I just needed to get this out. My office is ~4 city blocks from the twin towers. I can see both towers, just north of me, from my office. What I saw and experienced today will stay with me for all my remaining days.
Shortly before 9am I felt, more than heard, a crumbling, low-pressure wave sound of an explosion. I looked up and out, and though I couldn't see the north facing wall of the north tower I could see huge flames and black smoke emerging chimney like out of the tower. Embedded in the cloud was a huge debry field of office paper, business proposals, all the accoutrements of commercial office space, sprinkling out like snow-flakes in the air. Obviously this brought all work on the office floor to a complete halt. My gut was screaming something wasn't right. I'm a private pilot, and understand how the air-space around Manhattan is controlled. It was a perfect blue sky day. An accident to my mind was completely out of the question. As it turned out this beautiful day acted as backdrop for the horrific actions that happened next.
While I was looking at the towers out of the west, flying low, came what looked to be a Boeing 737 or a larger aircraft. All I could think was "Oh my GOD!!" while other office mates screamed. The plane hit the southern tower dead-on, ripping through it almost completely. The explosion rippled out in a fiery blast. At this point someone yelled it was time to abandon our building, and everyone began clearing out.
I, and a couple of others, stayed behind to close things out, send out emergency e-mails, etc.. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get home any time soon, so my next thought was to find a volunteer center and offer my services. A couple of other guys felt the same way. We went down and out onto Broadway, next to the Trinity church. We made our way up to Broadway & Fulton Street where a police office I spoke to said he thought an emergency center was being formed south, by south-west, from the towers. This information forced me and my colleggues to reverse our tracks in order to circle around the area cordoned off from the WTC. Lower Manhattan streets were packed with people, all mostly gawking at the Towers, where the tragic scene was unfolding. There are over 50K people in that complex, and some of them were beginning to jump from windows in order to get away from the flames.
We made our way back around Trinity Church when I looked up again. I said to my colleggee..."You know.....that's jet aircraft fuel.....it burns HOT!! The Towers have a fair component of aluminum and steel, which tends to have a low melting point....." Now, I'll never know if this was the exact cause, or if the impact on the second tower proved to be the equivalent of taking out key supports in a house of cards, but exactly after I said this metal flakes begain to waft from the southern building like so much confetti. The flaking thickened and then, suddenly, the tower began coming down pan-caked fashion. As the tower fell a pressure wave of smoke and debri began to soar outwards at roughly....oh.....20 miles per hour? We stood there transfixed as this pressure wave towered 40 stories or more over us, all while expanding outwards. I screamed "Run!!" and we bolted. It caught us half a block down Broadway. The blue sky day was blotted out in acrid smoke and toxic fumes (the WTC was built in the 60's, using such state of the art insulation materials as asbestos, etc.). We ducked into a corner building to get out of the smoke....... |
