story2025.xml

story2025.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-10

I came into work as usual on the Staten Island ferry that morning. I usually walked up to the Trade Centers on nice days but for whatever reason, I took the train, a decision that may have saved my life. I was in the cafeteria on the 43rd floor in Tower 1 when I heard and felt a loud explosion. While the building swayed, I looked out the large picture windows facing south and saw debris falling down. I knew that something hit the building and thought that it may have been a helicopter. My first reaction was to head for the elevators but realizing that they would have gone to the lobby I then headed to the stairwell. When I opened the door, it was already filled with people. I started down and except for two women, everyone else was calm. The fact that no one really knew what was going on saved more lives in Tower 1 than anyone will ever know.

After going down a couple of floors, I called my wife and told her to watch the news. She called me back a few minutes later and told me that a plane had hit the building. It was not until the 17th floor that I heard a fire alarm. I also smelled smoke at about the same time. At around the 9th floor, we stopped. I called my wife and told her I was almost out. I did not talk to her again until after I was home, around 1PM, all the time her thinking that I was in the tower when it came down. On the 5th or 6th floor there was water coming out from the bottom of the fire door. When I got out of the stairwell, I was on the mezzanine level. I was directed to go across the walkway to the Winter Garden. Looking out into the plaza area was like looking into a car wreck from the inside. By that time the second plane had hit Tower 2 but this was something I as yet did not know about. I ran across the walkway through the Winter garden and out to the marina. It was there that I saw my boss and a number of co-workers. I turned around and saw the damage on Tower 1.

I immediately realized that if nothing else the top of the tower was going to come down. I then started to see the bodies of the some of the people who jumped come down. I grabbed my boss and we made our way one block north. We decided to make our way up to City Hall. My brother worked in a building on Broadway and I was worried about him. It was while we were walking that I saw the damage on Tower 2. At first I though it strange that Tower 2 was damaged from the plane that hit Tower 1. Almost immediately I found out what really happened and that it was a terrorist attack. I couldn?t get to my brothers? building so my boss and I separated, I heading down to the ferry terminal and he to Penn Station. While walking downtown I found out about the attack on the Pentagon and about the plane crash in Pennsylvania.

The outside area around the ferry terminal was filled with people, most of them talking about what had happened and speculating about what could happen next. At the same time a ferry came in two things happened. The first was a sound must like a very low pitch jet engine which caused large numbers of people to start running and screaming that another building had been hit by a plane. The second was what I can only describe as sleet coming down from the sky. What had happened was that Tower 2 had fallen and that I was getting covered in the debris and smoke from the collapse. Some time later I heard a second sound much like the first. It was Tower 1 coming down. I was able to get onto the next ferry that came in. I was finally able to get someone, my sister-in-law, on my cell-phone. I told her I was OK, found out my brother was OK and asked her to call my parents and my wife.


For days afterwards I was a zombie. I found that I would drift into images of what happened. I cared about nothing because I felt nothing. I went down to the Trade Centers site in October last year but I just can?t bring myself to go now that the site has been cleared. The only thing that kept me going those first few days was the hope that survivors would be found. As that hope faded, I came to realize that a part of me also died and could never be recovered. Each day when I wake up I pray that the nightmare will end and all will be as it was even though I know that is something that will never happen.

There are certain things I will never forget from that day. The falling bodies. The man I walked with down the stairwell. The fireman walking up the stairs while I was walking down. The look on Ed?s? face sitting in his wheelchair. Ed, along with Abe, who stayed with Ed, Winston, Angela and Cynthia never made it out. The people in there life jackets on the ferry. The gray smoke cloud that hung over the Trade Center site. The man who gave me the tissue to cover my mouth and nose.

Even though the towers are gone, I feel that there are still there. I can?t refer to the site the way the news media does, which is heartless. For all time there will always be the World Trade Center with its? two towers.

We can never let anybody forget what happened that day because if we do, then it will surely happen again.