september 11, 2021

TWENTY YEARS LATER

Dedicated to Joe Moore who was such a good companion to me on that most terrible day

So many have stories about their experiences on Tuesday, September 11, so I asked myself why should I document my experience. Is it special–no, only to me. But that day has defined me for so many years, even defining time as before or after 9-11, that sharing might be the cathartic remedy for me to move on to happier stories.

This is the first year I used the word survivor in reference to myself on 9-11. I had never used that word before and the first time I said it, I felt guilty about living through that day. There has always an uncomfortableness with that word, but after 20 years, I now say it and understand what the word means to my story.

When friends or strangers for the past 20 years have asked about my experiences on that day I told them my story, but I never committed my thoughts to paper. Hearing about the end of the war that started on October 7th less than a month after September 11 seems to complete the cycle of the attack and the senseless loss of life in taking revenge for that attack. I am ready to document my story here.

Firstly I wish to memorialize those who died by mention of the number of deaths that occurred because of these events. There were 2,996 deaths from the plane crashes on 9-11. There have been 2,372 active duty US soldiers killed in Afghanistan/Pakistani war zone. The total loss of life in the zone was 241,000 humans –71,000 of those were innocent civilians.

2,763 people died less than 400 feet from where I stood that day–I have thought of those souls since that day.

• 

I was a manager at RR Donnelley at the time and had signed in at the front desk in the lobby as Fire Warden for the 3rd floor that day.

At 8:46 I was standing in a large area at work that housed our customer service department. We were a client-facing organization and always provided clients with conference rooms where they worked on their financial transactions. This day was no different. There were two clients who had just begun eating the breakfast spread that was part of their experience with us.

As I surveyed the customer service area, I was disturbed that almost all the customer service representatives were not at their desks answering clients’ calls but were up at the front counter watching the two very large TV screens that usually streamed financial channels to keep clients and workers up to date on the markets and the drivers of the day.

Walking across the room to the front counter, I could see that something odd was going on; there were reps who were shaking their heads vehemently and some who were crying. As I approached the TV, one rep said “a plane hit the World Trade Center”–this statement did not register and I asked “why are you standing here.” Someone else repeated “a plane hit the World Trade Center.” Someone else said they thought it was a small plane, but now I could clearly see the TV and the disaster it displayed.

Understanding the nature of my duty as Fire Warden, I immediately walked to the Human Resource department to discuss what our actions might be. After all, a plane hit a building that was two blocks from where we were located, so I was unsure there a protocol for that. As I walked into the the manager’s office, there was an employee from print/bind department sitting with our Human Resource manager quietly crying. In between his breaths, he was trying to explain what the situation was at the foot of the building that was hit. He was describing the people falling from the sky onto the ground by his feet. He was coming out of the tower of the World Trade Center after getting off one of the subways that rides beneath the building. Not knowing what had happened, but knew what he was seeing was real, he ran to the building he had entered each morning for work.

I was standing up with one of my hands on the desk while he and the HR manager were seated. As I listened to his story, the building violently shook. It was 9:03. I grabbed the desk with both hands trying to understand what was going on. The fire alarm at 75 Park Place was now screaming. At this point, it was my responsibility to get the staff out of the building. It occurred to me that we were going outside into total chaos, and I only knew half of it at that point.

I thought about the many drills we had and how employees would exit and go to the street corners that we were assigned to wait until the emergency was over. The employees would go north two blocks and across the street to stand in front of the small public school on the opposite side from the Gee Whiz deli. I knew they would follow the standard protocol for fire or emergencies. As Fire Warden, I knew there would be the searchers who would search each office and room on the third floor to assure that they were empty and everyone evacuated. They would report to me and I would then report out through the intercom that was on each floor to communicate with the front desk of the building during emergencies. As each searcher reported that their sectors were empty, it was time for me to leave.

