PANYNJ had offices on several floors in 1 WTC. At the WTC buildings, below ground, there used to be visitor public parking spaces where terrorists planted bomb in car in year 1993 and killed few people. After that PA had created Emergency Response Teams for each PA floor to guide employees escape disaster. I was a member of the team on 64th floor,1 WTC , where my office was located. There were two elevator landing areas, the first one from ground level to 44th floor and second from 44th floor to upper levels.
On 9/11/2001 at 8:46 AM, I was just stepping out of the elevator to walk to the other elevator across to go to the 64th floor. A huge bang was heard and the building was shaking. I realized building damage situation and yelled at all people on floor not to take elevators and walk down to stairs located on each corner of the building. For about 5 minutes l guided all people on floor to take stairs at the corner. Then,I myself walked down on stairs on NW corner. The stairs were wide enough for only 2 people side by side to go down. As we walked down to 20th floor the people were moving extremely slowly because from other lower floors people were entering the same stairs to go down. At 20th floor a security guard yelled that a plane has hit the building, then we knew what really happened. Also firefighters and policemen started coming up in one line, leaving only one person space in stairs to go down. At 14th floor exiting people line became almost stagnant.
On 14th floor I came out of the NW stairs, walked on the floor and went to South East corner stairs.l opened the door and looked inside. The stair had very few injured people with helping people. I guessed that this stair was closed for general public due to big damage to the building on that side. I walked quickly on the stairs and came out to WTC plaza level and ran away to West Broadway and Fulton Street corner. From this location I looked at North Tower and South Tower. I saw both buildings top levels on fire with lots of smoke.Also I saw people jumping from upper level broken windows to plaza level and dead instantly. Police forced all people on Broadway to move away North. I walked fast few blocks and then saw a huge white smoke cloud coming to us from WTC side. This was due to collapse of South Tower first and then North Tower.
While running north on Broadway, I saw a man driving a van from North to South, not realizing about the disaster. I raised my hands and standing in front of him, yelled about disaster and quickly took ride with him and he took U turn to go way in north direction. At 42nd Street, I stepped out of the van and walked 8th avenue PA Bus Terminal. Policeman told me that the Bus Terminal was closed and only Emergency Ferry service from 40th St Hudson river to New Jersey was available. I ate a banana from a side vendor and came to Ferry place. There was a mile long line of people waiting to take Ferry Boats. Fortunately at ferry entrance point someone yelled my name “ARVIND”. I went to him. He was Mr. Frank a Structural Dynamics consultant from England who had scheduled a meeting with me at WTC office at 11 AM.
Frank was bleeding on his face. A policeman heard us talking and kindly told me to join in front of the line with Frank. We both took a ferry and came across to NJ near Hoboken. From that point a van service dropped us at Journal Square in Jersey City. From Jersey City I took taxi to come to Newark Penstation. From Penstation Terminal a NJ bus dropped me off to Cedar Grove, my home town. From bus stop to my home ,our friend gave me 1/2 mile car ride. At 5:35 PM I reached my home. My wife Ranu and son Birjoo were shocked and very concerned, but very happy to see me safe. After a short rest our family arranged prayers in our home temple.
We prayed for departed souls and all sad families.
Next day, I called my boss Tom to tell him how and where to get copies of our destroyed documents, drawings and save them.
Almighty God saved me but I lost many friends and coworkers whom I knew during my career at PA for 39 years. I still have a few pictures and memories and I pray for well being of all of us.
Arvind Patel, P.E., B.E.(Elect & Mech); M.S.(M); M.B.A.( Finance & Management)
Supervisor: Planning and Engineering; PA Employee: 1968-2007
