My morning of September 11, 2001, started as a normal one at the World Trade Center. My office in Tower 1 was on, or between the 72nd or 74th floor.
I was the Chief Structural Engineer of the Port Authority at the time and usually arrived at work between 7:30 AM and 8:00 AM. Natalie Gunter was the secretary for the Structural Group and was also an early bird. That morning I remember talking to Natalie, on a nice sunny day, when the first plane hit Tower 1 on a floor above us. We felt the building sway in one direction then back in the other direction. Natalie tells me that at that moment I said, “Oh my God, a plane hit the building” and I take her word for it because I did not remember that. I called Frank Lombardi who I believe was the head of the Engineering Design Division at the time. He said that he also felt the building move and thought that possibly a helicopter that hit the building.
It was fortunate that the plane hit so early because the building was still relatively empty and most occupants in the tower usually arrived later. I told any employees on our floor to start exiting down and we were able to get down the stairwells very quickly. This contrasted with the very slow mass emergency exiting during the 1993 bombing of the WTC, which occurred in Tower 1 later in the workday when the building floors were all at high occupancy.
During the 1993 bombing I made the mistake of calling my wife from my office telling her I was fine and would be coming home as soon as possible. I did not have a cell phone then and because of the slow exiting she did not hear from me for a very long time when I was able to find a pay phone. Well, I still did not have a cell phone on 9-11, so I decided not to call her from the office and called her when I could get to a pay phone. I ended up calling her many hours later, which was even worse.
It was announced that the subways out of Manhattan were going to be shut down soon, so I was lucky to get on a train to Queens where I lived at the time. I was on the train that went elevated high over the East River, and when I looked back at the World Trade Center, I saw the dramatic top down, floor by floor collapse of Tower 1, and the huge debris and dust cloud that enveloped the lower floors as they collapsed one by one.
I recall thinking that any building occupants on the floors of Tower 1 above the plane impact were likely trapped since the emergency exit stairs were cut off by the burning plane.
