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SEPTEMBER 2026
cal fires that were burning.”  He noted that the smell was 
something he will never forget. “Knowing that there were 
bodies still beneath all of the rubble. It was a sobering and 
surreal event.”
Carrying commuters alongside firefighters and EMS per-
sonnel heading to Ground Zero, Anderson recalls that first 
trip and the quiet that enveloped the ferry. It was the same 
silence that New Yorkers experienced on subways and bus-
es as travel across the city resumed. He noted that the quiet 
would last for months, as if the city was waiting for what 
might come next. 
On one of these first trips into the city Anderson and Ed 
Mooney, company president at the time, disembarked 
from the vessel and walked down Wall Street. He recalls 
the experience vividly. “It seemed like the earth just ended. 
There were National Guard and big guns on every corner.” 
In time, Lower Manhattan would reanimate, the National 
Guard presence would lessen, and the city would slowly 
discover a path back to normalcy. The work of Fire Island 
Ferries was crucial in facilitating this recovery and in help-
ing workers return. Starting with that first trip on Sept. 17, 
the three ferries ran routes from Weehawken, Liberty Har-
bor, and Harborside in New Jersey to the Financial Dis-
trict for several months. During that time, the team from 
Fire Island Ferries conducted approximately 1,000 trips to 
Manhattan and carried over 100,000 passengers. 
Anderson noted that not only were these voyages per-
formed safely and effectively, but “crews worked tirelessly, 
endlessly, and without hesitation.” The company found 
space in a hotel for team members to stay nearby. There 
was no set schedule for the crew during the operations in 
New York Harbor. “It was pretty much whatever people 
could do,” Anderson explained.
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