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September 10 - September 16, 2024
It was late the evening of September 12, 2001. My wife, Sarah, and I were discussing my near demise and the events of the prior morning, when out of the blue I had a foreign thought: write a book.
I heard remarkable stories of why people were, or were not, at their desks … everything from mental urges to get a doughnut, missed trains, forgotten pagers, and wrong coffee orders, to last-minute unscheduled meetings high in the tower, early subway exits to enjoy the beautiful day, and even secret trysts. I heard stories of people’s courage, compassion, and selfless assistance to others though they put their own lives in harm’s way.
And I heard the stories that did not make the public press: the theft, greed, and cowardice of those who were less than “heroic,” upstanding citizens.
In fancy, put yourself in each of our places as you read these experiences; watch the American Airlines 757 fly into your office, feel the towers bend and twist, and hear the deafening explosions. Smell the smoke and aviation gas and be weightless in plunging elevators. Struggle for a breath of oxygen in acrid, smoke-filled stairwells. Run for your life as the fireballs chase you through the lobby. Hear the sickening sound of the poor unfortunates jumping to “safety.” Experience the stampeding panic, and become engulfed in that evil black cloud. And, for a few moments you will be one of us:
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The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were brilliantly silhouetted by an azure-blue New Jersey sky.
After booting up his computer and taking a sip of coffee, Erik took advantage of the view before plunging into the day’s work. It was a spectacular vision that morning looking out across New York Harbor. Lady Liberty saluted, her torch raised high; Ellis Island was a little to the west; and the tourist ferries were already plying their out-of-town fares back and forth. Looking farther south was the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and out beyond, Sandy Hook, New Jersey, looked close enough to touch.
In the last instant that Tad Hanc knew he had left on this earth, watching that big airliner aimed directly at his window—directly at him—he saw the nose of the aircraft raise slightly, turning faintly to the east. And in that same moment he noticed the silhouettes of the pilots in the cockpit and of passengers in the windows. As the plane disappeared, Tad saw the American Airlines logo on the starboard side.
He thought the building was going to snap, so out of plumb it was. As it swung back north, he thought it would stop; however, three more times the tower continued to swing—back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Gabriella’s view west outside the tower disappeared into a fusillade of flying, falling, whirling paper and wreckage. In that same instant, while she couldn’t be sure of anything at this point, she thought she saw … things … bodies? … falling down outside the windows.
She checked to see that she wasn’t dreaming and was still alive.
In all his years on the force, he had never seen anything like this. He wasn’t just “dead.” His whole body was distorted, as if all the bones were broken … and there was lots of blood.
As he pulled the radio from his belt, what sounded like a 12-gauge shotgun blasted behind him. Startled, he quickly turned, radio to his mouth, and saw a new body lying in the plaza not fifty feet away.
Ed saw at least two dozen bodies sprawled all over West Street—some as far as the middle of the road. There was broken glass all over the place, and mixed in with metal and tons of paper was blood.
A FedEx package came spiraling down in the mix made Erik immediately think of the Tom Hanks’ movie Cast Away. The mind is a curious mechanism.
In the distance, he saw two bright, blazing images coming toward him from the general direction of the main lobby of the North Tower. As the images got closer, Tony realized with horror that they were two people on fire, running silently past him. It appeared as if their clothes had burned off and they were running naked, flaming. As quickly as they came, they were gone.
“Medhi?” Jerry asked quietly, “Do you have young children?” “Yes, I do.” “Mine are grown,” Jerry stated with understanding. “You go.” “Thank you, Jerry,” Medhi said with deep gratitude as he turned and disappeared into the A-stairwell on the east side of the tower.
The morning was young. A foreboding atmosphere hung heavy, as an invisible blanket of aviation gasoline began tightening its wrap within the tower …
Through the increasing haze of smoke, Erik could hear a cracking sound, a snapping from within the structure, and an occasional grinding.
Gabriella now became aware of smoke in this stairwell and water on the stairs—and the humidity and heat. It was so hot!
He, too, had been in the bombing nearly nine years ago, and remembered as if it were yesterday the long, three-hour smoky climb down and out.
As she wrapped the wet T-shirt around her nose and mouth, Flory opened the door into the tower core. It was total blackness and smoke. But countless fire drills had trained them to go directly to the C-stairwell. They knew exactly where it was, even in the dark. In fact, she remembered that in 1993 it was the same one she used to get out.
Jim had returned to the plaza and was about twenty feet from the base of Tower Two when the heavens directly above exploded and disintegrated into total chaos.
Then he saw Tina Hansen, a friend and beautiful young woman, being carried down in her lightweight motorized wheelchair. “Ah, the queen being carried down in her throne by two handsome, able-bodied royal coachmen,” Vic chided Tina.
The scene was both one of pandemonium and absolute cooperation.
Training, and human compassion toward one’s fellow man, is a beautiful thing, David Lim realized.
That was when he began hearing the sickening thud, very much like the sound of a shotgun going off, of falling bodies from the upper floors crashing onto the overhead covering of VIP Drive.
“Be careful of this hole in the floor,” a man in a business suit wielding a fire hose was telling people as they walked past. He was fighting a fire all by himself! Yvonne was amazed. She would have liked to have helped, but she was so scared for herself and everyone else, that all she could do was say a little prayer for him and keep up with the crowd.
