u00a0\u201cAre you sure?\u201d I told her the cops are treating this as a terrorist attack and everybody is being called in.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCall me as soon as you get more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>I kept making phone calls \u2014 then the South Tower fell as millions watched on live TV.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The city was in emergency mode, closing off highways and access into Manhattan except for emergency responders.<\/p>\n<p>I was able to get a ride with Brooklyn North Police Benevolent Association trustee John Giangrasso and we drove to Ground Zero.<\/p>\n<p>The mayor, police and fire brass and the feds were trying to figure out who was responsible and how they could rescue the thousands of missing people who were under the tons of rubble from the collapsed Twin Towers.<\/p>\n<p>Rumors were flying that hundreds of cops and firemen were dead, along with thousands of civilians.<\/p>\n<p>During the afternoon, I got a call from police officer Kathy Vigiano asking if I heard anything about her husband, Det. Joseph Vigiano. They were friends I\u2019d met in the 75 precinct, back when I covered the area\u2019s record number of murders in 1993.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=8602\">Minnesota State Fairgoer savagely beaten, stomped in teen mob attack<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I told her that I hadn\u2019t heard anything about him and she headed to Manhattan to look for him as she couldn\u2019t get any answers.<\/p>\n<p>I paused and had a funny feeling in my stomach. What if the rumors were true about the dead police officers and firemen?<\/p>\n<p>I knew Joe well, and I knew if he got to the towers, he would\u2019ve run to the roof and made sure everybody got out \u2014 unless the unthinkable happened and he was in the building when it fell.<\/p>\n<p>I now started to think about\u00a0 the dozens of cops\u00a0and firemen who worked in downtown Manhattan that I knew personally from my years as a reporter.<\/p>\n<p>As I was calling in notes to the newsroom, I kept thinking back to Joe \u2014 and the other cops and firemen\u00a0 that probably were buried a few feet from where I stood.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, we went over to police headquarters where some of the families who couldn\u2019t get a hold of their loved ones had gathered.<\/p>\n<p>I saw Kathy, and then later that night, I saw a list of 23 names of cops that were missing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We soon learned Joe was among the heroes who had been killed in the line of duty.<\/p>\n<p>In the days after, I kept going back to police HQ and speaking with the families of the missing cops.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now, I was sadly making new friends. I was meeting wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters all waiting for a miracle \u2013 that never came.<\/p>\n<p>I saw the constant pain as the days blurred into each other.<\/p>\n<p>I would go over to Ground Zero, but instead of twisted steel, I now saw the faces of people I knew and of those who I had just learned about through their grieving families.<\/p>\n<p>Over the next 25 years, I covered hundreds of murders and other crimes, talked to numerous victims\u2019 families, including police officers who were killed in the line of duty \u2014 but nothing ever compared to those weeks and months.<\/p>\n<p>I still remember the ambulances, the coffee trucks and a vibrant city that went silent.<\/p>\n<p>Every once in a while, a story will come up about 9\/11 and my editors will ask me to reach back out to the families, the friends that I made 25 years ago, for comment. In the back of my mind, I wish I had met them under different circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>Somehow, they managed to slowly move on. The hurt remains but they have been able to make lives for their children.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<p>A lot of them have become grandmothers. Some of the children, now grown, have themselves become cops or firefighters, as well as teachers and lawyers.<\/p>\n<p>I also learned that the heroism of 9\/11 did not end when the fires were extinguished and the buildings were rebuilt.<\/p>\n<p>Heroism continued in the homes of those heroes.<\/p>\n<p>The families picked up the pieces and moved forward, keeping the memories of those who died alive and celebrating milestones without their loved ones.<\/p>\n<p>I will never forget the destruction I saw that day. I will never forget those that died that day and the weeks and years since.<\/p>\n<p>But today I also remember the heroes that were left behind \u2014\u00a0 the ones who found the strength and courage to carry on.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=8600\">Jessica Pegula has another wild beverage exchange after US Open semis loss<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Veteran Post police reporter Larry Celona recalls the devastation of Ground Zero on 9\/11 and the tragic loss of his friend, NYPD Det. Joseph Vigiano.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metro"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What 9\/11 was like for veteran Post police reporter: &#039;Nothing could prepare me&#039; - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=8606\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What 9\/11 was like for veteran Post police reporter: &#039;Nothing could prepare me&#039; - Metro Transit Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Veteran Post police reporter Larry Celona recalls the devastation of Ground Zero on 9\/11 and the tragic loss of his friend, NYPD Det. 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