story8612.xml

story8612.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-11-02

I arrived early to work that day at appoximately 8:20am.
Instead of taking a morning walk at the pier I decided to have breakfast in the hotel's cafeteria. Strangely, the
cafeteria was empty. Perhaps everyone was out voting I thought. Only myself and one other co-worker was eating
breakfast. We exchanged greetings across the tables where we
sat. I heard noises above me but did not respond. A cook
came into the cafeteria and said that the Green House restaurant's room had collasped. But then again they were always renovating. At approximately 8:45am I punched into
the time clock. Around this time a handful of employees
came into the cafeteria for their morning meal. As I prepared to go up to my office Human Resources managers approached us saying that something was going on outside. They were not sure what but it would be safer if we left the
building. No one hesitated. Some of us were veterans of the 93' bombing, and things didn't feel quite right.

I started walking out of the building. I was on the B1 level below street level. Fellow co-workers were already
feeling anxiety. As I neared the end of the B1 corridor I
smelled a chemical smell. I walked up the stairs to lobby
level. When I opened the door and exited the chemical smell became overwhelming and white smoke drifted like clouds in the concourse. A big difference then the black
smoke of the 93' bombing I thought.

People were filing quietly out of the exits. I did not leave
through the first available exit. Don't know why. I walked
and exited through 4 WTC. As I exited through the revolving
doors and glanced to my left I saw to my horror debis like
confettie from a ticker tape parage and a charcole flamed
WTC Tower. Those people didn't survive I thought.

I walked over to the square. People were standing around
looking. I never looked back. My life flashed before my eyes and I thought of my grandchildren. Then a voice said
to me, you can come with me. It was a fellow co-worker.
He said he had family nearby. We never made it. He must
have felt like I did. He went into the first office we came upon and went in. Please, he said may I make a phone call, something is going on outside.

They hesitated but in the end let him make the call to his
family. We walked back outside. You can drop that stuff
he said. I realized that both he and I still held our
cups of orange juice, coffee and bagels in our hands.
While discussing where to go there was the sound of a bomb and the grond shook. I couldn't keep my balance. Everyone
started running like crazy around us. I was afraid to run
for fear of being trampled. Yet we had to escape. We started to run with everyone else. We ran, and ran, and ran. When I looked up I realized we were at the Staten Island Ferry. This was the end of the line. There was no
place else to go. We started walking toward West street. We came to a small church. The people in the church welcomed us. They allowed people to use their phones. I lit a candle and said a prayer. My friend said that he was going back to the World Trade Center. I said I was not going back. We parted company.