Pataki, a Peekskill native who was governor on Sept. 11, shared his memories on AM970 in an interview with John Catsimatidis Sunday.
“If you think of the worst scene you could see in a horror picture — lower Manhattan was like that," Pataki said. "Amid the rubble, there were still fires burning and smoke everywhere. The air was full of shredded paper from the Hudson to the East River, and it was so thick you could taste it as you tried to breathe," the former governor said.
Despite the horrible scene, Pataki said he was also filled with pride seeing firefighters working to put out fires and construction workers trying to find people buried beneath the rubble.
"You had the two feelings of absolute horror and tremendous pride in the way in which the people in the face of this unspeakable evil were responding, and that is an image, and those are two feelings I will never lose," Pataki said.
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