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This is a 2,996 Tribute to Fran Riccardelli

Francis S. Riccardelli was the manager of vertical transportation at the World Trade Center, a member of the Port Authority's Property Management Team. He had responsibility for the the elevators and escalators at the towers, and he had worked there since graduating from college at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 1984. Fran, as he was known to friends and colleagues, was there in 1993 during the first attack on the WTC. He had an office on one of the lower floors, so he walked out the towers after the planes hit.

But as a Port Authority (PA) employee he was part of the emergency response team, so he grabbed his hard hat, flashlight and walkie-talkie and assisted the firemen and rescue personnel as they tried to get people out of the towers. Fran was an incident commander in the South Tower, which was the first to collapse.

Fran Riccardelli loved his job. His wife Theresa commented, "One guy said, 'I used to duck Francis all the time because he would come up with all these projects and they would always involve so much work.' "

But it was different at home in Westwood, New Jersey. With Theresa and their five children, Fran had no problem recruiting volunteers. When he went to Home Depot, five-year-old Genevieve would ride in the shopping cart and help pick out tools. When he was taking down a wall, three-year-old Zachary would bang away at it with his plastic hammer.

"He was always planning fun thing to fun thing," his wife said. "He'd get up Saturday morning and make pancakes. Friday was movie night - we'd all pile into our bed with popcorn and watch a movie together. Saturday was game night."

Riccardelli had just bought a huge trailer and hoped the whole family would hike the Grand Canyon someday. "It was going to be the start of a new project," Theresa said. "Exploring America."

But at 8:46 AM on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 aircraft, crashed into the north side of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. There was a loud thud, and debris came crashing down into the Plaza and the streets. Shocked observers could see that the upper floors of the North Tower were on fire with smoke billowing in all directions and flames leaping out toward the north and west. 

For Fran, there was no time for reflection on what he had witnessed in 1993. He put on his hard hat, grabbed his flashlight and walkie-talkie and sprang into action with his colleague Don Parente. They were horrified to find people trying to escape from the burning upper floors by leaping out of the building and landing on the Plaza. They made their way to the sub-grade Operations Command Center (OCC) from where they knew the entire WTC complex could be monitored. After reaching the OCC, Parente and Riccardelli felt that they might be of more help at the Fire Command Center (FCC), so they proceeded to the North Tower FCC.

A first priority was to communicate with people that might be stuck on the elevators. Being familiar with the operation of the elevator intercom system, Parente and Dave Bobbitt, another colleague, began to communicate with those on the elevators. Fran Riccardelli answered firemen's questions helping them to find their way throughout the building.

"It was quite hectic, and we did what we could to stay in contact with the elevator passengers while helping to direct other people out of the building and direct firemen to the stairs and the elevators," Dave Bobbitt remarked. "When entering the North Tower, we saw the marble on the walls was severely cracked, and Fran Riccardelli told everyone to stay back from the walls."

Don Parente noticed that the doors of elevators number 6 and 7 had been blown out."

The team continued to work with the firemen hoping to be able to help get as many people as possible safely out of the North Tower. Working with the Fire Battalion Chiefs who were stationed at the FCC, the PA Operations staff were compiling lists of the number of people on each of the stalled elevators to help the firemen develop an evacuation plan to get them out. 

Then at 9:02 AM, as television broadcasters and viewers around the world watched, United Airlines Flight 175, another Boeing 767 airplane, crashed into the South Tower.

The group knew right away that their efforts would have to be increased to assist with evacuation of the South Tower as well. They split up into two groups at this point, with Fran Riccardelli in the South Tower FCC. The Port Authority (PA) groups continued to work with the firemen in both towers, in spite of the increasing danger to which they were exposed from debris that was falling from the tower floors above. The smell of burning jet fuel was becoming more and more prevalent at the FCC levels in both buildings. The PA staff in both towers continued to work alongside the firefighters, talking to passengers on stalled elevators in an effort to help keep them calm and let them know that rescuers were on site and doing what they could to get to them.

Bobbitt, who was on the phone another PA colleague when they began to hear a loud rumble. As the sound built in intensity, the whole place trembled and vibrated. Firemen instructed everyone to get out of the building as the South Tower was starting to collapse on and around them all. Bobbitt recalled a firemen yelling, "Run!!"

Bobbitt headed for what he felt might be the only possible safe haven, an arch-shaped area leading into the WTC Building 6 lobby. He and Parente barely made it out of the North Tower lobby as the mezzanine came crashing down behind them. They were soon engulfed in concrete and sheetrock dust and surrounded by falling debris and then, utter and total darkness. The WTC South Tower had collapsed, and a huge dust and debris cloud was billowing out in all directions and making its way toward Bobbitt and a group of firemen that had worked their way over to an escalator and up against the exterior wall of the North Tower to which they clung for safety.

