My Husband Wrote This Two Days After September 11

On September 13, 2001, at 5:04 in the morning, my husband, Bill, sat down and recorded what he had experienced in Lower Manhattan just two days earlier.

Bill worked on the fifth floor in the building located at 4 World Financial Center directly across West Street from the World Trade Center. He was at work when the first plane struck the North Tower.

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Bill died in 2019 at the age of 60. As we mark 25 years since September 11, I wanted to share the account he left behind. It captures not only what he saw that morning, but the confusion of those first minutes, when no one yet understood what was happening.

I have lightly edited his original account for clarity and readability, but the experiences, observations and emotions are Bill's.

This is his story.

September 11, 2001

The subways were running slow that morning, so instead of reaching my desk at about 7:45, I arrived around 8:00.

My workday began somewhat more hectic than usual.

I had just gotten off the phone at about 8:45 when I heard an explosion and felt a tremendous rumble. I knew it was a bomb—or at least that's what I thought—but tried to convince myself that it couldn't be.

I remember thinking, hoping, that something large had simply fallen in the hallway and caused the rumble.

Almost immediately, people outside my office were screaming—not in panic, but in disbelief.

I ran out of my office and into an office about 20 feet away that faced the World Trade Center. My office was on the fifth floor of the World Financial Center, South Tower, directly across West Street from the World Trade Towers.

I jumped onto a desk and strained my neck to look upward.

I saw tremendous flames shooting out from the upper floors of World Trade Center Tower 1, the North Tower.

I was almost mesmerized by the flames and by the amount of debris falling onto the road between my building and the World Trade Center. My eyes followed what looked like a large piece of glass or steel as it fell to the street.

Then I noticed a body lying in the road, probably blown out by the impact.

I was wearing a blue shirt that day—the same tone of blue as my Uneco shirt that I had recently bought in the Bahamas. I probably watched for several minutes before going back to my office to call Jackie and Mom and Dad.

Very briefly, I told them what had happened and that I was OK. I was safe.

Remember, at the time, we did not know how it had happened.

People in my office were saying they had heard a plane had crashed into WTC #1. I think we all had a sick feeling that whatever caused the explosion was probably related to terrorism.

I went back to the window with a colleague who was a Vietnam veteran. Based on the amount of debris on the ground one block south, he said it had to be a bomb.

We were looking out a window facing east. The plane had struck WTC #1 on the north side.

Then I ran into our "Money Room" about 100 feet away. It was a small trading room where Treasury funds the company.

I'm not sure where I was when it happened. I remember looking at the television in the Money Room, and the next thing I knew there was an even bigger explosion and rumble.

We looked out the window facing east, and the fireball looked like it engulfed easily a dozen floors.

That was the signal for the small group I was with.

We evacuated.

Getting Out

All five of us stopped to take a leak before leaving. We headed down the fire stairs together.

At the bottom, we came to a door. When we opened it, we realized we had a big problem.

The door opened to the east side of our building, toward West Street.

We were staring up at the World Trade Center.

Huge chunks of metal and glass were falling onto the road in front of us.

What stands out most in my mind, though, is the sound of the tiny pieces of glass, metal and concrete. I couldn't really see them, but I could hear them.

It sounded like hail hitting the roof of a car.

We collectively decided it wasn't safe to go outside and run around the building toward the west.

So we ran back up the stairs a flight or two, hopped over a railing onto another set of stairs and found a door that exited onto the main concourse level, about two stories above the ground.

From there, we passed a couple of retail storefronts and went down a large flight of stairs into the lobby of the World Financial Center South Tower Gate House.

This was where cabs and limos picked up and dropped off people in my building.

The entrance to Merrill Lynch's gym, PLUS ONE, was there, too.

I tried to enter the gym to get my running shoes, but the doors were locked.

The other guys joked and asked if I was planning to run home.

Actually, I was.

Maybe not all the way home, but I figured that if I could get to Pelham, Jackie could pick me up—or perhaps the train would be running limited service from there.

It was then and there that I laid out my plan of escape in my mind.

I was going to get to the New Balance store on 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, buy a pair of running shoes, shorts and a T-shirt, and get out of Manhattan.

It wasn't as if I felt an immediate sense of danger at that moment, but I probably realized there was no way I would get on a subway or train.

Watching the Towers Burn

The other guys I was with went toward the ferry to Jersey City.

I stood near the circular drive outside the World Financial Center South Tower Gate House, staring in horror across the street.

I think it was then that it hit me that I knew several people in the Twin Towers.

I stood in a large crowd, watching people jump or fall as the fires consumed more floors.

I watched people trapped above the fire wave shirts or towels, desperately trying to attract the attention of rescuers.

I got choked up thinking that my friend Rob might be up there.

Rob covered me as a bond broker for almost my entire career as a bond trader. I thought about our trips to Vail, the front-row center seats at Madison Square Garden to see the Grateful Dead in 1991.

But most of all, I thought about the St. Jude Novena card he had given me for a very special intention years earlier.

Several years after I returned the card to Rob, he gave it to another bond trader whose parents were in critical condition after a helicopter crash.

They both eventually recovered.

I went into a small chapel about 100 feet to the south to pray for Rob's safety and also for another former bond broker who had called me out of the blue the day before and told me he had started at Cantor Fitzgerald three months earlier.

