AUSTIN, Texas — On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Austin Fire Chief Eddie Martinez expected a typical workday, but he was quickly placed on standby and deployed to New York as part of Texas Task Force One. The team gathered in College Station, Texas, before they were flown to New York City on military cargo planes.

Martinez -then only 30 years old and one of the youngest on his team- served as a hazmat specialist, responsible for making rescue zones safe. He was also cross-trained in rescue, entering every void left when cranes shifted steel and rubble at Ground Zero. He described the scene as a war zone.

“It was very unreal, there was debris everywhere," Martinez said. "It looked like a war zone, like someone had bombed the middle of the city."

On site with other urban search and rescu

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