NYC Electric Company Hugh O’Kane Commemorates 9/11

 

September 11^th Anniversary

This year, Saturday September 11^th will mark 20 years since the world changed forever. Nearly everyone older than 30 remembers exactly where they were on that day two decades ago. This will be a day of solemn remembrance for all Americans, but especially for those who were here in New York City on that fateful Tuesday morning.

Hugh O’Kane Electric Co., Inc. (HOK), one of the top telecom & electric contracting companies in NYC, was front and center that fateful morning and immediately went to work doing what they could to help restore New York, but that was not their only experience in the restoration and rebuilding of the World Trade Center.

Rebuilding Critical Telecom Assets After the WTC Bombing

Friday February 26^th, 1993 was a rather unremarkable Friday at the World Trade Center until a truck bomb tore through the B-2 garage level just after noon. Until that moment, the thought of international terrorism on American soil was unfathomable to most New Yorkers, but this day would change the national consciousness forever. In addition to the tragic loss of six lives, the destruction from the underground bomb blast was substantial. All incoming power was cut off, as was the emergency lighting system. The antenna atop WTC 1 lost TV broadcast capability, and many of the telecommunications services for Lower Manhattan were severely damaged. This is where Hugh O’Kane Electric entered the picture.

Teleport Communications Group (TCG) was among the first Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) in the U.S. During the mid-1980s, TCG began to use fiber optic cable as a medium that would prove far faster than the existing Ma Bell network of copper cable. This network would eventually grow nationwide and in 1998 would be acquired by AT&T for nearly $12 billion. And since 1986 Hugh O’Kane Electric has been one of the main providers of telecom installation and maintenance services in New York City for the Teleport/AT&T network.

Back in February of 1993, Teleport was a new network built on an as-yet-unproven technology. The main “switch center” (where the network ties together) was located on the B-6 level below the WTC complex (the lowest level). When the truck bomb detonated, it tore through the concrete decks both above and below the explosion site. Not only was the power to the Teleport switch cut off, but water from the ruptured water mains was beginning to flood the lower level where the switch was located. Teleport immediately called Hugh O’Kane Electric into action to salvage the switch center and save their fledgling network.

As the HOK technicians went to work, no-one knew what had actually happened, how severe the damage truly was, or how it could be restored. HOK technicians immediately began to assess the situation and strategize a plan of attack. The challenge was twofold: both restoring power to the switch center and determining a way to mitigate the rising levels of water continuing to flood the B-6 level. The HOK/Teleport team was able to organize a field-engineered power solution. Generators and rectifiers were located, transported, and set up on Liberty Street, and temporary power was cabled down to the Teleport switch center. With no way to adequately pump the water up 6 stories to the street, the only option was to get creative. Using core-drilling machines, the HOK technicians drilled enough holes into the concrete deck to alleviate the rising water. The water level crested just inches short of the Teleport switch equipment.

With the water problem solved and power restored to the switch center, HOK went to work installing new fiber optic cable from the Teleport switch out to the telecom manholes on Vesey and Liberty Streets. By Monday morning (three days following the bombing), enough “light” had been connected to the network to assure Teleport’s customer base that they were in business, and while the temporary power equipment would remain in place for months, it served its purpose. The restoration efforts of HOK and Teleport went a long way toward industry acceptance of the CLEC business model.

The decisive actions of HOK on that February night solidified HOK’s position as the preeminent fiber optic contractor in NYC at a time when the CLEC industry was preparing to experience unprecedented growth. And HOK would be at the forefront of this growth, due in no small part to the work performed in February of ’93.

HOK Leads NYC Electrical Infrastructure Reconstruction in 9/11’s Aftermath

Hugh O’Kane Electric’s second encounter with the World Trade Center and an act of unprecedented terrorism happened 20 years ago this September 11^th. It was a crystal-clear Tuesday morning that fateful day and the first autumn relief of a heatwave that had plagued New York City for some time. “I remember walking down Broadway to work that morning full of optimism feeling great about how the weather had finally broken,” said current HOK President Hugh R. O’Kane, who happened to be celebrating his one-year anniversary of joining the family business that day. But that feeling of peace and serenity would be shattered for everyone in NYC at 8:46 a.m., when the first plane slammed into the North Tower.

“We had just walked downstairs in our building on Broad Street to get coffee when everyone on the street was saying that a plane had hit one of the Towers. We just assumed that it was a small plane that had lost control and had a terrible accident. A couple of co-workers and I hurried north the couple blocks to the Trade Center to check it out and just as we got to the intersection of Church and Liberty Streets, the second plane flew over our heads and crashed in the South Tower”

– Hugh R. O’Kane, current HOK President

The truth of what really happened was still clouded in speculation when the first tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. with the second falling 29 minutes later. Rather than remain paralyzed by the shock and trauma of what had just happened, the men and women of Hugh O’Kane Electric knew that AT&T, the former Teleport Communications Group and HOK’s largest CLEC customer at the time, was now crippled by the evident loss of their downtown switch. Unlike in 1993, no amount of quick action or improvisation would be able to restore the AT&T network. HOK would have to re-design and re-build the network for AT&T, as well as many other CLEC customers, and they would have to start immediately.

