Robert VE3ZLV Returns from NYC reprint from The Record

Robert Gissing poses with some of the ham radio equipment he took to New York City after the World Trade Center attacks to help with emergency service broadcasts for the American Red Cross.

An amateur radio operator, Gissing went to the U.S. to put his skills to work after the World Trade Center tragedy. Instead, he found himself in the role of scheduling manager for the American Red Cross headquarters in Brooklyn.

"You do what needs to be done," he says.

"The problem with having a disaster plan is that it's just something on paper. Disasters don't go according to plan. The books tell you to do things one way.

"The reality of the situation tells you to do it another way -- and the only way to deal with that is have people step in, set their egos to one side, and help out any way they can.

"When I got there, the biggest problem was scheduling the workforce. I just stepped in and tried to help. The problem was just there and it was getting worse. I was there and I was the first to solve the problem.

"But if I hadn't been there, somebody else would have solved the problem."

Gissing, 36, is a member of the Kitchener-Waterloo Amateur Radio Club. As the year 2000 approached, with fears of Y2K-related computer problems, he was the club's emergency services specialist and worked with Waterloo Region officials to develop a disaster plan.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the American-born Gissing was moved to help out.

He went to the Amateur Radio Relay League Web site to list his qualifications and offer his help.

"I had some background in disaster planning. I sort of had an idea how these things go."

The Red Cross accepted his offer, so Gissing left his wife and two young children in Kitchener and travelled by train to New York City the Sunday following the tragedy -- lugging his own and some borrowed equipment.

He never used that equipment.

"I got there late, and they'd already assigned the radio operators for the day shift," recalls Gissing. "So I sat in on a briefing session, and just started helping with the scheduling and the briefing booklet."

From then on, his role was set.

"People would come to me to get their problems solved," says Gissing. "If there was a problem I'd figure out what it was, come up with a solution, present it to the director and if it was a good idea, we'd go with it."

The problems involved keeping people on the radios, and moving Red Cross personnel and supplies through the congested streets of New York between the Red Cross in Brooklyn and the disaster site in lower Manhattan.

Gissing admits, he made it up as he went along. At home, he's a software tester for Intellitactics in Kitchener -- and scheduling and co-ordination are not normally a part of his job description.

Gissing figures he worked from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, running on adrenaline and commuting from the Manhattan hostel where he was staying to the Red Cross building in Brooklyn -- a 20-minute subway ride and a six-block walk.

Gissing never did visit Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Center collapse.

He was just too busy in Brooklyn, although he did help arrange some of the security passes needed to get Red Cross staff into the restricted area.

"The work I did was nothing compared to what those guys did, digging people out of the rubble at Ground Zero," he says. "Those are the hero guys."