In the chaos of the South Tower's collapse, Dave Bobbitt lost communication with the rest of his friends and was terrified, not only for his own safety, but for that of his friends and all of those around him. His radio still worked and was able to make contact with Parente, who indicated that he had made it to the top of the escalators that lead to the bridge across West Street to the Winter Garden, a shopping mall to the west of the WTC towers. 

Eventually, he saw Parente's flashlight. Still in the darkness and barely breathable air, Bobbitt moved toward that dim light coming from across the bridge over West Street and eventually reached his friend. Covered in dust and gasping for fresh air, the two shared a brief and grateful reunion before walking toward the Hudson River in an attempt to find fresher air to breathe. They proceeded toward the river having survived what they thought must have been the falling of part of one of the towers. They would soon be surprised to find out what had actually happened and what they made it through.

In the end, Dave Bobbitt and Don Parente made it to safety, but Fran Riccardelli had made the ultimate sacrifice, one more of the 2,996 courageous people who gave their lives so that others could be with their families one more day. 

Francis Riccardelli is one of ten civilian employees who were honored posthumously by President Bush in a special ceremony in Washington, DC on September 9, 2005. This was in recognition for the role he and the others played in helping evacuate approximately 25,000 people from the World Trade Center on September 11th. He was among 13 Port Authority civilian employees given a special 9/11 heroes' "Medal of Valor" in a special ceremony on the White House lawn, along with the 37 Port Authority Police officers who also died that day. In total, 443 responders were recognized on the White House lawn.

Fran Riccardelli was 40-years-old, had caring friends and has been honored and remembered by many. He had a family to go home to, care for and love. Fran was one of those people who was full of life, too young to die and too young to have to be mourned. He never made it home to his wife and those five children on the night of September 11th, 2001.

Please also see these 2,996 Tributes:

• 2,996 Tribute to Darin Howard Pontell
• 2,996 Tribute to James Brian Reilly
• 2,996 Tribute to Paul E. Jeffers 
• A 9-11 Tribute Nicole Miller

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This is a 2996 Tribute to James Brian Reilly

For James Reilly, that Monday night in September was typical. He met his roommates Jon Johnnidis and Matt Brush at Crunch Fitness on Lafayette Street in New York City. tags: James Reilly was very athletic, and he had just done five miles on the treadmill there. 

The three of them went shopping, then went home and made chicken nachos. Jim enjoyed cooking, according to his roommates. They relaxed and watched 'Monday Night Football.'  It was a nice evening," Jon Johnnidis said. 

No one had any idea that it would be Reilly's last.

Early the next morning, Jim Reilly went to his work at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, where he was a bond trader, so he had to be there for meetings between 7:30 and 7:45 AM. The company's offices were on the 89th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. 

The day was Tuesday, September 11th, 2001.

At 8:46 AM, American Airlines Flight 11, a tags: Boeing 767 aircraft, crashed into the north side of the North Tower. Jim called his roommates and his father, William Reilly, to assure them that he was safe on the 89th floor in the South Tower, although a plane had rammed the North Tower. Then at 9:02 AM, as television broadcasters from around the world watched, United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 airplane, crashed into the South Tower.

Jim Reilly's family and friends never heard from him again.

He was not married, and had no children, but he was godfather to his niece, Katherine. He would swoop her from the arms of whoever was holding her and coo like he was the father. He really liked to make his other nieces and nephews laugh as well. 

He had the kind of personality and humor that brought pleasure wherever he went, friends said. "Jim could turn around any situation and make it funny," said Jon Johnnidis, his best friend since the eighth grade in Huntington Station. Reilly liked to make people laugh, even to cramming his 6-foot frame into a child-sized electronic train to amuse his young nephews and nieces. His family called him "the world's funniest uncle."

He was the youngest of the five children of William and Virginia Reilly, and was an honor student and a soccer player at Walt Whitman High School, in Huntington, NY, where he graduated in 1994. He went to college and graduated from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA, where he was a member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity. 

"Jim was so intelligent, we know he would have done something great if he had survived," said Jon Johnnidis' sister, Melissa. He was also "very gentlemanly," she said. During a snowboarding expedition he lent his ski jacket to his girlfriend, Jennifer Bresler. As a beginning snowboarder, "more down than up, he soon looked like a big white snowball," she said.

Jim's memorial mass was attended by over 850 people including his girlfriend.

There are a lot of people who remember Jim Reilly, and wrote some pretty nice things about him over the last five years and what he meant to them. He will not be forgotten.

James B. Reilly was one of 2996 victims of the September 11th tragedies.

We should never forget all that was lost on September 11th, 2001.

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