It was eerily quiet now. As all the employees on the third floor were out, hopefully at their assigned street corners, I now left to meet them. The process calls for taking the morning sign in sheet from the 3rd floor front desk and go out and take a roll call of all the employees that had signed in that day. This is how you determine whether everyone is safe. You never realize how valuable these mundane processes are until you have a real emergency.

Now that everyone was outside, it definitely didn’t feel safe. We could see smoke and fire. People were standing and staring off a few blocks south of us at the inferno that were the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center. I wondered momentarily why the fire alarm at 75 Park Place went off and thought whether we wouldn’t be safer inside the building than standing on this street corner watching in disbelief.

I briefly spoke to the HR manager and some other leaders in my organization and we made the quick decision to send people home. This was a huge decision–after all we were a 24/7 business driven by the whims of the financial markets and those trying to take their companies public with IPOs.

We told the employees to go north, even if they lived south because It was not safe to go south anymore. I decided I needed to go back to 75 Park Place and figure out whether I had to take my car out of the parking lot under the building.

As I turned the corner from Greenwich to Park Place to walk the block to the underground garage, I stopped short and tried to figure out what I was looking at. On the sidewalk next to my building was what appeared to be the engine of a plane. There was smoke coming out of it. It was huge and blocked the sidewalk and street. At this point I was unaware that this engine was from the plane that hit the South Tower and flew two blocks north and entered my building on the 9th floor and then fell to the ground. That hit was what shook the building when the fire alarm went off.

I walked back up to the corner to make sure the employees had left and went north. I met the VP of Human Resources there. He was a member of the Senior Team of our company and visiting our New York location that day. He lived in Lancaster, PA. I was distressed that he was here and he didn’t even live here. I asked what he was going to do and he mentioned he wanted to go to the company apartment in Battery Park City to get his things. It was located across from the North Tower that was now engulfed in flames and smoke. I said I would take him there the back way since we couldn’t walk south.

I was aware that other managers were in Gee Whiz making some plan but I thought I should walk this colleague over to his apartment. After all this was not his city and he was older than me [or so I thought at the time].

We walked west to the river, going down to West End Avenue and then one more block to North End Avenue. Then we started to head south. It was quiet–no one was around or that is how I remember it. We passed the one convenience store that existed at that time. I asked Joe if he could come in the store with me. I still smoked at the time and had no cigarettes and even with the chaos or lack of it I needed to have a cigarette. When we left the store, there was a thunderous sound [I could describe this more but it scares me to this day.] Someone was screaming run, run toward the river. It was 9:59 am.

We ran, got to the corner, made a right and ran. I had MaryJanes on, sturdy enough, but for some reason I had a skirt on that day and I remember it because it made me feel fragile. At this point, I was compelled to turn around and see what I was running from. It was a cloud of smoke, more like an very large envelope working like a vacuum and taking objects in. But instead it just knocked into us–sand, dust and concrete powder. We made a sharp right and went through the revolving doors into an apartment building to escape the cloud.

There was no door man present. We walked down a few steps and found ourselves in what I thought might be a nursery. There was a child in there; she was crying; I bought her a candy bar from the vending machine. I think her mother came and took her away, it was not my concern for she wasn’t my charge. Joe was.

Now it was just Joe and I in the nursery. There were two large screen TVs attached to the ceiling both broadcasting the tragedy that was unfolding outside. I looked up and realized that there was only one tower standing–I gasped “the building is gone, the South Tower is gone,” slowly realizing that was the cloud. It was unfathomable to me at the time.

My phone stilled worked. It was one of those very large phones that had the provider’s name Nextel stamped on the phone. Joe and I called home to report our status–safe but unsure of future condition.

The room we were in was in between the first floor and the basement. There were windows close to the ceiling. It was a sunny day and the room was well lit by the sunlight. As we stared at the TV the antennae on the top of the North Tower building started to collapse. The building was swaying–this building was going down–as the top floors started to fold in on the ones below. It was 10:28.

