Storytime: I Survived 9/11

I would like to start this by stating that this is truly more for me than anyone else. This may also be for my children, if they ever do read this. I did survive 9/11 and it was extremely traumatic for obvious reasons. I have discussed it over the years with those who have asked, but I never wrote about it. I always meant to but when I would try, I would get the visuals all over again. I also avoid all media that day because for some reason, they like replaying the news clips and 911 calls. As a person who was there at ground zero, I don't need those visual reminders. This is also pre chronic illness rabbit hole. I didn't fall ill until eight years later.

This day started like any other. Yes, very cliche but also very accurate. I lived in Brookly, NY at the time with maybe a 30-minute commute. My oldest was 6 and in the first grade and my youngest was a year and seven months (I stop counting months after 12) and at his dad's home. For whatever reason, I was running late, and I decided to take full advantage of it. Because my job would treat a 15-minute absence the same as a half day, so I really decided to take my time. I wasn't often late, but I don't recall why I was running behind that morning. The train ride was uneventful by NYC standards. The performers were out; the panhandlers were going about their routines. The people who came around asking if you were homeless or hungry because they had sandwiches to give out, were there as well. I kept my head down and prepared for another day in the office.

September 11th, 2001, was such a beautiful day. I remember it being warm and somewhat clear, with no rain clouds nearby. I milked being late and got off at Chambers Street from the 2 line. It left me off at Vesey and Church. It was a straight shot down the block to my job but again, since I was late, I decided to see my favorite vendor that posted up outside St. Paul's Cemetery and Cathedral. I was into fresh fruits that summer and this particular vendor sold a platter with cut up fruit full of seasonal selections, with mango being my favorite. I purchased my breakfast and then took the scenic route. At the beginning of the summer I started walking more to lose weight. I worked in a tall building and took full advantage of the steps. I would walk down from the 16th floor and back up on breaks. Then I would walk over the Brooklyn Bridge each day after work as long as the weather was nice. It was a beast but I loved the view and in true native NY fashion, that was closest that I ever got to the Statute of Liberty in person.

Between the North and South Towers there was a beautiful pavilion. It was also teeming with people who would stop to have breakfast or catch up with friends. I would attend events there and even bring my kids. This morning, there was the typical NY hustle and bustle with nothing out of the ordinary. The Krispy Creme sign wasn't lit so I didn't call my coworkers to take orders before I came in. Yes, it was a thing. To get to my job, there was a small staircase at the back edge of the pavilion that left you off right near the Marriott Hotel. I was late, around 15 minutes but there was no sense of urgency. As I approached the corner of my job, I saw a few people lingering on the corner. We talked about random things, including me being late, and had a laugh about it. If you have never been to Manhattan, especially lower Manhattan, there is often loads of construction going on. Noises of all kinds from up high to underground and everywhere in between. So, when we heard a muffled boom on the corner we didn't think anything of it. We just kept talking. A few of us looked around but there was nothing. It wasn't until I looked up and saw a massive fireball coming out of one of the buildings. I may add that I still can't differentiate between the North and South Tower but one of them had a ball of fire coming from it. It is also good to note that this was approximately 80-90 stories up which would make it about 800-900 feet in the air. It didn't initially look big. One of the men remarked how messed up for something like that to happen. We all agreed. Another man walked up while we gazed upwards and said that he thought that it was a plane. That was equally messed up because in the news there were reports of helicopters and small planes hitting tall buildings. We were all thinking that it was a small Cessna or a sightseeing helicopter. After a few minutes I decided to go inside work because a: I left my cellphone in my desk the night before and I wanted to warn folks. Our office was on the 16th floor but we faced away from World Trade and were directly across the street from the towers. Once more thing, there was also active construction going on near our floor and they just wouldn't know.

I walked into the lobby very casually and looking back it surprised me. It was a very ornate lobby with gold or brass overlayed carvings. It was very quiet that morning, save our Security Officer Jackie. As I approached her desk I said, "The World Trade just blew up". She looked up and me and went right back to what she was watching. The World Trade Center was bombed some years before from below and all that happened was a flooded basement. I don't recall if there were casualties or not but the buildings remained intact. I shrugged and kept walking to the elevator. Whether it was truly something to be alarmed at or not, I wasn't going to repeat myself and went on with my inital task. I waled to the elevators and pressed for express. There was a local one and an express elevator and since I worked on the 16th floor, I opted for express because I wanted to get in and get out.