I knew Cantor occupied the top few floors of one of the Towers. I couldn't remember which one.

The chapel was full of people, many of whom were completely distraught.

One woman asked to borrow my cell phone to call someone in the Towers, but the circuits were overloaded.

I knelt next to another woman whose nephew was in the North Tower and then tried to console a man who was crying for his wife.

After five or ten minutes, I left.

I watched the horror again.

I remember using my gym bag to shield the sun from my eyes.

I can't forget the image of both Towers burning against the clear blue, cloudless sky in the background.

"Run for Your Lives"

After a short time, a New York City Park Ranger told the crowd to move north along the Hudson River.

Several hundred people began following the path toward the Boat Basin in a slow, orderly manner.

I never thought the buildings were in danger of collapsing. I have to assume the rest of the crowd felt the same way.

I didn't know how the fires would be extinguished, but I suppose I figured they would be.

We were told to leave not because officials feared an imminent collapse, but because police were concerned the smoke might be toxic.

When I was behind the Winter Garden—the glass atrium that connected my building with the American Express Building—I stopped to watch for a moment or two.

I had only moved about 50 yards from the chapel when all hell broke loose.

There was what sounded like another tremendous explosion.

I saw WTC #2 come tumbling down.

I'll never forget the policewoman next to me screaming at the top of her lungs:

"Run for your lives!"

As she yelled, she dropped her sunglasses, nightstick and what looked like a flashlight.

Now the crowd truly was running for their lives.

I thought another plane had struck the Tower and brought it down. I was concerned there might be more planes on the way.

I also thought the Tower would probably take other adjacent buildings down with it.

I quickly rounded the New York Mercantile Exchange Building and continued running north along the river and the park.

I was nervous about being in such a large crowd. I felt trapped. I couldn't break out and get away.

It was like the start of the New York City Marathon on the Verrazano.

I was still hemmed in as I rounded the High School with the river to the west and a construction fence to the east.

The crowd thinned out a few blocks south of the Traveler's Building because we had access to the West Side Highway.

I asked a schoolteacher if I could help watch or escort her young pupils. Many of them were crying, but she said another teacher was bringing up the rear.

When I reached the Traveler's Building, I stopped to take a break and turned to watch again for a while.

It looked strange seeing only one Tower.

I was sickened seeing people in the North Tower above the fire still signaling for help.

At that point, those still alive must have known it was only a matter of time before their Tower fell, too.

As I thought about Rob again, I saw the radio tower of WTC #1 disappear.

Then it was like déjà vu.

The North Tower rumbled and collapsed.

This time, however, I was far enough away that I didn't feel in any danger.

Walking North

I couldn't stay long because the police made the crowd continue marching north.

I don't remember what time it was, but it seemed as though we were suspended for a long time.

As we continued north, I had images of long lines of war refugees streaming out of a war-torn city.

My plan was still to go to the New Balance store on 42nd Street for sneakers.

Every now and then the crowd would pause near a parked car with its radio on to get updates.

I stopped at a Chase Bank ATM to withdraw $200. When I came to a deli, I stopped to buy two bottles of water for my long trek home.

I finally made it to 42nd Street and turned east.

My cell phone still did not work, so when I came upon a pay phone with only three people in line—instead of the usual ten—I waited to call Jackie.

I think I was around Ninth Street and it was about 1:00 to 1:30.

I can't explain why it took me so long to walk that distance, but Jackie said that's when I called.

I talked to Jackie and each of my children and told them that somehow I would get to Westchester.

As I walked toward the New Balance store, I decided to take a break at the Hilton in Times Square.

I sat in the lobby for about 15 minutes with scores of other people watching the news.

It was then that I learned Grand Central was running limited train service.

I decided to walk to 125th Street to get the train there rather than venture into Grand Central Terminal.

As I walked out of the hotel, I looked up at the buildings around me and didn't exactly feel safe.

Jack told me later that evening that he saw me on the news as I walked through Times Square.

Somewhere in the 60s, my cell phone began to work.

I had several messages, the first from Bruce in Florida.

I sat down at an outdoor café and made a few calls. I told everyone I hadn't spoken to that I was OK.

It was while I was talking to Dad that I heard fighter jets patrolling the city for the first time.

My next break was in the upper 90s.

I sat down with two guys trying to get home to the Bronx. I had two bottles of water and gave them one as we swapped stories.

One of them had been in WTC #7.

I finally made it to the 125th Street station and caught a 3:30 local train to New Haven.

I stood the whole way.

The man standing across from me was wearing dust-covered shoes.

The long ride was basically quiet.

I suppose everyone was lost in his or her thoughts.

Home

I arrived home at about 5:30.

I probably never hugged Jackie and our kids harder.

I appreciated the support that evening from family and friends. Mom and Dad, Dick, Ellen and Charles and their kids, and Jack came over. I also spoke with Barbara, Maddie, Mary Jane, Billy from college, Joe, Ray, Jay, Ant, Doug and Tommy B.

Ed called me the next day.

I may have missed a few names.

The fear and horror fade over time, but I think many people who live or work in New York City feel there will be another attack—and hope and pray they remain safe.

— Bill