State & Local, Terrorism 

From the author of the bestselling Report From Engine Co. 82, the extraordinary eyewitness account of the heroic rescue workers who rushed to save the victims of the World Trade Center attack.

Immediately after two hijacked jets struck the twin towers of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, Dennis Smith, a retired firefighter who had served eighteen years with the New York City Fire Department, reported to Manhattan's Ladder Co. 16 to volunteer in the rescue effort. Among those missing in the tragedy were 343 firefighters, many of whom were his friends and longtime colleagues. Having spent his career as both a respected writer and a member of one of the city's busiest firehouses, Smith became determined to use his unique background to tell the story of the disaster and its aftermath with the empathy and understanding that only an insider could bring to it.

Report from Ground Zero is a dramatic narrative of this three-month period, a time that has permanently altered the landscape and character of America. The book opens with astonishing first-person testimony from dozens of the rescuers who were present as the towers were attacked, evacuated, and then fell. We hear a battalion chief's story of the command center in the lobby of the burning north tower, outside of which a hellish rain of rubble, bodies, and fire continued as firefighters arrived to being their long journey ninety floors up to the scene of the disaster. We follow a Port Authority officer's path through the underground concourse of the Trade Center, where he watches his best friend die after the space unexpectedly collapses. We hear the harrowing story of the miraculous survival of twelve firefighters, a Port Authority police officer, and a civilian who huddled in a stairwell, waiting for death as they listened to the terrible roar of 110 floors of skyscraper come tumbling down upon them. We share the grief of the families of firefighters - wives awaiting word of their husbands' fates; a fire patrolman walking the devastates site looking for his missing father and brother; a battalion chief seeking his lost son.

In the weeks that followed, Dennis Smith was present at the front lines of the unprecedented and extraordinary recovery effort and tells of his experiences at the devastation of Ground Zero, of attending to the physically and psychologically wounded, of helping organize fundraising, and of attending some of the almost inconceivable number of funerals of firefighters, police officers, and emergency rescue workers. These are days of grief, of anger, and finally, of healing, and through Smith's eyes we watch the remarkable renewal of a city and its people.

Report from Ground Zero is the most detailed and immediate record we will have of this unforgettable event in American history, and we are fortunate to have as its chronicler a writer who has been praised as "the poet laureate of firefighters."

Dennis Smith began his career as a firefighter in the New York Fire Department. In 1972, he published his first book, the New York Times bestseller Report from Engine Co. 82. The nonfiction account of life in the South Bronx's most active and dangerous firehouse has sold more than two million copies to date and has been translated into thirteen languages. Mr. Smith is the author of nine other books, including his most recent memoir, A Song for Mary. In 1976, he founded Firehouse Magazine, the largest circulating magazine for firefighters in the world. He is also a prominent leader in a number of charitable organizations dedicated to aiding firefighters and their causes. He lives in New York City.

Taken from the inside flaps.