The TV went off at the start of the collapse as though the antennae was controlling the broadcast. Our visual was gone. In what might have been 20 seconds our space filled with blackness. It was dark–we went from a sunlit room to pitch blackness of night. I could not see Joe and he was standing next to me. We were in a building that was enveloped with black smoke, so black that it blotted the rays of sun, and so the darkness enveloped us.

The North Tower, the first one hit, had now collapsed. It had burned longer that the South Tower and so the debris and smoke was black unlike the South Tower that fell quickly since it was hit toward the middle of the tower rather than near the top as was the North Tower.

Joe and I walked out of that lower room and sat on a two seater couch in the lobby. It was an old-fashioned hard couch with wooden arms and wood trim along the back edge. The couch was inset into an arch. It was the only place to sit. He looked at his watch and mentioned there was an 11:00 conference call that the senior team had each week on Tuesday and September 11th was a Tuesday. Joe asked if he could use my phone. He called in and reported the situation as we knew it, spoke of the evacuation of the employees in New York that were housed at 75 Park Place. The senior team updated Joe and I about the events of the other plane crashes. I don’t remember how long the call lasted. I thought of what we might do next.

When the dust was settled and the sun was streaming into the building again, I mentioned to Joe that we should leave here and go either back to Gee Whiz to meet up with the leadership group of 75 Park Place or attempt to leave the city. Joe still wanted to go up to the company apartment to retrieve his belongings. We were one block away from the apartment but it was east and meant we would go in the direction of the collapsed towers.

We left and started to walk towards West Street. The street was deserted; we had not seen anyone since we went into the apartment building. We arrived at the building and realized there was no power so elevators were not working; I mentioned to Joe that unless he had some very strong bourbon upstairs, I would wait downstairs. He went into the building–I was never sure whether he went up to the apartment or just came back out again.

As Joe was in the building, I walked a few hundred feet toward West Street and stared at the rubble that were the World Trade Center Towers. I was standing across the street. There was one remnant standing maybe about 10 floors with a jagged edge on top. There was a consistent beeping sound but no one there. I could see the tops of fire engines that were completely covered with debris from the cloud. The beeping continued. I remember thinking that I will never forget this scene–it will be etched in my memory. It is.

Joe came down and we started to walk toward the water to get back to Gee Whiz. We talked a lot or should I say I talked a lot. We spoke of many things, but not about what we were living through. In retrospect, I had the VP of Human Resources captive and he had no escape from my thoughts on how the company should treat its employees. I complained that it was terrible to pay Customer Service for a snow day but not hourly employees who sat next to them. It was awful that the original 6 paid sick days were eliminated for hourly employees. Joe listened patiently–I still don’t know what he was thinking as I was going on and on.

Eventually we passed a police officer who told us there were possible gas leaks ahead and that we should turn around and walk down to the water. There was a pier there where a police boat was evacuating people to Liberty State Park.

We approached the pier and sure enough there was a small police boat docked loaded with people. There was no space in the boat so Joe and I sat on the top of the front of the boat and held on to the windshield of the boat so we wouldn’t fall.

There was a woman on the boat who was staying at the Millennium on Church Street. She was British and kept saying she was used to this since the IRA consistently bombed department stores and other public places in London. I didn’t see her point and I looked away at the oncoming Liberty State Park. As we disembarked someone in a uniform asked if I wanted to chest X-ray. I declined since I was a smoker at the time and didn’t think a chest x-ray was going to help me in any way.

Now Joe and I were in Liberty State Park. It was crowded. I wanted to make sure Joe got home and thought we might be in a good place to accomplish this mission. We walked quickly as we saw a bus and jumped on. The driver said it was going to the train station–something called NJ Light Rail.

Once we arrived at the Light Rail it was time for Joe and I to part. He was going south to the Amtrak station to get a train to Lancaster; I was going north to the Bayonne Bridge. That was the closest point to my home in Staten Island. I would figure it out when I got there. I don’t remember our good byes.

