Rachel Freeman
Everything was under control
At exactly quarter to nine Eastern Standard Time on the morning of September 11, 2001 a hijacked passenger jet, American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston, Massachusetts crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center tearing a gaping hole in the building and setting it afire. Eighteen minutes later, at exactly 9:03 A.M. a second hijacked airliner, United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston, crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center and explodes. Both buildings are burning. At the moment that the planes hit Jeffrey was sitting at his desk eating a scone, reading the newspaper, Ken was on the 2 and 3 subway trying to switch to the 1 and 9 like he does everyday, wondering why there was a delay, Ben was on a ladder working on a pipe and Eddie Cooke was on the 57th floor of 2 World Trade when he heard a huge explosion. Approximately 3,000 people died in the terrorist attacks on September 11th, these 4 men were among the survivors. They still wonder why they lived when so many others died. Each of them counts many small items of chance- a step taken in time, catching one subway instead of the next, a decision to eat breakfast-that spared him. And now each knows that in the act of survival he lived a dozen lives and saw more death than he ever thought he would see. At the time, none of them knew anything.
Jeffrey Lawrence woke up at quarter after five that morning. He got into the shower, brushed his teeth, shaved and went downstairs. His wife was still in bed when he went into the kitchen, made himself coffee and put some fruit into his cereal. He heard his wife moving around upstairs, she too had to get ready for work but being a school- teacher, she didn’t have to be at work until much later than Jeffrey. He turned on the radio and listened to NPR (national public radio). He did this every morning, feeling that they broadcast the widest expanse of news coverage on the radio. Once his wife was ready for the day, she drove him to the train station. The train takes him to Canal St. From the station he walks over to his office. At ten after eight he arrives at work. Greeted by all of his co-workers they sit and chat for a while. After that he makes himself tea and eats a scone.
September 11th wasn’t special in anyway, Jeffrey went about his normal routine and sat down at his desk to read his newspaper and drink his tea. Suddenly he heard a muffled roar, similar to a truck hitting a big pothole on Church St. He was used to that type of noise, commenting that big trucks are always going down the street carrying loose loads and whenever they hit the potholes they make loud noises similar to what he heard. In addition, he felt tremors run through his office, but he passed them off as insignificant.
The location of one of the director’s of Security Services office is found adjacent to Jeffrey’s office. He came running through and stuck his head in to say, “ a plane hit the World Trade Center.” Jeffrey then turned to look out of his window and saw shreds of paper falling from the sky. He then decided to turn on the radio to 1010 WINS, a New York City radio station, to get information. The broadcaster said that a plane went into the north Tower of the World Trade Center. He then looked out the window again and saw people staring up. He realized he needed to go outside to see what was going on. But he didn’t stay outside for long, and soon he went back upstairs to his office and called his mother to say that he might have to evacuate, since he’s only 9 blocks away.
Jeffrey grabbed Richard, an attorney and they went out side. They walked one block west to W. Broadway, which is in the line of sight to the World Trade Centers and the financial district. Jeffrey looked up to see the gaping fiery hole but knew that he had to keep going. The streets were very crowded, there was no movement, in order to move they had to keep saying, “excuse me.” There were men with cameras and binoculars; they could see people jumping off the tops of the building. People began to get very upset. Suddenly they saw a huge fireball; it was the 2nd plane hitting the South Tower. They could not actually see the plane hit because of their location but they saw the plume of fire. Jeffrey turned to Richard and said, “What the hell is going on here?” Never once did it enter his mind that this was a terrorist plot.
Rumors began to circulate that planes had been hijacked and terrorists were hijacking the planes to crash the planes into the buildings. It was also rumored that another plane was on the way. Never once did it enter Jeffrey’s mind that this was a terrorist plot.
Jeffrey watched the South Tower collapse while standing on W. Broadway. The street acted like a funnel, bringing down a wall of “horrible things”. He ran the opposite way, headed north on W. Broadway, running with the crowd, the wind was blowing in the opposite direction keeping the soot away from him, he ended up on Grand Street. He sat on the street curb and heard a radio blasting.
