Firefighter Remembers 9/11
Posted by Liz Cutler Gates on September 11, 2009
On this day, when the U.S. remembers the attacks of September 11, 2001, we bring you the story of Larry Everett, a firefighter who was at the scene of the Pentagon attacks. This story first appeared in the September-October 2006 issue of FGBC World. To read the complete story, click here.
Today, Larry (pictured below) serves as Battalion Chief, overseeing five stations in the Springfield, Va., area. He is known to many in the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches for his involvement in Momentum Youth Conference. Last summer, he coordinated the We Care Pittsburgh projects.
9/11 Firefighter Remembers ‘Taste of Hell’
Larry Everett had a taste of hell that day five years ago.
Everett, a firefighter, was called in to assist when a hijacked Boeing 757 slammed into the 29-acre Pentagon complex on September 11, 2001. Everett vividly recalls entering the third floor of the massive facility and being met with a wall of fire. Temperatures exceeded 2,500 degrees—he and his crew of 25 watched metal desks and file cabinets melt before their eyes.
Wearing firefighting gear rated for only 1,500 degrees, Everett is convinced that God protected him in the inferno.
A member of the elite Fairfax County, Virginia, Fire and Rescue Department, Everett and his colleagues spent nine hours in active firefighting that day.
Their strategy on the upper floors was to push the fire further back into the building where it would starve and be extinguished. But no matter what they did, they could not escape the intense heat.
“This is what hell is going to be like,” Everett remembers thinking. The impact of the airliner and leaking fuel produced intense heat and a smoky blaze that penetrated three of the building’s five rings.
When the firefighters entered the first floor, they found a dark area within the collapsed building. Eighteen inches of water covered the floor—it had filtered down from firefighters on the upper stories.
There in the basement Everett saw his second picture of hell—a darkness that was so complete it established itself as a presence. “You could feel the darkness,” he recalls. “Hell is the complete and utter absence of God.”
See 9/11 Firefighter Remembers ‘Taste of Hell’ for the rest of the story.
Larry’s story is also featured by CE National, the sponsor of the Momentum conference. To read that story, click here.
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