Carol Holland of Slippery Rock got together with two old friends in February to share some memories and catch up.

But the retired director of the counseling center at Slippery Rock University wasn’t reminiscing about school days when she reunited with Ann Bowers, a nurse from Michigan, and Amy Green, a former caseworker from Shreveport, La., in Green’s hometown.

The three women first met in the grim days following the 9-11 attacks when they formed a Red Cross integrated care team providing counseling and advice to the survivors of World Trade Center victims.

“They have a program where they put together a nurse, caseworker and mental health worker to work specifically with the families who have lost a family member or had them suffer a serious injury,” said Holland.

Holland said she, Bowers and Green worked 10- to 14-hour days for nearly three weeks meeting survivors either at Pier 94 exhibition center on Manhattan’s Upper West Side or at survivors’ homes.

Holland said, “The nurse took care of the physical, the caseworker was to explain to them what Red Cross benefits they would be eligible for, and the mental health worker, me, connected with their primary care physician and handled their mental health.”

Bowers said, “I reviewed the clients’ health needs. The team reviewed bills and helped them with their costs shortly after their loved one passed away.

“I did things like review medical bills and helped them pay, decided whether they needed medications. Any kind of bills in the health care area I worked on,” Bowers said.

“We worked with families who had lost a loved one,” Bowers added.

“Some were very angry. Some couldn’t wrap their head around what had happened even six weeks later,” said Holland. “Some were absolutely grief-stricken and scared. Part of my job was to help normalize these things.”

“One set of parents had lost their only child,” Holland said. “We were at her apartment that she shared with others to help clean out her things.”

The father went into his daughter’s bedroom. Holland said she knocked on the door and asked to come in.

“I just sat there and talked to the dad. He really needed to talk that day,” Holland said.

“For three hours, he talked about their daughter, what a person she was. He showed me pictures of her,” said Holland.

What made it even worse for the father was that because of their religious beliefs they couldn’t hold a memorial service for their daughter until her body was recovered, which it never was.

In another case, Holland recalled, “We were at Pier 94 and a woman came by, a grandmother, with a 4- or 5-year-old boy. He had not spoken since his mother passed away in the towers.”

“Ann, Amy and I were talking to his grandmother and the boy was zoned out.”

“I saw a woman with a therapy dog. I motioned her over. The boy bent down and started talking to the dog. We let him just talk to the dog. They were the first words he’d spoken since his mother died,” Holland said.

Holland said she and her team were there for three weeks of 10- to 14-hour days, deployed seven days on and one day off.

“I’d start at 6 a.m. and by 9 p.m. at night, I was doing paperwork or being debriefed,” said Holland.

The long hours and the mood of the city left an indelible impression on the Red Cross workers’ memories.

Bowers said, “The mood overall, across the country but especially in New York, was the overwhelming grief and the loss and the shock of having this happen in the United States.”

“It was a very quiet time in New York,” Bowers continued. “You were hearing bagpipes most to the time. They were having memorial services for the firemen. Bagpipes are kind of what I remember.”

Holland said of the city’s residents, “They were resilient. They were rebuilding. They were not going to let this experience define them.”

“They were still cleaning up. It was raw. It was in your face,” said Holland.

“It was an experience that no one else understands,” said Bowers. “We were dealing with five to six families a day, and it was an honor and it was difficult.”

“In the short time we were there we developed a friendship that you don’t get ever in your life. It was like being at war,” said Bowers.

Holland said she, Bowers and Green have been all been deployed by the Red Cross in the years since — once in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy and once in response to Hurricane Katrina — but they’ve never worked as a team again.

The three stayed in touch over the years, Bowers and Holland said, but it wasn’t until Bowers, Holland and their husbands visited Green and her husband in Green’s hometown of Shreveport, La., Feb. 25 through Feb. 29, that all three of them had been together since October 2001.

“Ann is retired. Amy went on hiatus and is now a transplant nurse,” said Holland.

“We went ATVing, and shot AR15s and ate crawdads and po-boys and gumbo,” said Holland.

“Amy kept this big scrapbook of stuff from 9-11,” said Holland.

Bowers said they hope to get all three families together again this summer at the Bowers’ cabin in Manistee, Mich.