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May 3 - May 9, 2025
and the world, were soon to learn it was no ordinary day—it was a painfully graphic example of how fragile our relationships are, and how we too often take them for granted.
Edward Bonny and his wife, Pat, had taken Monday off. Both had experienced premonitions the evening before. It was as if some cloud were hanging over their heads—some tremendous cloud—and they both had taken it as a warning not to go to the World Trade Center that day. They heeded the warning. On Monday evening, they each once again had the same premonition. Ed usually followed his first instincts. He acknowledged that they shouldn’t go to the World Trade Center on Tuesday also, but began to rationalize the premonition … and he knew it was a mistake.
One thing kept gnawing at the back of her mind that she couldn’t quite shrug off: Erik’s nightmare of the collapsing towers.
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. It was on days such as this when he would tease visitors that if they squinted and squiggled their
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Having ignored the premonition to stay home, Ed Bonny was now content from a full breakfast in the World Trade Center mall with his wife, Pat. After delivering her safely to her training class on the sixty-first floor, Ed Bonny was comfortably seated at his desk on the seventy-first floor of the North Tower. He was located in the northeast quadrant near the east windows of the 40,000-square-foot floor, 3,560 square feet shy of one square acre. “Close enough for government work,” was the worn-out joke.
But this morning something made her think to herself, Don’t deprive yourself of coffee. Go have it! Five seconds from the revolving doors and the elevators, Sonia made a quick right, readjusted her backpack, and stood third in line.
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.
The sound was that of a car crashing into an obstacle—the noise of glass and metal, only much, much louder. The tower shook violently, pushing south; then it came back. Tad Hanc didn’t need to be a civil engineer, which he was, to know that the tower was ten feet out of plumb. He could see the plaza sidewalk abutting the tower wall a thousand feet down. 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.
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.
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. Numb, Erik redoubled his resolve to help his friend Doug Karpiloff. He turned to continue his journey to the
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Both towers were burning, the top thirds of which were fully engaged in flames and billowing smoke. Debris was all over the place. The sight more than confirmed the second plane announcement he had heard in the stairwell while descending Tower One over an hour ago. “I was just in there,” he exclaimed to himself. “Unbelievable!” Erik’s natural inclination was to stick around
“I have to go to the bathroom again,” Trish announced, running towards the ladies room. “Go! Go!” Jerry commanded, holding the door open for her. He stood there with the door open for what seemed an eternity, and in that moment he thought of his family. Impatient at Trish’s delay, and now fearful for his own life, he yelled, “Trish, what are you doing?” “I have to wash my hands,” she answered. “Forget about your hands!” Jerry ordered. “Let’s get out of here!”
All her life, Yvonne had detested the insensitivity of reporters. During tragic events, they took advantage of people in their weakest moments—moments when the victims should be left alone to find themselves, to come to grips with what they have just experienced. And here they were with all their insensitivity, asking her the same thoughtless questions.
and off he ran, north up West Street. There was a thunderous roar, like the sound of a thousand locomotives under a thousand-car load.
Walking north, it was obvious to everyone evacuating lower Manhattan that Gabriella Ballini had been in the collapse. She looked a mess, like she’d survived the rigors inside a rotating concrete mixer. She was inundated with cell phones—such was the overwhelming generosity of New Yorkers to her obvious plight. After the fifth or sixth offer, Gabriella finally got through to her husband, Neil.