HOK senior executives, telecom foremen, and project managers immediately established “war rooms'' at 80 Broad Street, 1 New York Plaza and 90 White Street, along with AT&T Central Offices to start planning the damage assessment and restorations concepts while still knowing neither the full extent of the destruction nor the attack’s effects upon the world’s future. While the telecom engineers went to work, New York City began to lock down. Many people headed off Manhattan, not knowing when they would return. But HOK needed to figure out how to mobilize their entire fleet of Outside Plant Vehicles, which were located out in Long Island City, as well as gain unobstructed access for hundreds of field technicians to the area around what would now be known as “Ground Zero.”

Hugh O’Kane (father and HOK President on 9/11/01) and Hugh R. O’Kane (son and current President) made their way through the ankle-deep ash and soot that covered Broadway to reach the NYC mobile command center that had been established on the West Side Highway, with the aim of getting permission from the City for the HOK employees to be granted access to Lower Manhattan for the coming days and weeks. “I remember seeing the FDNY firefighters gathered along Chambers Street and the West Side who all looked shell shocked. If we only knew then what we would understand later, it was amazing they were able to keep themselves as composed as they did,” recalls Hugh R. O’Kane. After being given passes by the City of New York (in fact the first 300 sequential access passes issued for restoration), the HOK field force gathered en masse at their Long Island City garage the next morning, where a fleet of several dozen OSP trucks rolled across the 59^th Street Bridge accompanied by an NYPD escorts and headed downtown to White Street, where they set up a forward operating position for the coming weeks of non-stop network restoration.

The technicians of HOK worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in an area of New York that was now part war zone, part crime scene, and part solemn burial ground. All “business as usual” work was put on hold as HOK re-tasked their entire company to the network restoration of AT&T and the other CLEC customers with whom they worked for years. The immediate response of HOK in rebuilding the fiber optic telecommunications networks of Lower Manhattan for customers such as AT&T allowed certain businesses and institutions to return to “normal” sooner than expected. Their efforts in rebuilding the decimated communications systems downtown played a critical role in the ability of the New York Stock Exchange to reopen just 8 days after Wall Street was covered by the debris of the fallen towers. For the second time in less than a decade, Hugh O’Kane Electric went straight to work when a national tragedy struck New York City, and through sheer determination, grit, and ingenuity, came through for their customers just as they had every day since 1946.

Six years after the tragic events of September 11^th, it was finally time to begin rebuilding “Ground Zero.” The Port Authority and various other real estate developers planned to reconstruct the hallowed 16-acre site into both a collection of modern office towers, a world class transit hub, and a memorial to the nearly 3,000 men and women who lost their lives that day. This time it would be HOK’s electrical infrastructure expertise and reputation rather than their position as the industry-leading fiber optics contractor, that would bring them to Ground Zero.

Throughout 2007 there were numerous electrical requests for proposal (RFPs) being issued by many of the top Construction Managers in New York for what would become Towers 1, 3, and 4 as well as the National September 11^th Memorial and Museum (“The Memorial”). The senior executives of Hugh O’Kane Electric considered all these projects but decided to focus their efforts on winning the electrical infrastructure package at the 9/11 Memorial. HOK considered this project to be the best fit for them, as they had spent the past decade building a strong reputation in the NYC construction community as a best-in-class builder of “critical power systems”—including large switchgear, power distribution, and emergency power systems. After months of value engineering and negotiations with Lend Lease (PANYNJ’s Construction Manager), HOK was awarded “NS11MM Package 49 – Electrical Medium Voltage” for nearly $37 million – one of the largest single electrical contracts ever for Hugh O’Kane Electric.

Work on the Memorial infrastructure project began in the fall of 2008. For the next three years over 100 HOK electricians worked to construct two 5kv electrical substations, dozens of 480v panels throughout the site and all the interconnected wiring which would power up the two (2) 1-acre reflecting pools that rest in the footprints of the fallen towers. When the Memorial plaza opened to the public and the pools began to flow on the 10-year anniversary of Sept 11^th, it was a great accomplishment for all the tradesmen and companies working on the site.

“We felt a strong sense of pride in being able to play a role in helping rebuild this sacred place where so many men and women had given their lives. I remember visiting the Towers as a child and getting to go to the top and see all of New York, then accompanying my father in ’93 after the first bomb blast and finally witnessing the Towers fall just as my HOK career began. Our ability to help rebuild was especially meaningful to me as a New Yorker.”

- Hugh R. O’Kane, who led the HOK efforts on the Memorial project

HOK continues to work on the Ground Zero site performing many smaller telecommunications projects for their customers. Since 1946, and through three generations of family leadership, Hugh O’Kane Electric has always stepped forward when crisis gripped New York City and will continue to do so for years to come.