'It Still Feels Like Yesterday': Long Island 9/11 Survivor On Ordeal

MELVILLE, NY — Saturday marks 20 years since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center that shook the core of the city, state and nation. Thousands perished and many families lost loved ones.

For Rocco Pasquarello, a 9/11 survivor who was working his routine shift in the second tower that was hit, it does not feel like two decades have transpired since the life-altering event.

"It still feels like yesterday," Pasquarello, 55, of Melville, told Patch.

Memories of that day always remain in the back of Pasquarello's mind. With each anniversary, those thoughts come to the forefront.

"This whole week, I’ll get minimal sleep, because I’m thinking," he said. "It was not my time. I always told people I was very selfish that day."

Pasquarello's primary focus that day as he descended the tower was returning to his wife and two daughters. At the time, Julianna was 3 and Daniela was 1. A month-and-a-half after the attack, Pasquarello wrote a letter for his daughters — which they were not shown until they were in middle school — explaining the events of that day and why it left a lasting impact upon him.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Pasquarello went to work at Fuji Bank on the 81st floor of Two World Trade Center. It was like any other morning. As he recalled in a 2011 interview, Pasquarello grabbed coffee with his coworkers, joked with the security guards and greeted Jack, who ran the football pool each year.

That was the last time he saw them.

An explosion shook the building at 8:46 a.m. Debris pelted Pasquarello's tower, now enveloped in a ball of flame. Initially, he thought a sightseeing helicopter crashed into the building. Fire alarms blared. An announcement over the intercom called for evacuating the building. As Pasquarello walked down the emergency stairs, light smoke and the smell of burnt aviation fuel filled the air. Pasquarello's group of six tried to remain calm. They heard an announcement by Port Authority that One World Trade Center was struck by an aircraft and that emergency personnel were responding.

The group reached the 55th floor in 13 minutes. Pasquarello sent emails to relatives and neighbors requesting them to call his wife to let her know of what was happening.

Then, another message from Port Authority came over the loudspeakers: One World Trade Center was struck by an aircraft, but Two World Trade Center was "safe and secure," and that those in the building had the options of remaining where they were, continuing to evacuate or go back to work.

Pasquarello's group mulled over what to do before deciding on grabbing an elevator on the 55th floor that would take them to the 44th-floor sky lobby. From there, they planned to take an express elevator down to the first floor. They then intended to go to the New Jersey Data Center Backup Site. The group did not know it was a terrorist attack.

"We said, ‘We’ll just keep going out,’" Pasquarello recalled. "That one little thing could have made a big difference. Who knows what would have happened if we went back up or stood where we were?"

The second plane hit at 9:03 a.m. — just before the doors closed on the 55th-floor elevator. A loud explosion was heard above the group.

"The elevator pitched sharply from side to side, we felt the percussion wave and heat flow over us, and then parts of the elevator ceiling came down on us," Pasquarello said.

He and the others in their group dove out of the elevator as chunks of metal rained down by the elevator. They ran for the bottom, never turning back to see if the elevator fell down the shaft like others in the building had.

Men helped women who took their shoes off to maintain their balance as they climbed down the soot-caked stairs. Explosions rumbled above those evacuating, but the stairs remained free of fire and heavy smoke. No firemen or police officers were encountered on the stairs.

After 25 minutes, Pasquarello reached the first floor. There were broken windows. Bloody floors. Two feet of smoking debris. Bodies. All in the line of sight. Police and fire departments then evacuated those who reached the base of the tower. When he looked up, both towers were ablaze.

"It is an image I’ll never forget," Pasquarello said.

Once outside, Pasquarello hesitated. He thought of staying to help the injured, as he used to be a volunteer fire captain and paramedic. He just so happened to be between stints with departments at the time. EMS workers and firefighters treated people on the sidewalk near the building in front of a Krispy Kreme Donuts store.

Pasquarello thought of his family: how they would be worried and would want him home as soon as possible. He kept walking.

"That decision probably saved my life," he said.

That decision, however, still makes him feel a tinge of guilt.

