On 9/11, I was in my office on the 72nd floor of tower 1. When the plane hit the building, it sounded like a steel pipe hitting a 55 gallon steel drum. A few seconds later, the building started to heel over. Everyone gasped that the building wouldn’t stop but then it returned to its upright position. My office faced north and I saw debris falling past my window. When I looked east, I saw debris falling there too. The weird thing was that there were no alarms and the computers stayed on and phones rang as if nothing had happened.
I decided to evacuate and went to stairway C. When I entered the stairway, it was already packed with people going down from floors above mine. As I descended, I passed styrofoam boxes of employees uneaten breakfasts left on the landings. Every five floors or so we had to get over to the side so firemen could go up to where the fire was. Both the firemen going up and us going down were calm as if there was no danger.
I also passed people in motorized wheelchairs waiting for someone to take them down. I learned later that they were all rescued by Port Authority Police who stripped down to their underwear and ran up the stairs and carried the disabled people down to safety.
When I reached the third floor, the sprinklers were on and gave me a shower. We exited the stairway on the messenine level. On the north side of the building, I saw a body outside with a leg in one spot and a torso in anther. It was covered in dust and I assumed it was from the plane. I did not know that people had jumped from the higher floors.
I exited the complex on Church Street near Borders. When I looked up, I saw both towers on fire. I was told by a man in an FBI jacket to move east. I went to the Fulton Street subway station but was told nothing was running. I was standing in the middle of Broadway when a saw pieces flying off tower 2. Then I watched the building collapse. It looked as if the building was dropping like an elevator, straight down. I could hear each floor collapsing as the building fell. Then a cloud of dust came towards me. I took a handkerchief from my pocket and put it over my mouth and nose and turned my back to the cloud. I could not see a thing and was afraid that emergency vehicles speeding down Broadway would hit me so I felt my way over to the curb and onto the sidewalk.
A few minutes after getting on the sidewalk, the cloud dissipated. Everything and every one was covered in a grayish white dust. I decided to walk to Penn Station. On my way I met other World Trade Center employees that I knew. When we got to Penn Station, we found out that no trains were running. I left thenm there and continued to my daughter’s office.
I washed myself of in her bathroom as best I could and listened to the radio. At about 5:00 pm, the news announced that the trains were running. My daughter and I walked south to Penn Station. On the way we passed the PABT. The PABT was surrounded by local New Jersey police cars to protect the building.
I finally got home about 7:30 PM. Then I figured that I had to notify someone at the PA that I was alive. I went to the PA web site and saw a temporary home page that asked World Trade Center employees to call a certain phone number. It turned out to be the EWR PA police station. I was asked for my employee number and.told to stay home until I heard from my supervisor. I came to work at the PATC two weeks later.
