email384.xml

email384.xml

born-digital

email

unknown

yes

2002-08-19

Ok everyone, now that I've managed to gather my senses together, here's what happened to me today:

I left for work at 8:45am this morning, completely unaware of what had just happened downtown (the first plane crash). I got on an express bus heading downtown a few minutes later, and then a couple of stops later, a bus supervisor got on the bus. He told us all that there had been an explosion at the World Trade Center, and that the bus driver would try to get us as close to downtown as possible, but that it would be very tough. So we continued downtown for a bit, headed over to 2nd ave, and ended up stopping at 42nd st. The bus driver realized that it was pretty foolish to attempt to get down there at that time.

So we all got off the bus and proceded in our respective directions. I headed west toward Grand Central Station, and found an available pay phone on the way. I called home to mom and dad, and left a message to let them know I was ok, and to call my fiancee Debbie to let her know I was ok as well. After that, I went down to the subway to attempt to get downtown. My reasoning at that point was to try and see how bad the damage was (perhaps it was just a gas explosion? or something that paniced people in the wake of the bombing in 1993... I just didn't know)... and also to see if I could locate anybody from the company I worked at (TheBeast, a financial software development company).

I got downtown about 20 minutes later, and when I got out to the street at the Brooklyn Bridge / City Hall station, it was just pure pandemonium. People were relatively calm, since at that time both buildings were merely on fire. Thousands of people lined the streets on the sidewalks, clearing the path for all of the emergency personnel that were streaming into the area. The Brooklyn Bridge was filled with people walking from Manhattan to Brooklyn. I saw and heard an FBI agent interviewing a group of witnesses on the street to try and gather as much information as he could about what happened.

As soon as I confirmed that the building I worked in (1 WTC, 80th floor) was on fire, I headed back to the subway to go back home. This was around 9:35 - ish I'm estimating. Took about 25 minutes to get back uptown, and when I got out of the subway, I heard that the first building (WTC 2) had collapsed. I hurried home so I could start calling more people, get connected to the Internet, etc, to let everyone know that I was ok. Fortunately my DSL connection is still fully operational, so I was able to contact a lot of people I couldn't reach by phone.

As I was on the phone with my brother Dave, I saw on live TV, my building, 1 WTC, collapse. I knew that was it. The company I worked for is pretty much gone now, as that was our only office, and all of our equipment was on that floor. I have no idea right now (4:55pm) if anybody in my office survived, or who was there, but I estimate that at least half of the office was occupied, since people usually get in around 8:30 - 9:00am. Sometimes even me, and I even thought about going to work early today because I have jury duty tomorrow (possibly not anymore however). So I'm just thankful that I'm ok, and I'm praying that everybody who I worked with either weren't there or managed to escape before the collapse.

Thanks to everybody who has contacted me too... It's very reassuring to know that you are all there to support me and everybody else you might know who might have been affected either here or in D.C. or perhaps even by the air disasters themselves.
--
jr

9/11/2001

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