Located about 90 miles from Ground Zero, the Bordentown Petro in Bordentown, N.J., is a major stopping-off point for truck traffic moving up and down the East Coast. On Sept. 11 this facility found itself at the center of trucker reaction and response as the terrible events of that day unfolded.
Tom Till, an Augusta, Ga., owner-operator leased to Landstar Inway's Special Commodities Division, was at Bordentown that ill-fated morning, eating breakfast. Weeks afterward, he was still there, one of many trucks contracted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to wait on standby for a call to haul attack site evidence to McGuire Air Force Base.
Other FEMA trucks were shuttling supplies into the beleaguered city.
The FEMA trucks were stationed at the truckstop for as long as five weeks before other trucks came to relieve them. When the call comes for the runs to the base, they must be ready to leave within 15 minutes.
Three of the FEMA trucks at the Petro pull specialized "crane trailers," so called because an inside built-in crane runs on rails down the length of the trailer and is capable of lifting heavy objects from the ground and them moving them inside the trailer.
Till pulls one. The others with crane trailers were Jimmy Fore from Kilgore, Texas, and David Baller out of Alpina, Mich.
Till and Fore don't ordinarily deliver into New York City, but things are different now. "Today it's just another small town USA, and the people there need our help," Till says.
Linda Schwab of Newark, N.Y., driving a straight truck for Landstar Express America, was also waiting for the FEMA call. She wears her father's fatigue jacket. He was a crew chief on a B-17 in World War II and drove 30 years for Ryder Truck Lines.
She is impressed by the number of American flags on trucks, the "feeling of patriotism in the air." To pass the time until the call comes, she takes walks with her dachshund Gretchen and a blond "rescued mutt" named Casey.
"I don't do New York, but I will in this case because I want to help my country," she says.

For more on the scene at the Bordentown Petro in the weeks after the terrorist attacks, pick up the November issue of RoadStar magazine.