email681.xml

email681.xml

born-digital

email

unknown

yes

2002-09-08

... but where I worked, 7 World Trade Center,
collapsed at about 5 yesterday afternoon. I still
can't believe what happened, but am very thankful
that I was able to make it home to my family safely.
My prayers go out to those who didn't.

For those on this list who know people from the
Park Slope UMC, it appears so far that everyone
is ok-- and so far, also the families of Learning
Community Charter School students.

We evacuated our building after we heard the
second explosion, not knowing at the time it
was the second plane. We walked down from
the 22nd floor. I had called Michael after the
first crash when we weren't sure what
had happened. We were well away by
the time the first building collapsed. I was driven
by an inner voice to get home, to keep walking.
Fortunately, I made it to the Christopher Street
PATH station before it stopped running (even
getting a seat in an air-conditioned car) & took
it to Hoboken where the train station was shut
down. I started walking home (about a mile, but
a steep climb up the Palisades) because the buses
weren't running -- they were just waiting for
further instructions. After a few blocks, I was
able to catch a bus.

I gave 2 people I'd never met before a ride to
Newark after running up to tell Michael I was
OK. My return trip to Jersey City was
complicated because the Skyway which I'd
taken & the Turnpike were closed -- but I
was able to get over to Rt. 280 & get back
to JC and pick up Philip (although the traffic
was horrendous with lots of streets closed off
around the hospitals & lots of emergency
vehicles going by).

By the time I got to his school, most of the
children had been evacuated (I think it started
informally with parents just coming to get their
kids & evolved into a formal evacuation). I
took home 2 kids who live around the corner,
because no one could get their dad's cell number
or their emergency contacts. He eventually took
a ferry to Weehawken.

The computer people from my company were in
our back office located in Jersey City (which also
was evacuated yesterday), posted a notice on our
website (fhlbny.com) and are implementing our
disaster recovery plan to get the bank back to
business. Since I give away the money, I most
likely will not be going back as quickly. Obviously
our files are history (as are my drawer full of shoes),
but we have a lot of electronic information backed-up
& all that stuff.

Hugs to all of you,

Beth

sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 5:09 PM

I got home safely . . .