Peaceful MOMENT — Dianne Fattah with her husband and son at a recent family event.

‘She saved our lives’
Survivor credits missing PEF member for safe exit

By DENYCE DUNCAN LACY
Dianne Fattah, a PEF member and tax auditor 1 was in her office on the 86th floor of 2 World Trade Center when she heard someone say a plane had hit the tower next door.

“We thought it must have been a small plane, maybe with an inexperienced pilot, and we weren’t going to leave,” Fattah recalled.

But fellow PEF member Rose Rizzo, one of the floor’s fire marshals, told everyone to leave. “Now.”

At first, Fattah didn’t heed the advice. Although her throat was starting to feel funny and she smelled something burning, Fattah was still putting her files away, not realizing how serious the danger was.

“You think you’re in an indestructible building,” she said.

“But then Rose said, ‘What do you think is going to happen when the air vents fill with smoke?’”

So Fattah and others went to the bank of elevators to take them to the 78th floor. Rizzo was not with them.

While waiting, Fattah heard the public address system announcement indicating the building was secure, and that there was no need to evacuate.

Some people started to go back to their desks, she recalls, and she hesitated. Then she saw others hurrying to get into the elevators, and decided she should get out of the building. She ran to the set of elevators on the left and got on the next open car.

“About 30 seconds after reaching the ground floor and going through the revolving doors to get into the mall, I hear ‘Boom!’” she said. “The other plane hit.” Chaos erupted, as people began running everywhere.

“My co-worker Henry Lee grabbed my hand,” Fattah said. “He took me through the walkway to the E Train subway station. He was my second angel. Rose was my first one.”

A short time later, they came up the steps a few blocks away, ending up near where a piece of one of the crashed jets had fallen. Fattah walked some 40 blocks from there to the NY Port Authority Terminal, where she eventually got a bus home to New Jersey. Fattah worked at 2 World Trade Center for two years, and said she and her co-workers are like family.

She is happy she and so many of her colleagues survived, and grateful to Lee and Rizzo.

But ... “I just keep seeing the people who are missing.”

Like Rose Rizzo, who remains among the 36 PEF members who are still unaccounted for.

“If I know Rose, she was trying to make sure she was getting everybody out,” Fattah said. “She took her responsibilities as a tax auditor and as a fire marshal very seriously.

“She saved our lives. If it hadn’t been for Rose insisting we get out of there, I wouldn’t be here. Thirty seconds later, I wouldn’t be here.”

The Communicator Home Page

 PEF races to aid members
Relief fund launched

By SHERRY HALBROOK
As news spread on Tuesday, Sept. 11, of the terrible attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, PEF immediately began efforts to assess the effect on its members and how it could help them cope.

One of the early difficulties was the need to evacuate PEF’s New York City field office on Church Street, which is only a few blocks from the WTC. Within two days, PEF was able to establish a temporary field office courtesy of the United Federation of Teachers at 335 Adams Street in Brooklyn.

The union hopes it will be allowed to return to its Church St. location by early October.

PEF began issuing updates for its members on who was affected and how, where to call for counseling to deal with the trauma and other help, and information about how the various state agencies that lost or had to evacuate their offices were responding.
You will find this information on the PEF Web site at www.pef.org under Current News.

Many emergency calls and meetings among PEF leaders were held to ensure that the members who were most severely affected by the attack were contacted and their needs were identified and being met.

To aid members or their families, the union established the PEF World Trade Center Relief Fund and launched it with a contribution of $10,000 from PEF’s statewide coffers.

“I urge PEF divisions in all regions to make the largest contributions possible to this fund,” says PEF President Roger Benson, “and I invite all PEF members and other friends and supporters to also contribute generously.”

If you would like to donate, send your contributions to:
PEF World Trade Center Relief Fund,
PO Box 12414,
Albany, NY 12212-2414.

“We continue to focus our attention on these members and their families,” Benson says, “and we’ll continue to get them the answers and help they need.”

Meanwhile, countless PEF members and local divisions volunteered their time as counselors, as medical professionals and in many aspects of the rescue effort. They supported and volunteered at blood drives and other activities.

Perhaps the greatest contribution which PEF members made in this emergency was in their readiness to do whatever was needed to ensure New York State fully and effectively mobilized its resources to meet the crisis.

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