Ex-Nanuet Fire Chief: September 11 Attacks Created Unexpected Role

The walls of the meeting room at the Nanuet firehouse are lined with many momentoes that for Domenick V. Giovinazzo are a constant reminder of Sept. 11, 2001, and the months after the terror attacks.

Plaques and photos from fire companies in New York City offer thanks to members of the Nanuet Fire Department for their help in the funeral processions for many of the 343 firefighters killed at the World Trade Center. At the time of the attacks, Giovinazzo was Nanuet's fire chief — a post he had only taken a few months earlier.

As the 10th anniversary of the attacks approaches, Giovinazzo recalls that he did not expect to be playing the role he found himself in as a result of the attacks. Giovinazzo, a native of the Bronx who has lived in Nanuet since 1959, became the person responsible for putting together the ceremonial elements of numerous firefighter funerals. At the same time, he was still responsible for the day-to-day operations of the all-volunteer fire department.

"We found ourselves doing all these different things, and having to be ready to put out fires at the same time," said Giovinazzo, who served two terms as fire chief and today is one of the department's commissioners.

In addition to helping with funerals, Nanuet firefighters used their fire house on Prospect Street as a collection point for supplies that would be sent to help emergency workers searching through the mountains of rubble at Ground Zero. The fire house would also become a gathering place for FDNY members and families after many funerals at nearby St. Anthony's Church.

Giovinazzo remembers that with so much distruction and New York City fighting for survival in the days after 9/11, the city did not have fire trucks to spare for all of the firefighter funerals. Giovinazzo said he and other Nanuet firefighters responded by making their fire trucks available for funerals.

To make this happen, Giovinazzo recalls spending countless hours and making endless telephone calls to families, fire officials and others to bring together the necessary arrangements for funerals. Giovinazzo also spent late nights getting his department's trucks ready for funerals, including in some cases creating FDNY signs for vehicles in funeral processions or signs to disguise a Nanuet truck as a FDNY truck so that family members would see the FDNY logo in a funeral procession.

Giovinazzo noted that members of neighboring fire departments played a big role, too, helping serve families and firefighters meals after funerals. Also, they helped by being on standby for Nanuet in case of emergencies in Nanuet during funeral details.

All this was definitely not what Giovinazzo thought he'd being doing as fire chief. However, members of the Nanuet Fire Department say that Giovinazzo, with his outgoing personality and good people skills, was the right person at the right time to lead the department through the emotional days after Sept. 11, 2001. Giovinazzo is also accustomed to handling crisis at his job, where for 30 years he has worked in the emergency department on the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Leading a recent tour of the Nanuet firehouse, Giovinazzo is proud to show off the many notes, plaques and other items that NYFD members sent his fire department as thanks for their help. Included on a shelf behind glass in the firehouse is a small cross made from World Trade Center steel that was given to the Nanuet Fire Department.

Giovinazzo, recalling the days after 9/11, said he found many ironies and coicidences as he went about his role. Among them, the fact that his own cousin in the days before the attacks had been promoted within the FDNY and Nanuet resident Joseph Marchbanks Jr. took his cousin's old job as a battalion commander.

Marchbanks was among the 343 who did not come home on Sept. 11, 2001.