I hopped on the light rail heading toward Bayonne. On the train I met two men who worked for the Port Authority–one had a terrible cut on his arm and I asked whether he was OK. He assured me he was and that this was the second time he was bombed at the WTC. He was referring to the February 1993 bombing. They both were concerned about me–I hadn’t looked in a mirror. I was covered with white dust, hair, face, clothes, shoes–but I was alive and I was fine.

The guys from Port Authority told me the Bayonne Bridge was closed but they were going over in an official car since they worked for Port Authority–the keepers of the Bridges. They offered me a ride. The station is not close to the bridge but there was a van waiting for them at the light rail station. There were no seats in the back and there were paint cans and rags and other handyman tools. I crawled in, once again wishing I didn’t have a skirt on. I asked where they lived–one lived on the South Shore of Staten Island and the other fellow lived in Brooklyn.

There were many cars in the street waiting to access the Bridge, but there were huge neon signs saying the bridge was closed and there was no estimated time for opening. [The bridges did not open for two days]. The van dropped us near an official Port Authority car and we hopped in. No traffic, just us going over the closed bridge to go home.

When we got to the other side we went into the Port Authority building that is situated at the foot of each bridge. I told the guys that I would call my husband to call a friend for a car and come get us. There is no public transportation at that point on Staten Island. My car was in the garage underneath 75 Park Place. It remained there for more than a month.

Mike called our good friend Joe since he had a transportation business with multiple vans. They were there quicker than I thought they could get there. We hugged, I cried and we got in the van.

As we approached the block where one of the fellows lived; he mentioned that he had not spoken to his wife and she didn’t know he was safe. There were many people standing outside their homes on this residential block. His wife was outside; he ran to meet her; they hugged. We left.

Now we needed to get the other fellow to Brooklyn, but that would be impossible. The Verazzano Bridge was closed down–no traffic either way. We offered our hospitality and said he could stay at our house until the bridge opened and we would take him there. He insisted on staying near the bridge figuring with his Port Authority credentials he might be able to get over.

I never saw these two men again; I do not know their names; I was happy for their company and they were happy we got them home or as close as we could.

When I arrived home, I collapsed on the couch. I just sat there. I took off my MaryJanes and realized the bottoms of my feet were burnt from the heat of the rubble that I walked through. After the buildings’ collapse, we walked in ankle deep debris–not big rocks–just white powdery debris with small stones. The only other debris I noticed were sheets of paper; they were pages from evacuation manuals that survived the buildings’ collapse and now lay on the ground in the debris.

I never put on the TV and never watched anything about the tragedy for a long time, probably a year or so. I could not wrap my head around what I saw that day–I didn’t wish to see a replay.

I slept that night, my nightmares didn’t start until some time later.

AFTERWARDS

In the business I was in, I knew we would be getting back as soon as possible. After some phone calls, the decision was made to occupy an office owned by RR Donnelley uptown at 99 Park Avenue. The magazine division was located there and the company understood that the financial sector of RRD had to reopen quickly. It could not look as if this disaster affected our business model. It was important for us to get up and running somewhere.

Five or six managers and our division director met on Wednesday afternoon at 99 Park Avenue. I got a ride from a friend to New Jersey where I caught a train that went uptown Manhattan. I walked cross town from the West side to Park Avenue on the east side. I bought luggage because I knew I had no way home; the disaster was downtown Manhattan between me and Staten Island. There was little in the way of transportation and the city was not up and running. I do remember the market was closed for a few days as well.

We spent the rest of the day moving the magazine employees’ belongings to clear their desks for the financial employees. Our goal was to be up and running on Thursday, 2 days after 9-11.

We were having computers and some servers driven up from Lancaster to 99 Park. The tech people were wonderful to work with. Unfortunately they had a hell of a time getting through the Lincoln Tunnel. One of the tech people had a foreign sounding name and lots of equipment in a truck. He was detained for a while. That type of profiling happened frequently in the weeks after 9-11.

