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Editor's note:
The Rev. Richard Del Rio is the head of Abounding Grace Ministries in New York City and was among the first pastors on site after the World Trade Center towers collapsed on September 11. He ministered among firefighters, police, and rescue workers. He described his experiences for ct senior news writer Tony Carnes at the Port Authority Police Crisis Command Post at Ground Zero. Across from them stood a chart listing missing officers and recovered dead officers. The chart included a prayer writ large: "Lord, my brothers have lost their way. Give me the strength to bring them home."

I always ask the local police precinct where the toughest drug-crime corners are and then set up our ministry truck right there.

So, when the World Trade Center towers were attacked, I instinctively thought that that was the place where I could pastor effectively. Besides, our ministry's trucks feature the towers outlined in red, and as a construction-company owner, I had helped to build the towers. It was personal. That's my building and those were our guys getting destroyed out there.

I dropped my toast, ran out and jumped on my big hog, a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide. On the way, I put on my pastor's collar and police identification tag.

Right away, a cop came running up. "Father, can you come over here and bless these body parts?"

He had mistaken me for a priest, but I came over. There was a torso, a detached head, shoulders, and a leg all piled up. I prayed with him, while cars exploded and burning papers floated through the air. All around us, cops and firefighters with looks of utter despair were running through the roar of noise and the awful smell.

After praying, I then joined the stream of rescuers. I had hardly gone a block when an Asian woman came running out of a novelty store, crying, "Please help me! My husband is in a wheelchair and trapped!"

The store was filled with ash and smoke, but the old guy still had a little fight in him. He insisted, "I'll be okay." Of course, he wasn't and he couldn't move his wheelchair through all the ash, debris, and fire hoses.

I told him, "Don't even try! You can't get there by yourself. Let me try." It was tough to get him out, but we made it over to a safe zone.

I went back to join up with some cops from my home precinct, the Ninth. They were trying to dig out a police van so that they could drive to the World Trade Center site. We used bottled tea to clean the windows and [bottled] nectar to fill the radiator. We got it going and made it to pretty close to the site. There was just utter devastation on the way. A bridge had fallen on a fire truck and had crushed it down to 2 feet high.

We hopped out and struggled through the ash and smoke. On my right was the cemetery of St. Paul's Church. Some of the tombstones had been blasted down, and all around them were little fires like burning bushes in the cemetery. There were men's and women's shoes scattered around.

I also passed my friend's church, Faith Exchange Fellowship. It was in a building next door to the Marriott Hotel. A fire was raging in it, but I was pretty sure that my friend had gotten out.

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September (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45