2001: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: A year defiled by terror attacks (01/06/02)

2001: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

A year defiled by terror attacks

Devastation, sadness and grief seemed to highlight much of the conclusion of 2001. The emotional and physical toll in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States was felt by all of America and directly touched the Ukrainian American community as well. The Ukrainian Weekly was there to report to readers on the impact the 9/11 attacks had on Ukrainians in America, Canada and Ukraine.

On September 30, The Weekly reported that among the missing was Ivan (John) Skala, a police officer of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and a member of the Ukrainian American Youth Association (SUM). The paper also learned of Oleh Wengerchuk, a transportation designer with the Washington Group International whose office was located on the 91st floor of 2 World Trade Center. Later this paper released the names of Yurii Mushinsky and Volodymyr Savinkin, two Ukrainian citizens who died in the World Trade Center attacks.

According to The Record, a newspaper based in Bergen County, N.J., Mr. Skala, a Clifton resident and paramedic in his town and neighboring Passaic, was one of the first officers to heroically respond to the World Trade Center disaster on September 11 to help rescue those inside.

Mr. Wengerchuk also perished in the attacks on the WTC that took over 3,000 lives when two commercial airliners flew into the Twin Towers.

Messrs. Skala and Wengerchuk were later profiled in The New York Times' ongoing "Portraits of Grief" feature. Their stories were published on December 15 and may be viewed online at www.nytimes.com.

The Ukrainian Weekly also reported on those who narrowly escaped the attacks in New York and Washington.

In Washington, Capt. Stephen Szyszka of the U.S. Navy, branch head for Russia, Europe and NATO on political and military affairs, was at a meeting on the first floor of the Pentagon near the fourth corridor at the Navy Command Center at the time the first plane hit the World Trade Center's north tower. Upon seeing the second plane crash into the South Tower, group members immediately adjourned, returning to their respective offices throughout the Pentagon.

Just minutes after Capt. Szyszka returned to his office on the fourth floor near corridor three, he heard a loud, violent explosion and felt the building shake. The impact was American Airlines Flight 77 which, upon flying into the Pentagon, destroyed all five floors between corridors four and five and penetrated into four of the Pentagon's five rings where, only minutes before, Capt. Szyszka was attending his command center meeting.

In New York Bohdan O. Gerulak, an architect and project manager with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was working at his desk on the 72nd floor of the north tower, just 10 to 20 floors below the initial impact of American Airlines Flight 11, when the plane crashed into the tower. Mr. Gerulak was able to flee the building before its catastrophic collapse.

There was also the story of the Hryckowian and Romaniw families who have jointly owned the Beekman Street Deli, located at 140 Nassau St. in New York for over 20 years. Located just two blocks away from what rescue workers have dubbed "ground zero," the site of the collapsed Twin Towers, many of the area's police and fire units are frequent customers of the store.

Ms. Hryckowian shared her stories of September 11 with The Ukrainian Weekly, telling readers about the victims the deli treated, the shelter it provided for those running in fear from the collapsed towers and the relief deli employees helped provide following the devastation.

The Weekly also offered its readers a glimpse into the world of various Ukrainian relief workers who went above and beyond the call of duty in helping the victims of the attacks.

There was Dr. Frank Stechey, a forensic Canadian dentist trained by the United States military, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who paid his own way to volunteer identifying the deceased victims.

Special Agent Andrew Rakowsky of the U.S. Customs Drug Enforcement Administration Task Force spent 12- to 16-hour shifts over the course of two weeks sifting through the rubble in search of bodies and pieces of the destroyed passenger planes buried when the Twin Towers collapsed.

Christine Gorski, a Canadian citizen with a master's degree in psychological counseling, provided crisis counseling for patients who, as a direct or indirect result of the September 11 attacks suffered from or showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In addition, on November 18 The Weekly published an explanation of why the Twin Towers collapsed and how they were constructed by engineer Marco J. Shmerykowsky under the rubric of a new feature called "Sci-Tech Briefing."

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