Friday, September 21, 2001

Columbia U. volunteers turned away in NYC
Sept. 17

By Joshua Hersh
Columbia Daily Spectator

NEW YORK (U-WIRE) — When the first plane struck the north tower of the World Trade Center around 8:45 a.m. Tuesday, Angelo Parano and his brother Mario were working on the Brooklyn Bridge as part of a team of bridge painters. After helplessly watching the two tallest buildings in New York collapse, the Parano brothers, both certified steelworkers, rushed over to ground zero to begin searching for survivors.

They worked at the site for three straight days, Angelo said, stopping only to sleep a few hours at a time.

“When you’re down there, you don’t want to leave,” he explained. “If you think you hear a sound under the rubble, you want to stay and keep digging, not give up your spot to someone who doesn’t know what’s going on.”Columbia’s Student Development and Activities office began investigating ways to get involved early on.

Gene Awakuni, vice president of Student Services, tried canvassing various human services agencies to see what was needed. But, he said, his effort was frustrated as “many agencies aren’t really geared up for the ongoing service effort yet.”

In the meantime, he explained, “we’ve been asking students to stand at our tents on Low Plaza” that have served as makeshift depots for donated food and other items.

As for students hoping to volunteer downtown, Awakuni said, “We’re being told by the city that they’re not wanting any more people. They’re looking for specially skilled workers only.”

Angelo Parano had a harder and harder time getting back to the disaster site, eventually needing to show both his union card and steel working certification at a number of checkpoints. By Saturday, both Paranos had been prohibited from returning to the former site of the World Trade Center towers, and sat at the Jacob Javits Convention Center with other potential volunteers, frustrated and awaiting new instructions.

“I’m really pissed off,” Angelo declared. According to his union representative, from the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades Local 806, the city had retracted all volunteers at destruction site and replaced them with paid city workers. Without permits, neither brother could work at the site.

“They’re not letting those of us who really want to work down there, and the people they’re paying aren’t working as hard,” he said resentfully.

After calling for a widespread volunteer effort and setting up various staging areas such as the Javits Center, Chelsea Piers and the East Side Armory, city officials were forced to acknowledge they had more people and goods than they knew what to do with.

By Thursday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had announced a stoppage of further volunteer efforts and donations, saying that the state of New York had reported “no additional need” for either.But New Yorkers, and many Columbia students, would not be so restrained. Volunteers continued showing up at the Javits Center through the weekend.

Despite the confusion and frustration in midtown, Angelo Parano reported that work downtown had become much more orderly.

“Everybody’s a brother down there,” Parano said. “There’re no racial issues at all, and everybody’s working hard together.”