The stairs were slippery with the reddish water, which had increased and was now leaking off the ceilings above them.
Startled by the sounds of explosions, Tony realized it was the sounds of falling bodies crashing onto the pavement. There was also a continuous rain of debris.
As Tony began walking down West Street to get a better assessment of the situation, he saw a woman walking toward him. She was in her mid-forties or early fifties. It was impossible to tell because, to Tony’s horror, her clothes had burned completely off. Her skin was blackened and still smoking. She was in a daze; when Tony stepped toward her to assist, two firefighters intercepted, moved her to the curb, and took charge.
“A war zone,” she repeated.
The end seemed an eternity away. In the semi-quiet of the descent, Erik could faintly hear the snapping of pipes, an unmistakable sound, like ice cracking on a pond on a cold winter’s day. No one was aware of it, but the tower was in the beginning of its death throes. “Step aside!” someone yelled. “Coming up!” New York City firefighters were walking up, struggling against the tide. Erik could see the exhaustion from carrying all their equipment to fight the fires in the upper tower.
“You have to get out, now!” She started to protest, but then he yelled, “Get the hell out of the hotel!” The panic in the officer’s face, his explosive voice, and his expressive use of language was enough. Nancy knew she’d better do as this guy said.
She ran out onto Liberty Street, and right in front of her, lying in the middle of the street—was an airline seat! “Oh, my God!” Crossing Liberty Street, Nancy stopped to turn around. All the police and a couple of people started screaming at her, “Run across West Street! Don’t stop! Run as fast as you can!” And she ran.
On the way they encountered several elderly requiring assistance, and a couple of physically handicapped. The firefighters began dropping their equipment, picking up the handicapped, and carrying them down. David was doing everything possible to calm the elderly and to assist in the orderly evacuation. The deteriorating conditions in the stairwell didn’t contribute to David’s calming efforts. There was some smoke, and dark, muddy water began cascading down the steps, making for slippery going.
A woman walking next to her said that she had a cell phone. “Two airplanes, one hit each tower,” she said. “Terrorism!” Gabriella said right away. That was the only logical explanation. And then she got really worried again, as her mind went back to the structure of the tower, and the safety of the building. She thought back to what she felt about forty minutes ago … the tower shaking like an aftershock from an earthquake.
Where did all this Gatorade, Snapple, and Poland Spring water come from? Jerry wondered. Suddenly, there was what seemed like hundreds of bottles being passed around. Someone must have broken into something, he thought, as they were being handed out. “Great idea,” he said, taking a couple of bottles, keeping one for himself, and passing the others to some firefighters who accepted them with much appreciation.
Pausing at Carlisle Street, the sound of a thousand colliding fast-moving freight trains attacked their ears. “It’s a third plane!” a nearby woman screamed.
“Jerry,” Ezra stated, “there are dead people on the roof of the Marriott Hotel.” They were on the south side of the North Tower, about four floors higher up than the roof of the Marriott. Jerry looked down onto the roof and saw dead people. The others raced to the windows to have a look for themselves. Jerry saw what appeared to be a young woman wearing a pink coral dress lying on her back in what, ironically, looked to him like a classic death pose.
The radio traffic was heavy and frenetic when a crackled message from someone got through, broadcasting that the South Tower was making funny noises.
Debris and bodies—bodies of every imaginable horrific appearance—were strewn about, not unlike the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. The plaza was totally unrecognizable.
It was every facility and security manager’s ultimate nightmare come true. This cannot be happening, Erik thought. How many conversations and planning sessions had there been over the years since February 1993, discussing the ways and means of preventing another attack on this complex? And yet, deep down, to a man, each privately knew someone was at work, diligently planning—because the last attempt was a failure—what was now taking place.
Erik stood, his nose not three inches from the window, looking east toward the fountain. Suddenly, in the nanosecond it takes to blink an eye, time froze as a man plummeting at a hundred miles per hour and Erik made solid eye contact. The next nanosecond tick of the clock brought the sudden shotgun sound of his body hitting the ground, exploding as it went from a hundred miles per hour to instant zero. His bodily fluids sprayed in every direction; fresh blood flowed down the window.
Sarah’s mind became a numb object over which she no longer had command.
Fortunately, Tad had had the foresight to take his flashlight when he left his office an eternity ago, and he used it to guide people up to the next landing and through the door leading to the offices.
The grit, held in suspension by the tumultuous physics produced by the collapse, and thick as sand in a Sahara desert windstorm, had collected around his eyelids and frozen his eyes open. After a minute or so, Erik’s already-tortured body was screaming for oxygen. Breathing, a heretofore simple routine—a natural function taken so for granted—suddenly turned into his most pressing anxiety. He opened his mouth and attempted to inhale. It felt like someone had thrown a shovel of sand into his mouth. There is no oxygen in a thick, pyroclastic-like cloud of pulverized concrete, asbestos, glass—and
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The FDNY order to evacuate Tower One issued, Systems Administrator Jitendra Mavadia reached into his file drawer and pulled out two flashlights, handing one off. With the aid of the flashlights everyone safely navigated around the black, gaping hole, through the corridor, and into the slightly smoky B-stairwell.
