story662.xml

story662.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-05-21

Today is September 13, 2001 at about 8:00 PM. It is about 59 hours since terrorists attacked New York and Washington DC. I?m on an Amtrak train somewhere in western Pennsylvania in the middle of two disasters. Everyone is quiet, talking on cell phones, reading trashy novels but all the events are never far away. Word of the latest is coming in through the cell phones and people are reading the papers from the last 2 days. We are some of the few escaping Manhattan at this point and some of the first to be able to say ?I was there? to the rest of the country. New York is already getting back in some ways to a jittery sense of normal. At 5 PM, I saw a plane way up in the sky for the first time in a couple of days. According to my friend Andrew in Pittsburgh, planes are starting to take off from there. This is all good ? the world is turning again.

So this is what happened. Our meeting was supposed to start at 9:00 AM on Tuesday morning. I was running late ? I had to finish my presentation that I was supposed to be doing early in the agenda. I had planned to do it the afternoon before but had enough problems getting a modem line that I switched rooms at the hotel. I did do some work but them went out to dinner with my friend Andrea. It was a very oppressive evening ? line after line of thunderstorms were passing through the area. Andrea was drenched when she arrived at the hotel. We went to a restaurant across the street. When I got back from dinner, I finished working on one document I had to get out that night and decide to get up early and do my presentation then.

So I was running late. My plan was to get out the door no later than 8:45. I was only going to our office at 1633 Broadway just a few blocks away so that would give me just enough time. Had I only know how crucial that same plan would have been for so many others. Just get out by 8:45 AM. I walked over to the building, Paramount Plaza and found the conference room. I was setting up my laptop, getting breakfast, saying hello to the other people. And then someone came in and said a plane has hit the World Trade Center. It was a horrible thought and kind of surprising ? how did some crazy pilot happen to be flying so low? We all assumed it was as small private plane, an accident probably. Weird, sad but small in a way. I?d have to watch the news tonight to find out what happened. But no, that wasn?t the whole story ? it was a large commercial jet.

What could have gone so wrong for that to have happened? And ?look? we were told ? we could see that the tower was on fire from the window in the conference room. It was actually hard to see at first ? what exactly does a skyscraper on fire from a plane crash look like? We pointed, directed others ?See? Over behind those buildings? Where the smoke is? You can only see ? of one tower??. And there it was. And then it became real. But not really real. Overwhelmingly impossibly real. Over there separated from us by glass, air, and glass was chaos. Twenty floors maybe of mayhem. And we were absolutely quiet and petrified. So close together but vastly different situations. It was stunning ? too much to even imagine.

The next hour is a blur. We started the meeting, played a little ice breaker game. Heard the rules about no cell phones, no email, no distractions. And yet there was a distraction far bigger than a beeping cell phone. There was a tower on fire, people were dying, a huge billow of smoke stretching to the left. It marred the cloudless blue sky ? so much more refreshing it had seemed outside after the oppressive heat and humidity from the night before. So sunny and peaceful after the booming storms. Last night this kind of cloud and noise and panic and darkness would have fit better. It just didn?t belong over the skyline of lower Manhattan on a day like this fresh and bright and cheery one.

I started my presentation ? facing the window. It was hard to focus on presenting and not look at the cloud of smoke. It was wrong to do this presentation and yet what else could we do? And it was really too much to deal with ? it could have been our building ? we could be in the midst of that. Too big to comprehend so we did the things that seemed most comfortable ? carry on with our routine. By the end of the presentation, only 15 minutes or so, the news was much worse. Somehow, there were many planes crashing into buildings like the Pentagon, the State Department, and the other World Trade Center tower. Planes were still up in the air ? which ones were also on a course to hit a building? What was even happening? Was this a dream? A hoax?

But there was the tower raging with smoke extending down further and further to the lower floors. Some one said that were people on the roof but how would that be possible with all the smoke and the heat? There were TVs we were told tuned into CNN. People with pass cards to get to the other floors were leading others to the TVs. I went down the hall to the other side of the building and stared at the TV but it didn?t register. What they were showing was both towers in flames ? we hadn?t seen the other tower hidden by buildings ? and they showed the second plane hitting over and over. Things started clicking into place ? people who were nearest the window when we first heard saw the plane veering strangely. It made sense now except how could any of this make sense at all. But at least there was context to what we had all observed. Very shaky context: hijacking, not an accident at all. They switched to the Pentagon on TV ? another cloud of black smoke. But who could deal with the Pentagon when it was hard enough to understand what was happening outside the window?

I went back to the conference room. They were saying that the other tower of the World Trade Center had collapsed. That was impossible ? 110 story towers do not collapse. But as I got back to the conference room the other tower went down. When I looked, there was just a column of smoke in the shape of a building and then it slowly blew away and there was nothing. It was just gone, gone, completely gone. One of the tallest buildings in the world gone. All the people gone. Just like that: gone.

Confusion was erupting in the office. First what about our people in the World Financial Center just across the block from the World Trade Center? What was happening with them? How did the buildings fall ? did they topple over like a stack of blocks? How could anyone possibly survive but how could so many people die at once?

And then everyone was on the phones: cell and line. Did the cells work? The transmitter was on top of the building that?s newly vanished. Were the circuits busy? Who to call? Craig just started his job ? I didn?t have his number. How would I reach him? And surely surely people would have gotten word of what was going on. This was too big not to spread like wildfire to all the corners of the country. And then the emails started. One from John my boss: "Are you there? Are you OK? Are you safe, where are you? Do you even still exist, please please call or respond." And the messages started going out: "Yes we are in the 1633 building, not World Financial ? it?s all OK." I tried to call Craig ? I called information, got the US Bancorp number. What department is he in, which building? I found the right number and got the right building but they couldn?t reach him and there was no paging. Try back later. So I tried back in a few minutes ? he?s on the line with a customer try back later. Each time it was try back later. Finally I called and said it was a personal call and I was in New York. Everything changed ? they tracked down a manager who took a message. "I?m OK it?s not happening here. I?m safe and OK for now." But I knew that it could all change so quickly. Nothing would be surprising anymore.