When I reached my floor in hat felt like seconds, I walked right in and saw that my coworkers were stirred up. They were trying to find out what that noise was and what was going on. The Supervisors were trying to get everyone to relax but looking back a few months later, they knew something was up because their office faced the towers but where we worked faced West Street. My one coworker walked up to me, and I repeated to him what I told Jackie, "The World Trade just blew up." Unlike Jackie, Mike took my message to mean GET OUT. I repeated it a few times to people who I passed on the way to my desk. Cellphone secured and I walked out. People grabbed their belongings and started to file out. I never raised my voice; I didn't get all up in the air. I just calmly walked out. The Supervisors saw that they lost all control and looked deflated. It wasn't until I got in the elevator that the reality of the situation hit me. The leisurely walk between the towers was likely full with whatever fell from that fireball, and I would have died right then and there. Something terrible had happened and it is close. Those towers are tall and my tiny (in comparison) 24 floor building would never be found if either of those towers collapse. I have kids and I need to go.

By the time that I made it outside, the once sparsely populated sidewalk was full of people. It was literally packed! Everyone's gaze was turned upward, and we could see the carnage. Where that fireball was earlier, there was not a huge gaping hole that had to be maybe 10 floors high. In that hole were people waving items to the people down below, us, but we couldn't hear them. I felt like I was watching a Die Hard movie and I was truly expecting Bruce Willis to come out of a truck to do his next scene. More and more people emerged and surreal was the only word that I could use to describe this sight. There were many people talking, but it all sounded like a low murmur. I still needed to go but I was mesmerized. Did you ever watch a movie and something horrible is happening and the person freezes? Then you yell to get out of there at the screen until you are hoarse, but they don't move? It can happen because it happened to me. I learned to have some compassion in that area. I remember hearing multiple fire trucks pull up and firefighters were rushing in. Then the most heart wrenching thing that I have ever seen started to happen. While looking up we started to see what looked like paper falling. I described it as paper because when you drop a piece of paper, even in your close room with no windows open, it wafts down as if taken by a breeze. This is what I saw. It was one then two then two together and I became sick to my stomach when I realized that it was people. These were the people who were frantically waving to us from 800-900 feet above. As they began to hit the floor I was snapped out of that trance, and I remembered that I needed to go. As I turned to run, there was this deafening sound overhead, followed by a loud crash, explosion then raining glass all over the place. A plane came through and struck the second tower. With this explosion, people who remained in the hole from the first building with blown across the street from the impact. One of my old Supervisors were standing in the doorway of the job and he was urging people to come into safety. However, for me, safety was with my children. If this world was going end, I wanted to be with them. Nothing else mattered.

I saw a coworker of mine and told her to come on but she froze. I urged her again but when she would not move, I remembered my children and moved on. I ran about two city blocks before I stopped running. I looked up and I was near Stuyvesant High School in what felt like seconds. I looked around and saw even more people with cameras out filming the two towers now on fire. I yelled at people to run but they were too absorbed in the scene before them that they wouldn't move. They did not think that the towers would fall but being as close as I was, there was a smell in the air that didn't sit right and I didn't want to find out why. There were men and women, young and old just mesmerized but I had an agenda. I needed to get home. This is when I remember my phone in my pocket and I tried to call home, but the circuits were busy. I looked to the nearest corner and there was a payphone but there was a line! Why are people standing on a line?!?!? Before I could find another option, I heard a man behind me remark that all lines were down because the World Trade had a big cell tower on it so all calls are down in the area. Then he also said, extremely casually, that they bombed the Pentagon too. Bombed the Pentagon toooo!!! I needed to get home fast.

He was standing in the door of a store of some sort with his eyes peeled to the sky like everyone else. I asked to use his landline like he was my long-lost uncle and he let me make a call. The only place I called was home and as soon as I got through to my mom, she erupted into what sounded like a word jumble of the bombings, the news, the phones being down and where was I. I filled her in as calmly as I could and let her know that I was coming home. When there is turmoil, I get eerily calm. Almost too calm but it allows me to focus to get through the situation. Once safe, I would collapse into a ball of goo. I thanked the man for the use of his phone and advised that he should go to his family before the buildings collapsed. Even at this distance, if the buildings fell over, there would be carnage, but he too didn't think that they would collapse. While we were talking the ground began to rumble violently like a series of earthquakes. I looked over at the buildings both emitting smoke and urged him to go home one more time before I moved on.

