Rising From The Ashes: The True Story of 9/11 and Recovery Team Romeo

“They’re all right here … gone. Every one of them pulverized into dust. When those towers came crashing down, it was like they were all caught in a giant food processor.”

On September 11 2001 the world stopped.

An attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York on a serene September morning changed the course of world history.

The final death toll from the iconic twin towers reached 2,606.

Thousands were never found, as retired New York police officer Tony Zeoli’s harrowing eye-witness account, about the search-and-recovery effort, so graphically records.

Tony was a founding member of a group of retired police officers who became known as Recovery Team Romeo - a dozen men who spent nearly nine months searching for bodies at Ground Zero and refusing to be paid for it.

These men instantly came out of retirement, made their different ways to the site and worked as an independent recovery team.

They have become a Police Department legend.

But such personal sacrifice – such heroism – exacted a terrible price on these individuals whose lives could never be the same after they passed through the ‘gates of hell’ and descended into that awful pit to recover the dead.

Rising From The Ashes is a powerful and compelling account of the aftermath of 9/11.

Praise for Tony Zeoli

"The Night-Comer is a winner. Written by a man who lived in the world of treachery, violence and fanaticism...A must read in today's world." – Renee Valente, award winning Executive Producer

"Taken from the pages of what's happening today and what's happening tomorrow. This is a red alert from a cop who has lived with the danger." – Sonny Grosso, Producer of The French Connection

Tony Zeoli is a retired Lieutenant with the New York Port Authority Police Department (PAPD). After the 9/11 Terrorist Attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, Tony spend over eight months as part of the PAPD Emergency Services Operations Team searching Ground Zero for remains of those who died in the attack. He is also a consultant for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Tony has also written police fiction books, including 625 8th Avenue, the address of the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal, The Night Comer and The Twelve Disciples: City of Fear.