Ken Sapanski woke up, showered and shaved all in ten minutes that morning. Usually he rushes to catch the 7:27 A.M. train out of Massapequa, which would take him to Penn Station. But the morning of September 11th, Ken was running late. He still brushed his teeth, showered and shaved within ten minutes, but he decided to take the time to eat breakfast, something that he normally does not do. He just put in a new pond in his backyard full of coy fish. In the morning he never has time to feed the fish, however being that he was already running late, he decided to feed his fish and give himself a couple of relaxing moments before getting on the train. He caught the 7:54 train out of Massapequa and went straight into Penn Station. From Penn Station, he caught the 2 and 3 subway, which takes him downtown to Cortland Street. From there he switches to the 1 and 9, this takes about fifteen minutes. Today there was a delay and he wasn’t able to switch subways like he always does. Instead he had to stay on the train for an extra stop and he had to get off at Park Place. When Ken got off the train there was an alarming number of people in the subway area; the transit people would not let anybody take the path (an underground subway that led straight into the World Trade Center), instead they had to go up the stairwell. Ken and the other commuters were not alarmed by this sudden change, they were used to things not going as planned, after all they were in New York City where the unexpected becomes the norm.
Ken walked up the stairs as he was told to do, once he reached the street level, he saw one of the towers was already on fire. There was a lot of commotion on the street, police and firemen were trying to get over to the towers. The word on the street was that a plane had hit the tower. Ken kept walking to work because his building seemed to be ok. He worked in 2 World Trade Center on the fifteenth floor and he didn’t see anything wrong with his building. The commotion began to increase and he gravitated closer to the buildings. He saw a man with a camera, who had seen the plane hit the first building. It was then that the thought of terrorism entered his mind.
The police had partitioned the block closest to the buildings. Ken watched as fire trucks and police cars headed towards the scene. Everything seemed to be under control. Suddenly everybody started screaming,” another plane is coming.” It seemed as if Hollywood could not have described this scene more perfectly. At this moment, everybody started running as far away from the building as possible. But Ken stayed still, he could not move in the utter chaos. He was amazed at how organized the police and firemen were and in their courageousness, going into the building without thinking about the consequences.
Ken hung around the area for around a half an hour, observing fire and hoping that the people he worked with were ok. The police began to create barricades to keep people away; this was done to protect the people on the street. Ken talked to the people on the street; most of them felt that this was a terrorist attack. But they all agreed that everything was under control and it seemed like everything would be ok.
Ken works for P.D. Waterhouse bank, so he decided to walk over to their other office, which is located at 100 Wall Street. He figured that most of his staff would be there, so he went up to the 19th floor where the office is located. From the windows in the building, he was able to see both towers ablaze. He found his friend and co-worker Chris and they were so happy to see each other, because they realized that they were both alive and ok. Chris had seen people jumping out of the windows. The people in his office told Ken that he should call home, so he went to a side office, which was still in full view of the towers and called his wife. He wanted to make sure that she knew that he was ok. As soon as he hung up the phone he heard an enormous vacuum sound, the South Tower had collapsed.
Ken’s immediate response was to leave the city, and within two to three minutes of the tower collapsing a tidal wave of smoke and debris came downtown to his building. Chris and Ken went downstairs and saw about one hundred people just standing around not sure what to do. It was very difficult to breathe, so Ken unbuttoned his work shirt and took his undershirt off so that he’d be able to breathe through it. He ripped it apart so that he and Chris could share it. They decided to walk uptown along the coast, because they felt that if the first tower fell, it could possibly fall sideways, and if they stayed by the coast, there was a lesser amount of buildings, so they possibly wouldn’t be affected. They walked towards Chinatown, seeing people covered in soot, they must have been closer to the buildings then he and Chris had been.
Thousands of people were walking in every which way. The police were helping people get to the Brooklyn Bridge. When Ken and Chris were a block or two away from the Brooklyn Bridge they had to make the decision between going across the bridge or attempting to get to Penn Station.
Ben Stanulis woke up at twenty after five the morning of September 11th. He has an easy routine in the morning, since he gets ready the night before, by taking his shower and everything else. He never has to make a decision about what to wear because he has work clothes that he must wear. He puts them on in the morning, cleans himself up, shaves, brushes his teeth and then turns on the television. He likes to check the weather and also checks to see if anything is happening in the city that would affect his commute. After this he gets into his car and drives the five minutes that it takes him to get to the train station. He gets his newspaper and arrives a minute or two before the train comes. That day he caught the 6:04 train out of Copiague, which is a semi-express, meaning that it makes some local stops. The train is frequently on time and today, as usual streamed into the station on time.
