That beautiful blue sky morning of September 11, 2001 was shattered a half hour after I arrived at work. The slam 23 floors above our 69th floor, the crunching steel sound, the rolling floor... what lasted for 1-2 minutes seemed like it would last forever. But it didn’t. It was then time to evacuate. It was time to bond more strongly with co-worker buddies. It was time to together help our co-worker, John.
Pur trip down the staircase was slow and challenging. Particularly at Floors 44, 35, 21, 10 and the lobby it was eventful. But we made it down and out. It was 10:15AM. Nobody was outside One World Trade Center on West Street. Tower 2 was already down. 13 minutes later our tower crashed down too when we were about 5 blocks away.
About twenty minutes later we took John outside to get checked by the EMTs. He checked okay. But we were encouraged for him to be further checked at a hospital. I accompanied John alone in the ambulance to Beth Israel North Hospital. John had another good checkup at the hospital. I wanted to stay with him there until an ambulance could bring him home to Queens, NY. Just like for 12 years or so on 1 WTC 69N we were side by side again, just this time in a hospital room.
Although they looked in on us, the hospital’s focus was triage for the injured. Then we were informed at 7PM that Manhattan locked down for both incoming & exiting vehicles. So John’s return home to Queens and his backup wheelchair would have to wait for another day. It was a long night with little sleep in the hospital. Fortunately, Manhattan reopened the following day. John got the ambulance home to Queens and I made it home to NJ.
I didn’t go directly home on September 12th though. I stopped first at the Comptroller’s Department’s Business Resumption Office. I hugged the resumption staff there in Jersey City and let them know that John and I were okay. The following day on 9/13 as an Assistant Manager and Essential Worker I returned to work.
As a financial department we needed to resume paying employees and vendors. We did so. We never missed a paycheck and got the important, recovery vendors paid. Our business resumption planning and the drives by Steve & Juan to the backup computer site in Philadelphia all succeeded. We did our part to rebound and rebuild the P.A.
The P.A. supported employees tremendously, especially with offering psychological help. I learned not to try to understand or explain 9/11. Just accept it. 25 years later I’m proud of how resilient we were and how we continue to remain a Port Authority Family.