Night time came and the bomb threats began. There were multiple police cars on Park Avenue with sirens and loudspeakers telling people to evacuate the buildings. We were the only people in 99 Park and we quickly realized we didn’t have an escape plan for this building and that we must create our own evacuation plan before our employees came back.

A week after September 11, a team of RRD employees went back into the building. This is the picture of us as RRD put a story in their Business Brief newsletter.

One of the very special things about working for RRD is that your colleagues become your friends–it cannot be helped–you work very long hours covering 24 hours a day. Lasting friendships occur, as well as marriages, divorces and remarriages sometimes. This group of people are special to me for many reasons and I am grateful I was with them when returning to 75 Park Place for the first time.

We required special permission from the city and an escort to go downtown past 14th Street. We met our police escort there and proceeded downtown. We left the escort on West Broadway and Murray Street. We walked down Murray and turned the corner onto Greenwich. Simultaneously we all gasped. There one block down was 7 World Trade Center collapsed on itself. The collapse of 7 World Trade Center was the first known instance of a skyscraper collapsing due primarily to uncontrolled fires. The building’s extended exposure to fires ultimately led to a progressive collapse. It was very upfront and personal now.

We entered 75 Park Place not knowing what we would find. There was no electricity or generators. Some of went up to the 3rd Floor others when down to the pressroom in the basement. You noticed immediately that on each floor firemen wrote messages on the walls that indicated that this premise was inspected and by who. The third floor was inspected by a fire department from Ohio or some midwest state if I remember correctly.

If you remember I mentioned clients eating breakfast on that morning. Well the breakfast remained. It took a few minutes to figure out what we were looking at. An orange colored base with a meringue of green on top–originally salmon with 8 inches of mold on top. Coffee cups all with green cream on top. We walked away trying not to take that picture with us.

Only if you walked around the outside of the building was there light; inside the other rooms was pitch black. We should have brought flashlights. We had lists from people of what they wanted us to find for them. For some it was eyeglasses or shoes, for others, their laptops and phones. The list was long and we didn’t retrieve everything on it. My laptop never worked again for some reason. My official task was to retrieve the EDGAR dongles that were attached to the computer tower drives on the floor in the composition department. I crawled around feeling for the dongles and pulling them out. We needed them uptown.

After a tour of all the offices, we discovered broken windows and debris on the second floor. The collapse of 7 WTC caused damage when it collapsed to 75 Park Place other than the hole in the building on the 9th floor.

We were in that building the whole day–we were starving. Mark, the print/bind manager said he would walk up to Chambers Street to pick up McDonalds. Unfortunately he had to walk to 14th Street for the closest store and we were grateful when he returned.

Every few days a team returned to 75 Park Place to pick up business essential equipment and documents. It was never easy.

We remained at 99 Park Avenue for a year. 75 Park Place remained closed until late March 2002 and most employees didn’t move back until July of that year.

We could not fit all our employees at 99 Park and we lost the use of our printing presses that were located at 75 Park Place. We asked our employees if they wanted to work from the Lancaster plant. We transported them every Sunday night and brought them home on Friday night. We put them up in hotels for the 5 nights they were there. This lasted for 9 months and there were no lay offs during that time. The print/bind department stayed in Lancaster even longer than that because the clean up of the presses became a major issue and I don’t believe that some of those presses ever ran again.

ASIDES

September 11, 2001 was a beautiful cloudless day. The weather remained beautiful for about 2 months allowing the clean up to continue unfettered by rain.

About a year later, I discovered what the beeps were. Firemen have a device when they are in distress. It beeps to give their location–they were all dead but their beepers still flagged their locations under the rubble.

I still have nightmares. I have never come to terms with so many innocent people who went to work on September 11th and never came home.

I am grateful I went home that day.