story1572.xml
Title
story1572.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-08-30
911DA Story: Story
It started out as the prettiest clearest day i had seen in a while. Shortly after 8:30 am...while driving to work, I heard the following two statements on the radio..."It's a beautiful day...get out there and enjoy it".....and "we've just had a report that a plane has hit the World Trade Center"
Arriving at work, and not yet having the details, I and my coworkers speculated that it was probably a little Cessna or something, maybe that someone was trying to fly between the towers as a stunt and missed.
By this time, the TV reports were coming through and we all gathered to watch the news in the bosses office. We saw the second plane hit and knew it was not an accident, but that we were under attack.
People were trying desperately to verify the whereabouts of friends and relatives who worked downtown. Around 10 am, our pension department received a call from a retiree, who, knowing that Fiduciary Trust (located in the Trade Center) was the issuer of the pension checks, wanted to know if the attack would affect his receiving his check!
About an hour after this, while I was outside the back door smoking a cigarette, a limo pulled onto the side of our building, three 25-30 year old men in disheveled suits with ties loosened got out, and proceeded to urinate by the bushes. One of them said to me "don't mind us...we were lucky to get out of the city!"
My own reaction to the attack suprised me...I have always been interested in History, and often thought how it would be to go back in time and witness a historical event...but that day I did NOT want to drive toward Manhattan to see what was happening...all that was important to me was to get home safely and be with my wife.
Arriving at work, and not yet having the details, I and my coworkers speculated that it was probably a little Cessna or something, maybe that someone was trying to fly between the towers as a stunt and missed.
By this time, the TV reports were coming through and we all gathered to watch the news in the bosses office. We saw the second plane hit and knew it was not an accident, but that we were under attack.
People were trying desperately to verify the whereabouts of friends and relatives who worked downtown. Around 10 am, our pension department received a call from a retiree, who, knowing that Fiduciary Trust (located in the Trade Center) was the issuer of the pension checks, wanted to know if the attack would affect his receiving his check!
About an hour after this, while I was outside the back door smoking a cigarette, a limo pulled onto the side of our building, three 25-30 year old men in disheveled suits with ties loosened got out, and proceeded to urinate by the bushes. One of them said to me "don't mind us...we were lucky to get out of the city!"
My own reaction to the attack suprised me...I have always been interested in History, and often thought how it would be to go back in time and witness a historical event...but that day I did NOT want to drive toward Manhattan to see what was happening...all that was important to me was to get home safely and be with my wife.
Collection
Citation
“story1572.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 20, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/6146.