Alfred Arberg, Boat Captain, Statue of Liberty National Monument
Interviewed by Mark Schoepfle, Ph.D., Cultural Anthropologist
February 1, 2002 at Ellis Island

MARK SCHOEPFLE: I'm going to start off with...the moment you were first aware that something had happened, what went on?

ALFRED ARBERG: Well, I was downstairs doing an oil change on one of my generators. When I come upstairs and my deckhand, Larry, he said, Al, a plane hit one of the buildings. And from where we were sitting at the Marine Inspection Office, all we could see was smoke over the top of these big buildings.

So I guess it was about a little after 9. I was getting underway to come to Ellis Island. And I pulled out of MIO and I happened to notice that it was the north tower of the World Trade Center. So I'm heading up a little north towards Castle Clinton, and from the corner of my eye I happen to see this other plane come over the Statue of Liberty and he's flying really low. And I wasn't aware that we were under attack.

I'm just saying why is this guy coming this way and he's so low. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, this is strange. What is he going to go take pictures or something? This is what my idea was. And then I see him bank the plane. I'm saying to myself, what is he going to go in between the buildings? And bam, I saw him go right into the second tower. With that I was - I don't know what I could say about it. I just - I was in awe, you know. Everybody was dumbstruck. We didn't know what was going on, you know. And we figured we were under attack because of that.

I get a call from the lieutenant, and he [says], Al, go over to Statue of Liberty. We're going to evacuate the islands. So I went over to the island. I took the people on the boat that were [already] with me. Some of them were [originally] going to get off at Ellis, but they were told to stay on the boat ...I picked up people at Liberty, went over to Ellis, picked up who we could get on the boat there, and I took them back to New York. [Then I] came back to Ellis, and they were starting to set up triage...

I had some more people to bring back over to New York... We were heading back into Manhattan, I got about three-quarters of the way in when the second tower collapsed... The smoke was rolling... rolling right down Manhattan through the streets... And I said, I can't drop anybody off in Manhattan with the smoke. They'd be right in the middle of it and who knows what would have happened to them. I had to turn around and just get them out of there. When...all that smoke and debris was rolling down the streets and through the parking lots, people were jumping - actually jumping off the dock over at Battery Park. They were climbing over the fences. I turned around and brought everybody back to Ellis Island.

MARK SCHOEPFLE: So you just flat brought them back up here.

ALFRED ARBERG: Yes... We did have one little incident. While we were coming in, I was Liberty IV in the main slip... And a speedboat was... coming towards Ellis Island, and everybody started screaming and started running all different ways. And I said, what the heck is going on? And then, I think it was the Coast Guard that cut them off. These people weren't supposed to be speeding around here by the islands. [Everyone] thought it was another terrorist attack.

Then... we jumped on Liberty II... to go into Manhattan... it's wide open in the front just in case they had to put gurneys on the boat. By the time we got there, there was every boat in the world up by Battery Park City. They were picking people up and taking them wherever they were taking them. We saw a police boat and [we asked him] where do you need us? ...He said, just stand by, because you can't get in there right now. We stood by for about a half-hour, and then there were so many boats there they didn't need us. Everybody was - it was so great to see people working together, you know.

September 11, 2001 Oral History Documentation Project
Northeast Region, National Park Service

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