Unexpected assignment at Ground Zero turns out to be the 'most important' of a 40-year career

Emily M. Smith
ASME NEWS

A civil engineer by training with nearly four decades of experience, Bernie Meyers wasn't prepared for the assignment he got on Sept. 12.

No precedent for this kind of engineering task existed in the United States. Not in terms of the devastation that was done. Not in terms of the recovery that was needed. Not in terms of the personal toll that would be exacted.

A day after the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed, several engineering experts from Meyers' employer, Bechtel Corp., were dispatched to offer assistance in what was then called a rescue effort. Bechtel also offered assistance in the Pentagon effort, but it wasn't needed.

The Bechtel engineers with expertise in construction engineering, safety engineering and rigging first arrived at the site of the World Trade Center, now known as Ground Zero, on Sept. 12 and 13.

Meyers, an ASME member who serves on the Society's Industry Advisory Board, was sent from his office in Virginia — where he saw the smoke from the Pentagon attack drift over the Washington area — to supervise and coordinate the overall effort of the Bechtel engineering team.

He spent six days in New York traveling between Ground Zero, Bechtel's office on Seventh Avenue and the hotel, working with team members who were operating on a 16- to 18-hour workday.

"I've done some important things in my career," Meyers, a senior vice president at Bechtel, said of the power plant projects he's been involved in designing. "This is the most important."

For an engineer who likes to build things, it's also the most difficult.

Bernie Meyers (seated) works with other members of the Bechtel Corp. team to map out ways of assisting the construction companies that are clearing Ground Zero.

Born and raised in New York, Meyers didn't understand the immensity of his newest task until he actually saw Ground Zero. No one had prepared him for what he was to see. No one had even tried, he said he was later told, because the words to do so didn't exist. Of the devastation, he said, "Television doesn't begin to cover it."

His second day on the job, Meyers walked around the site for three hours, trying to absorb the destruction and prepare for what might be needed.

"They violated my town," he explained softly. Which is why for Meyers, as it is for most of the people working at Ground Zero, "This is not a project," he said. "This is something I have to do. This is a mission."

The role of the Bechtel teams, Meyers said, is to support the construction companies that are clearing Ground Zero. But every hour of every day brings something new. So, the key to being useful, Meyers said, is being flexible.

The teams he oversees help manage on-site health and safety issues. They developed a plan for managing what was expected to be a significant asbestos problem. They are mapping out debris piles and field engineering related to debris removal.

In many respects, the engineering tasks are the easy part of the job, Meyers said. The emotional aspect, which is at the forefront of this project, is far less defined. A medical officer is part of the Bechtel team effort, and she helps Meyers keep tabs on the stress level of the team members.

Since the teams first arrived two months ago, several Bechtel members who had reached their emotional saturation level have been sent home, Meyers said. But one of the teams' members, who counts five friends among the missing, is still at the site.

As Meyers went about his supervisory role those first days at Ground Zero, and now, as he coordinates the teams' efforts from Bechtel's Seventh Avenue office, the former engineering professor considers the changes that engineers will have to make in how systems are designed, and a new kind of role that engineering societies will need to play.

"The world of accidents is changing," he said. "Material behavior needs to be looked at. The Society needs to look at the design criteria to see if it's adequate to deal with this kind of thing. The same with the pressure vessel code."

Engineering societies, Meyers said, will need to take a lead role in telling government what sort of research needs to be funded. And engineering societies will need to work together more, he said, "so we can figure out what we can do together."

But the major change, Meyers said, will be in the kinds of safeguards that engineers will need to consider when designing new systems or any major project.

With the exception of nuclear power plants, Meyers said of engineers generally, "We don't design for sabotage." But that was before Sept. 11.

Alongside the physical devastation, which takes a daily toll on the spirits of Meyers and everyone working at Ground Zero, there is a similar amount of human inspiration to be found.

"People are doing things they probably never thought they could," Meyers said. And with the recovery effort projected to take upward of a year, Meyers expects that inspiration will be needed to keep the efforts going.

"Our employees say, 'This is the hardest thing I've ever done. But, don't take me off.' "

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