I ran into another coworker who was on her way to find her family Uptown, but I continued towards the Brooklyn Bridge because that was the most direct route to home. The trains were an option but with them being underground, I didn't feel safe taking them with all that was going on above ground. I needed to see the sky. If the towers did collapse, it may cause the river water to rush in and I couldn't take that chance. The bridge is usually moderately crowded because people loved to bike and walk across this iconic landmark. However, that day it was full of people fleeing lower Manhattan in droves. As I walked across the bridge I got the sense that people were relaxed because we believed that we escaped the worst of it. I came across a heavily pregnant lady. She told me a remarkable story. She was in the 2nd tower to be struck. Again, I am sorry that I don't know which one. She heard the impact and evacuated down 90 flights of stairs very heavily pregnant. However, when she got down to the lobby, she was told that it was no big deal and that she should go back upstairs because her building was fine. The only problem was that the elevator was still down, and she was not walking back up 90 flight of stairs. I didn't blame her. But many of her coworkers went back in believing that it was an isolated incident. However, when that second plane struck their tower, it hit lower than the first and they were cut off. Instead of going back she decided to walk over this bridge.

At about this point we are more than halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge and in the middle of me relaying the events leading up to this moment, there was a sickening scream that came from behind us and then the bridge started to vibrate from stampede of the people. I believed that another plane was coming and this time it was coming to strike the bridge. I fully believed that I was going to die. I said to myself as I choked on my tears, "I tried." Every decision that I made since I saw that ball of fire was to get out of there and get home. If there was any way that my kids could know that I tried, I wished that is what they would know of me. I tried. I then turned to see my fate. To this day I have no idea why I did this. Imagine my surprise when I didn't see a plane but the 2nd tower hit collapsing and the large plume of smoke rising. I instantly thought of those that I passed that remained frozen, those that went back inside my building and hers as well as the ones who wanted to record this moment in history. They were all caught in black and gray plume that engulf everything it touched. The people still on Manhattan started to run to escape the encroaching dark cloud and it caused everyone else to run too. I found myself shielding my pregnant companion because I didn't want her to get trampled because if she went down, I would not be able to get her up. As we struggled to keep us both upright in the crowd I looked up and saw the remaining tower fall. They both collapsed as if someone was shuffling a deck of cards. The advancing spoke went skyward and by the time that I got to the Brooklyn end we started to be covered in raining ash like a volcano erupted nearby. We were also greeted by people lined up armed with shotguns facing towards Manhattan on the lower level where cars travelled. They didn't try to stop us as we filed into Brooklyn, but it was just another odd sight of the day.

I parted ways with the pregnant lady and made my way to Flatbush Ave to get a Dollar Van to take me home. The extremely odd thing was that Brooklyn was business as usual. People were going about their day and had no idea of what was going on just over the bridge. The ash was coming but didn't reach them just yet and that would be a clue that something was amiss. I felt like someone changed the page in a book that I was reading a few chapters ahead. The air was different, the movement of the people were different, and I almost didn't recognize the place that I had called home my whole life. I eventually made it to Flatbush Ave and secured my spot on a Dollar Van before even that mode of transportation got full. As we careened down Flatbush to my stop on Ave K, I couldn't believe my eyes when I watched folks buying and selling like nothing ever happened. Maybe they didn't hear the news but I was no longer interested in being the town crier. My children needed me if this was going to be the end. I will protect them with my life.

When I reached my stop, I paid my fare and made my way the few short blocks home. Each step felt like a dream sequence when I wanted to go somewhere and felt like I was walking in wet cement. I wasn't sure anymore if I was truly awake because the morning that I just endured was more than I signed up for when I woke up. One the way to my it was very quiet like it usually was that time of day, even in Brooklyn. I still couldn't shake the feeling like that chaos that I left behind was only a few steps behind me and I dared not look back again. I just needed to get home before it came to meet me at home and knock on my door. Not that I could stop it but hoping that my door was somehow strong enough to protect us. I put the key in the door and ascended up the stairs. As I approached the door I could hear the news cranked up to maybe 20. The Pentagon bombed, the World Trade Center gone and a flight in PA downed. I opened the door and my mom was so happy to see me but I just wanted the TV off. I couldn't bear to hear or see anything related to my events. To me, it wasn't a news story, it was what I just survived. I remember the bombing at that facility in Oklahoma City. I watched the news and poured over every article because it was surprising to me. There were no surprises here. All I wanted was to hold my babies and for there to be perfect silence.