Ben usually reads the paper for the first 15 minutes of his commute and he takes a nap for the remainder of the ride into Penn Station. He usually wakes up automatically right before the train arrives in the station, which is about 7:01 and the train empties out. He then makes his way up to the 2 and 3 subway. He takes the train two stops to Chambers St. He gets off at the front of the train, because that is the only way that you can get off at a stop like this, by being at the front. At Chambers St. he catches the 1 and 9 of the same line, which was waiting there for him that day. Usually he gets off at the stop underneath the World Trade Center, because he works a lot at the towers, but not that day. That day he got off at Rector St. because he was working at 2 Broadway which is down and adjacent to Battery Park. Again he has to exit at the front of the train, and all of the commuters have to reposition themselves to get through the full height turn style that awaits them when they get off of the train. Since the turnstile only goes one direction, they can only exit and not enter, making it difficult to get through. Knowing this, Ben bolts off the train and tries to get himself up into the front of the line, and that day he was successful in doing so. He walks up the stairs and has a three-block walk to his building. He decided to stop at a deli to pick up a coffee and a toasted muffin with jelly. He then makes his way over to his building, getting his building pass out because the building that he works in is also the headquarters for the MTA so there are Security Guards checking all of the employees ID cards. There were two security guards, and Ben greeted them as he made his way over to the elevator bank. He gets onto the elevator that takes him up to the 25th floor and goes into the shanty. A shanty is a room that is made for construction workers to change and keep their equipment and other possession in. Ben puts together his gang box, which is a metal box consisting of his various tools and then uses a pushcart to bring the other tools up to his worksite. There are also benches and plywood tables in this room that the construction workers have made; they have adapted the room to fit them. He and the other construction workers sit around and have muffins, coffee and chat for a couple of minutes, admiring the view they have of the harbor. It was an unusually clear day so they were just enjoying the sight.
They begin work at 7:30; using the freight elevator they take all of their supplies up to the 32nd floor and then had to walk up one flight to the floor they were working on, the 33rd floor. Ben works with a younger man, Joe, who was in his mid 30’s. They were finishing up a job that they had been working on for a while, where they were bringing 3 and a half-inch pipes from the 24th floor up to the 33rd floor. Joe and he were going about their normal work, Ben was standing on a ladder working on a pipe when he heard and felt a bang. The bank felt as if something had fallen on ductwork, it sounded like it was a distance away. Since the roof is on the 35th floor, Ben didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t very loud and Ben felt that it wasn’t an alarming or drastic sound.
An announcement came onto the PA of the building for the transit authority workers to come down to the lobby of the building. Joe and Ben discussed whether they were considered “transit authority workers.” Their first thought was that it was either a fire or a bomb scare, but then they figured that they wouldn’t ask certain specific people if it was something like that. Five minutes passed and another announcement came on, for all personnel except security to report to the lobby of the building. Joe and Ben packed up their tools and went down the regular elevator to the lobby. When they reached the lobby, they were told that two planes had hit the World Trade Center towers. Some of their co-workers had gone onto the roof to see what was going on and while they were up there the second plane few by them and hit the second tower. The plane passed two blocks away from where he was working.
Ben and his coworkers discussed the whole event and came to the conclusion that it was a terrorist attack. At that point, they became very curious. The people in the building wanted everybody to say in the lobby. Ben and one of his coworkers decided to go outside to see what was going on. They walked one block towards Battery Park so that they could line themselves up with a street that showed both towers. They were now six blocks away from the financial district.
There were crowds of people in the street, and a wave of people coming towards the park who were coming from the area of the towers. There were school children that were walking slowly in groups and various other people who had evacuated the building.
Ben and his coworker were standing at the corner of Rector St just staring at the towers, watching police and emergency vehicles trying to get through the crowds of people on the street, they were headed towards the towers. There were a multitude of people talking about their view and thoughts about what they had seen. A lady standing next to Ben turned to him to say that her office is in Tower 2 and if she hadn’t decided to go the gym that morning she would have been in there now. Ben and his coworker then began to discuss the sprinkler system inside the World Trade Centers as they watched the flame and how the flames kept dying out and then reappearing.
About twenty minutes later, they began to discuss the steel in the building, and they realized that it wasn’t going to be able to hold much longer. Ben also noticed that there was no white smoke, which indicated that the sprinkler system was not helping put the fires out. His thoughts then drifted towards the people who were on the floors that were hit, they were either dead or hurt. The people on the floor above had some sort of a chance. He hoped they went on the roof or found a room where they could be safe. Ben hoped the fire would go out and that they’d eventually be saved. He then went back to thinking about the steel and thought that maybe the top floors may collapse. It would be a disaster because then the people on the top floors wouldn’t have a chance.
Thirty-five minutes after they walked onto Rector St. the South Tower collapsed. Ben’s heart sank when he realized that there was no longer any hope for the people inside. The entire tower was gone.
