I woke up this Tuesday morning like any other morning and got ready for work. My one-year-old son was unusually fretful that morning, and it took some time and effort to calm him down. This would be a precursor to the rest of my day. As a result, I was running late for my express bus to Wall Street where I worked at an investment firm. Due to the expansion of the company, we were renting several floors in Tower One of the World Trade Center. Our main headquarters were located across the street at the World Financial Center which was a convenient walk across the bridge that connected our concourse to theirs.
I dropped my son off at the babysitter’s and drove to the park and ride to board my bus. As we barreled down the New Jersey Turnpike, I noticed that instead of taking the Holland Tunnel exit, we were taking the Lincoln Tunnel exit. This in itself was not unusual. Sometimes if traffic was congested the bus driver would be dispatched to take the Lincoln Tunnel as an alternative. I looked anxiously at the time display on my Blackberry device and knew with a sinking feeling that I was going to be late. I was especially anxious about this as we had a meeting first thing that morning. I could already picture my supervisor’s disapproving look as I slinked into the meeting late.
As we neared Soho, I received a text from my supervisor who was on the Hudson in a NY Waterway ferry crossing from Jersey City to the World Financial Center. What she described was horrifying. A plane had just crashed into Tower One where we were to have our morning meeting. As I was processing this information, another event was occurring on the bus heading toward this calamity. People on the bus were complaining that their cell phones weren’t connecting. I surmised this was due to the horrific news I had just received. I wound my way up to the bus driver and in a low voice relayed what I had just read. I urged him to make an announcement.
The bus driver, occupied with maneuvering the bus, asked me to share the news with the passengers. “Can I have everyone’s attention?” I announced. No stranger to standing in front of a large audience as I was the IT instructor at my firm, I went on to explain to my fellow passengers why their cell phones were not working. This was met with a barrage of questions which I was not able to answer from the limited information that I had. Surprisingly, this did not affect my Blackberry, which I went on to explain to the crowd. No sooner had I made my announcement than the evidence revealed itself in a billow of dark smoke as we traveled down West Broadway toward Chambers Street.
We detoured left on Chambers and the driver kept on going as close as he could get, which I never understood. My fight or flight was already kicking in and I wanted to be as far away from this catastrophe as I could get. Nevertheless, he let us off on Vesey and Broadway. We clambered out of the bus, eyes directed to the horror that awaited us. I saw what looked like pieces of material falling from the top floors of the building. I would discover later those were bodies. We were frozen as we continued to witness this disaster. We were shaken from our transfixed gazes as the second plane hit the building, except it looked more like a missile and less like a plane.
“We’re under attack,” I remember myself saying…
“We’re under attack,” I remember myself saying before we all scattered, fully in flight. I ran down Broadway thinking I could get a train going back uptown toward the tunnel I had earlier exited, but quickly dismissed that notion as passengers poured out of the subway. There were people running toward the danger as I was trying to run away from the scene. I suppose they were trying to get across the Brooklyn Bridge.
My mind racing, I tried to figure out what alternatives were available to me. I recalled that my school, NYU, had a shuttle and decided to trek to the village to catch one. On the way, I encountered a guy driving a white, utility vehicle and he offered me a ride when I told him where I was going. We also picked up another lady who was headed in our direction. As the billowing smokestack became smaller in the rear window, something unexpected happened.
The building that I had traversed in for over a year collapsed in stacks like dominos. The shock reverberated through my body, and I could tell that my companions were feeling it too. My new friend floored it after that, and we tore down West Broadway as though the hounds of hell were chasing us. We finally made it to the NYU campus only to discover that the shuttle was not running. I honestly cannot remember how I made it to the Port Authority, but yet again the tunnels and highway that would have taken me to the refuge of my home were locked down. No one was getting out of or into the city.
I remember stopping at a McDonalds across the street from the Port Authority, trying to get my bearings and figure out what I was going to do next. I kept wondering, what had we done for these people to have attacked us as preliminary news on the tv monitors filtered in. There was no way to communicate with anyone or so I thought initially, but a happy little accident soon led me to discover that I could text my loved ones via my Blueberry which was the only device still working. The first person I contacted was the babysitter to let her know I was alright and to check on my son.
Once I realized I could text regular phone numbers, I texted his father to go pick him up and to let him know I was alright. I then texted my adopted mother. I had no idea when transportation would open back up, but someone at McDonalds said they were going to Hudson River Park because the ferries had opened back up. By this time, it was close to 6 PM. I started the long trek to the terminal where I encountered a long line of displaced people like me trying to get home. I remember distinctly on my solitary journey to the terminal I felt a presence just slightly over my right shoulder and was convinced that my guardian angel walked with me.
I was grateful to make it out of that disaster alive…
I was grateful to make it out of that disaster alive, but certainly not unscathed as I would have terrible nightmares weeks later about the incident. On this day, I remember 9/11 as the day that changed me. Something inside shifted on that day, and I started thinking more about my future; glad that I had one. I came up with the concept for my business which I did not actualize until years later, but all that destruction shook me to my core and what came out of me was the desire to create.
It is moments like these that change your perspective forever, and I am so grateful to be here to share it with you.