Laura Bartl
Title
Laura Bartl
Description
My mom said I should write this all down fresh, lest I forget some points, order of events, etc. As background, for those of you who do not know, I work for a technology consulting firm and a client of ours was located at WTC. The folks referred to below work for that client or other consulting firms. We were at WTC to prepare for a rollout begin within a few weeks. One person from the firm remains on the missing list.
Let me state a few things about what you will read in this account. First, there is nothing
graphic, certainly nothing described that you haven’t seen a million times on the television
already. Second, my companions and I are not heroes, just folks who, by the grace of God, survived this terrible ordeal. I have found that telling this story, letting people connect with someone who made it out somehow makes them feel a little better. It is difficult to comprehend the growing number of missing and our hearts are breaking to see the folks on the streets of New York desperately seeking loved ones. Finally, we did, on our journey, crack wise a time or ten. My advanced apologies if you are offended at the casualness of some of our comments. Surely the situation was dire, depressing and desperate. However, each stage of the journey was the focus of the moment and finding little things to laugh at was the alternative to feeling overwhelmed by the sheer force of events we were in the middle of. I hope you will understand.
As I start to write this it is now 12:02 am, actually September 12, about 17 hours after the first plane struck WTC tower 1, the North tower. That’s the building we were in.
Let me state a few things about what you will read in this account. First, there is nothing
graphic, certainly nothing described that you haven’t seen a million times on the television
already. Second, my companions and I are not heroes, just folks who, by the grace of God, survived this terrible ordeal. I have found that telling this story, letting people connect with someone who made it out somehow makes them feel a little better. It is difficult to comprehend the growing number of missing and our hearts are breaking to see the folks on the streets of New York desperately seeking loved ones. Finally, we did, on our journey, crack wise a time or ten. My advanced apologies if you are offended at the casualness of some of our comments. Surely the situation was dire, depressing and desperate. However, each stage of the journey was the focus of the moment and finding little things to laugh at was the alternative to feeling overwhelmed by the sheer force of events we were in the middle of. I hope you will understand.
As I start to write this it is now 12:02 am, actually September 12, about 17 hours after the first plane struck WTC tower 1, the North tower. That’s the building we were in.
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