And more...
Vignettes of horror, heroism from
survivors of blasts
Associated Press
Sept. 11, 2001 12:50:00
Some vignettes from a day of agony:
Shortly after the first explosion, an elevator opened at One World Trade
Center. A man stood inside, engulfed in flames.
Kenny Johannemann, a janitor, said he and a second person grabbed
the man, put the fire out, and dragged him outside. Then Johannemann
heard a second explosion - and saw people jumping from the upper
floors of the 110-story Twin Towers.
"It was horrendous; I can't describe it," Johannemann said as he stood,
shellshocked.
---
Jerome Giddings of Irvington, N.J., was doing some surveying work at
Newark (N.J.) International Airport when he saw one of the towers
collapse about 10 miles away.
"I was looking through the instrument at the smoke coming from the
buildings, and all of a sudden one of them was gone. It just wasn't
there," Giddings said.
---
It almost seemed like a stream of refugees. Pentagon employees
walked several miles down a closed highway, next to the graves of
Arlington National Cemetery, looking for a way to get home. Many of
those walking through the Iwo Jima Memorial and next to the cemetery
were trying unsuccessfully to call friends and family on jammed cell
phone lines.
The workers described the same scene: a deafening blast that shook
the building. Those who could glimpse outside saw a huge fireball.
Terry Yonkers, a civilian with the Air Force, was in the building at the
time of the attack.
"All we heard was a huge blast. The whole building shook," Yonkers
said.
---
Clemant Lewin, a banker who works across street from the World Trade
Center towers, said that after the initial explosion, he looked out the
window and saw people jumping from the building from as high as the
80th floor, including a man and a woman holding hands as they fell.
"I'm traumatized for life," Lewin said. "Someone needs to take
responsibility for this. This was somebody's father, this was somebody's
sister, somebody's mother. We should have seen this coming. I'm
disgusted."
---
Clayton Hill, 23, who works for an Internet company, was ordered out of
a Manhattan subway just after the first plane hit the World Trade Center.
He joined a crowd of hundreds looking up at the gaping hole, then saw
bodies tumbling out, one after the other.
"Everyone would just let out a gasp" as each victim fell, Hill said.
Then the tower collapsed and the crowd panicked.
"People started running like crazy," he said. "I was running and looking
back. It was insane."
---
Frank Salumn said he injured his knee when he grabbed a little girl and
jumped onto a tugboat to get out of New York. His pants were ripped
and he had an ice pack on his knee as he sat at Newark, N.J.'s Penn
Station.
He was on the promenade outside the World Trade Center when he saw
the second airplane crash.
"The whole thing came down like a glass house," said Salumn, 36, of
Brooklyn.
---
Robert James, 43, manager of a Modell's sports store near the Trade
Center, was in the basement when he heard the explosion, then
emerged to see at least five bodies fall from the skyscraper.
"They looked like rag dolls," he said. "It was like the kind of thing you
see in movies."
He was nearby for the 1993 Trade Center bombing, James said, adding,
"I don't think I'll work down here anymore."
---
Andy Thornley, 43, works for an insurer in downtown Manhattan and
witnessed the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center. He
and co-workers took shelter in a bar until it became clearer how they
should get home.
"I took the bus in to work this morning and it was a beautiful summer
day," said Thornley, still shaken hours after the attack. "I looked at the
Manhattan skyline and thought there's no more beautiful place in the
world. And now it's gone."
---
Many workers from lower Manhattan were taken across the Hudson
River on ferries and stranded in New Jersey. Their cell phones went
dead, so they lined up at pay phones hoping to get rides home.
Ann Ventra, of Staten Island, used a pay phone to call a relative.
"I have no money; I don't even have a quarter," she said on the phone.
From her office in Manhattan, she said she saw people on fire jumping
from the towers.
"Seven, 10 people jumping out of the building. I think I'm just in shock,"
Ventra said.
---
Along Fifth Avenue, people clustered outside their office buildings, some
because the offices had been closed, some just to talk about the
tragedy with others.
Alicia Pieto, a book editor, said the TV pictures "made me fear for my
life. How do we know this building isn't next? I wish we had one of those
tornado cellars."
---
Residents far away from New York City listened to radios, watched TV
and made calls on cell phones to loved ones. It was the talk of elevators,
bank lines, street corners and restaurants.
In West Virginia, fear about terrorism was real.
"If it made people in small towns afraid to go to work in the morning, I
think they really accomplished something in their minds, probably,"
Russell Kitchen, a legislative staffer at the state Capitol, said during a
mandatory evacuation there.
"If somebody in West Virginia can be afraid to get up in the morning, I
think they feel like they've accomplished something."
---
At Antoine's, the 161-year-old restaurant in New Orleans' French
Quarter, waiters stood by empty tables. Along Bourbon Street, where
strangers usually begin partying early and bars stay open 24 hours,
drivers delivering beer and liquor to the jazz clubs and strip joints
listened to radios, while workers inside clustered around televisions.
"We're open, but there's no business," said Paul Greco, manager of
Antoine's. "I think everyone is in shock. It's incredible."
Outside, where cabs usually pull in one after the other to take people to
the airport, all was quiet. Christus Fernando, who came to this country
about a year ago from Sri Lanka, was driving the cab in the line.
"The same thing is happening in my country," he said. "Two months ago
they attacked about 13 flights. ... This kind of thing is not new. That's
why I am here."
"We better pray for peace. That's the only thing remaining to us," he
said. |