"I’m the type of person where if there is a car accident or somebody hurt, I’ll stop. I always tell people that day, I was selfish. I just wanted to get home to my family because they were worried about me. I always think about me being sort of selfish. But maybe my purpose was not to perish that day like my friends did, or the firemen did, or anyone inside those damn buildings. I was meant to help the community further come back."

Pasquarello and two others walked for roughly five minutes to Cousin Enzo Coppola’s pizzeria on Water Street, where he called his wife. A few moments later, the Twin Towers collapsed. A few hours later, he took a Long Island Rail Road train home.

When Pasquarello arrived home at 5:30 p.m., he was met by his family, his in-laws and several neighbors. He recalls Julianna telling him her version of events.

"'Once upon a time, Daddy had two buildings. And one day, a bad man flew his plane into Daddy’s building and there was a fire. But Daddy was OK and he ran, ran, ran with his friends to the pizzeria for a slice."

Pasquarello's version differs.

"All Daddy thought about that day when he was evacuating was not that he could have died, but
how he wanted to get home to his daughters and mommy."

Twenty-three of Pasquarello's co-workers died when the plane hit or the building fell. He personally knew half of them. Most of them took the express elevator back up when the Port Authority said it was OK, Pasquarello said. Some security guards made sure that everyone else was out before they left. The Japanese senior managers never left the offices, as they made calls to Japan and awaited instructions, Pasquarello said. They, too, lost their lives.

"Daddy’s tried to get through this the best he could," he wrote to his daughters. "He still cries, gets angry easily not and can’t easily fall asleep at times."

The feeling of sadness has never left Pasquarello.

"I think about my friends who I don’t see anymore from my job. City firemen who I knew from my old fire departments. The feelings do get pretty raw this week where I have trouble sleeping. I think it’s normal."

Pasquarello gets tested each year for physical underlying health conditions. He has remained healthy thus far, though he has friends who beat cancer as a result of the attacks.

As the 20th year of the 9/11 terrorist attacks are upon us, Pasquarello, now a volunteer fireman with the Melville Fire Department, has helped plan a 9/11 memorial.

Twenty years later, Pasquarello is now talking about 9/11 with people who were just 5 years old when the towers fell. One of the questions they ask: whether he feels like people are forgetting what happened that day. With each memorial Pasquarello hosts, he hopes it will serve as a reminder.

"One of the reasons why we keep doing it is to make people remember again what it is," he said.

The 20th-anniversary memorial will carry a personal touch. Photos of the faces of those from the Town of Huntington who died in the attacks will be placed around the monument in Melville.

While Pasquarello willingly attends and plans the ceremonies, he still feels nervousness and a bit of apprehension, he said.

"I feel bad for looking at the crowds and you don’t know if there are family members of the people who perished there."

He hopes that the ceremonies provide solace to those who lost loved ones that day and serve as a reminder that the Melville Fire Department has not forgotten them. The firemen, police officers and EMS workers who gave their lives protecting others are all heroes, Pasquarello said. But he holds everyone else who died that day to the same esteem.

"Those people who went to work, the people who worked at the bank where I worked; the security guards, the cleaners: They were all heroes. They went to work. They were providing for their families. They can’t be forgotten or their loss minimized. They’re the same level as everyone else in my eyes."

One lesson Pasquarello said he learned from the events of that day was that the actions of a few fanatics should not cast blame on an entire religion or group of people.

"Sometimes, people get very stereotypical. You can’t be," he said. "There are good and evil people across the board. It doesn’t matter the color of the skin, the religion. You’re good or you’re bad. It’s cut and dry. You just can’t go after one ethnic group or religion. That’s one thing I’ve always tried to implore upon my kids and my family or whenever I talk. You don’t blame this one group. It doesn’t work that way."

Fast-forward 20 years, and Pasquarello's daughters are 23 and 21. Both in school in different parts of the country. He still works in the IT department of Mizuho Corporate Bank — the result of a three-way merger that included Fuji Bank.

He remains alive to support his family: the very same mission that drove his decisions as he escaped the tower.