DAYTON — Ohio Task Force One is marking 25 years since its inaugural deployment to Ground Zero following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency activated the urban search and rescue team less than an hour after the second plane struck the World Trade Center, sending members on a nine-day mission to search for survivors.
Huber Heights firefighter Mike Muhl served as task force leader during the 2001 deployment. Muhl, who was 31 years old with a 10-day-old child at the time, left the Miami Valley with the team within hours of activation.
The responders arrived in New York City on the morning of Sept. 12, facing severe communication barriers due to downed cell towers.
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“I think everybody on the team, including myself, wanted to go and wanted to be part of the operations,” Muhl said.
He added that team members moved quickly without hesitation. “They didn’t question. They did not hesitate; they didn’t want to know details, they just understood we were leaving, got us where we needed to go and then that was it.”
Searching through the rubble at Ground Zero, the task force focused on finding survivors in the aftermath of the collapse. While members located one person unharmed near the disaster site, search operations within Ground Zero yielded no survivors. Muhl described the emotional toll the deployment took on the search crew.
“When your mission is to go and find survivors, and you’re not able to accomplish that mission, you begin to feel like you failed,” Muhl said.
He noted that messages from victims’ families helped team members realize their work brought closure to grieving relatives. “You were able to close that chapter for them and say you know — it’s no longer a mystery.”
The intensity of the deployment led some team members to step away from disaster response work entirely. Muhl recalled that a close friend resigned from the task force immediately after returning home to Ohio.
“A very close friend of mine came back the day we arrived back, and he turned in his resignation to the team and said it was the biggest incident he would ever see in his life and he had no desire to ever do it again,” Muhl said.
First responders who served at Ground Zero undergo annual health monitoring by medical professionals. Although several Ohio Task Force One members have experienced health issues related to the deployment, every member of the team who deployed to Ground Zero has survived.
Muhl stressed the importance of sharing memories and details of the deployment with newer generations. “These younger individuals who have no knowledge of it can learn a little something and appreciate what happened that day,” Muhl said.
Fifteen members of the original Ground Zero deployment remain on the current Ohio Task Force One roster. The team members plan to gather on Sept. 11 to commemorate the anniversary together.“ That’s how we choose to commemorate the event: by keeping that camaraderie with each other,” Muhl said.
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