by MURRAY WEISS and ANDY GELLER
Faced with no plan of attack and a disabled standpipe that left them with no water, quick-thinking firefighters coupled together lengths of hose to battle the Deutsche Bank blaze, Fire Department sources said yesterday.
"The firefighters did what firefighters often do - they innovated," one FDNY source said.
And it worked - water began flowing through the makeshift standpipe, reaching the out-of-control blaze.
Tragically, water began flowing just before firefighters Robert Beddia, 53, and Joseph Graffagnino, 34 - who had carried one of the lengths of the hose - ran out of oxygen and died.
The 11th-hour operation began when firefighters - using the outside elevator shaft that ferried demolition workers to their jobs - arrived at the 14th floor of the burning building near Ground Zero Saturday and discovered that the standpipe wasn't working.
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