On Sept. 11, 2001, New York City firefighter and longtime Long Beach resident John Moschella was living in East Atlantic Beach when he watched the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center unfold on TV.
“We were off-duty,” recalled his friend and fellow firefighter Jim Faria, Moschella’s roommate at the time.
“We were sleeping, and then Jimmy woke us up, and we put the TV on and saw the tragedy,” said Moschella’s wife, Nancy, who was dating him at the time. “I felt like I was sending the guys off to war because they all had to leave — and I was answering phones because all the family members were calling to see if they were OK.”
Seventeen years after his time at ground zero, Moschella, a 28-year veteran of the FDNY who would have turned 53 last Saturday, died on Dec. 8. He was diagnosed with Stage 4 colorectal cancer in 2016 related to his rescue and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center.