story3233.xml

story3233.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I worked in 4 World Trade Center and arrived into the PATH station under the 2WTC at 8:50am, minutes after the first plane hit. Thank God for quick thinking authorities at the PATH who did not know the gravity of the situation but decided not to let us get out of the train and re-routed us back to New Jersey. We were told that there was police activity upstairs. The announcement was met with several groans. Most people in the train got out at Newark, NJ, the first stop, with the idea that they could catch a ferry to work. I decided to take the train two stops further to Hoboken, where I lived. It was very quiet as I got out of the station. My cell phone wouldn't work. So I walked out to the water to get reception and find across the river the World Trade Centers burning. Police men were crying and screaming that people were jumping. It was surreal. I gathered near a group of people who had a radio and found out that it was two commercial jets that had crashed into the towers. There were rumors that there were two planes unaccounted for that might strike the area and someone shouted that the Pentagon had been hit. I thought the world was coming to an end and I went back to the train station to get a train home to my baby. They waited an hour to fill the train before it departed. As more people came in we heard that the first tower had collapsed and then the second. Around 11am our train departed Hoboken, NJ and as it came out of the station we saw the skyline for the first time without the Twin towers.