At 8:46 am on 9/11/01, I was in our office suite on the 62nd floor of the North Tower with nine folks who worked under my supervision in the Claims Division of the Law Department. There was a huge bang, a crash, and the building started to wobble. When the shaking stopped, we went to the nearest stairwell and I stood at the doorway and counted as the nine other people went down. After several minutes, not sure if I had seen all of them go down the stairs, I went back into the suite to check each office individually. There in her office I found my secretary under her desk on her knees. After convincing her to come with me to the stairs, we evacuated.
It took about 50 minutes to get to ground level. Rather than leave the site, I continued down one more story below ground to the PA Police Desk located in the shopping mall (roughly under the fountain on the plaza). I was there with one other of the people who worked with me and a skeleton crew of police (most of whom were in the tower helping). We were there for only a few minutes when the South Tower fell at 9:59, necessitating a second escape that morning. With the help of an axe the police had, we navigated out of the office and through the mall until we were able to escape the site through the Borders Bookstore on the corner of Church and Vesey.
In all of the horrible destruction with its tragic loss of lives, there was one good thing that resulted from that day. Over the nine month recovery period, it was so inspiring to observe and reflect upon the service being provided by the half million people who volunteered at the WTC site. Their efforts ranged from handing out water bottles to working on "the pile," endangering their health for people they had never met and families they would never know. it shows what we as a people can do when we act strictly out of compassion for our fellow human beings. I will always be inspired by that, and in fact try to keep in mind that idea of service in my ministry as an ordained Deacon.
Peace,
Steve Kern
PA employee from 1981 to 2016