Before that, everybody had been talking about the poor people in the hit areas. After the collapse, everything changed. They were all trying to hope for the best, and afterwards Ben felt like his heart had fallen out. He felt empty, and had lost all hope for their survival. Everyone was curious how the tower was going to fall, and if they fell towards them how close would they get. Everybody walked in a high pace, three blocks alongside park, in the opposite direction of the towers. They ended up near the Staten Island Ferry. Ben figured the ferry would be crowded and the building that you had to wait for the ferry in provided no protection. Suddenly a huge cloud of soot and smoke covered them. It was like it was snowing, and people became entrenched with dirt. The only indoor area that was close by was the South Ferry subway station of the 1 and 9. Inside that building are eight to ten swinging doors on either side. Although they are not well sealed, they weren’t overly crowded so Ben and his coworker went inside to get away from the debris.
There were many people inside crying and becoming very emotional, they were starting to feel the effects of the horrors they had seen. A Middle Eastern man next to Ben went down on his knees in a praying position and stayed there for fifteen minutes with his head on the floor.
Smoke began to enter the buildings; they were no way to cover yourself from inhaling the soot. There wasn’t much hysteria; everyone was trying to stay calm. As Ben was entering the building everything had gotten really dark, but inside the building he had some sort of protection. Twenty minutes went by and it began to get lighter so he went outside to see what was going on. There he met one of his co-workers John, who is an Assistant Superintendent. Ben looked down the street to see where the trade center had been and there was just a cloud of smoke. He told John to come inside, and as they were going into the building, John got a phone call on his two-way radio from a foreman that was inside one of the towers. He was calling to say that he got out, and was on his way out. John asked what happened to the rest of the guys and the man told him that they had been right behind him, when they were on the 57th floor of Tower 2. The man said that Ed, a close friend of Ben’s had been there as well but it sounded like he had gotten out. Ben hadn’t even realized that Ed was working there. Ben and John sat in the building waiting.
Eddie Cooke’s alarm went off at quarter after five the morning of September 11th. He took a shower, went downstairs, ate breakfast and made his lunch for the day. He and his son went to the Babylon Train station to catch the 6:07 train into Penn Station. From Penn Station, he gets on the 7th avenue line of the subway, which takes him to Cortland Street. The exit for the subway is inside the trade center complex, making it a fast walk for Eddie. Beginning his work at the World Trade Center on Monday, September 10th, Eddie had to go downstairs to the Security Department found in the 1st basement of 1 World Trade to pick up his permanent pass. On his first day they had given him a temporary pass, and on September 11th he was to receive his permanent pass so that he’d be able to get into his building to do the work that he was hired for. Once he received his pass, Eddie walked through the concourse between the Trade Centers and went over to 2 World Trade where his job was, and got into the elevator. He pressed the button for the 57th floor and waited to arrive. He was doing a job on telephone and data, and was working with Margie and Vito at pulling cables.
Around 9 o’clock, they heard a huge explosion, immediately after that they saw smoke and lots of papers falling onto the city. Being electricians, the three of them assumed that it was an electrical explosion. They were on the South East side of the North Tower so they could not see the actual cause of all of the black smoke that was flowing out of the tower. Over the loud speaker came an announcement that a small plane had hit 1 World Trade and that the building that they were in, 2 World Trade was secure and that they encouraged people to stay, and that they would be ok if they stayed.
Eddie then decided to call his wife to tell her about the plane hitting 1 World Trade. He told her exactly what the announcement had said, that a small plane had hit the building. She informed him that it was not a small plane but an airliner no less. While Eddie was on the phone with her, he looked towards the stairwell and saw swarms of people in them, making their way downstairs. He told his wife that everything was ok and he was going to wait for the crowd to die down before he would attempt to get outside. Five of the guys that he had been working with decided to leave, Margie decided to as well, four of them stayed.
Eddie got off of the phone and walked to the other side of the building. Suddenly Vito comes running up to Eddie, right into his arms, this was followed by a huge explosion, there was a violent roar shaking the whole building. Vito said that a plane hit them. He had seen the plane headed towards them and that is when he ran towards Eddie. Shortly after this, there were winds coming through the building, out of the bathroom stalls, and the ceiling started to show signs of collapse. The smell of airliner fuel was invading every part of the floor they were on.
Eddie and Vito didn’t know what to do, first they tried to find everybody that they knew and were working with. They noticed that the elevator shaft had been blown out. Eddie was afraid that a fireball would come down the shaft. In addition, because of the winds, he thought perhaps he’d be sucked out of the windows. They decided that it would be best if they left the building. As they were headed towards the stairwell, Eddie saw some tools hanging and realized that they belonged to his crew, so he put them into the gang box and locked it. He was figuring they’d be back, perhaps even by that afternoon.
John, Vito, Eddie and Bill all made their way down the stairs. Bill had suffered from a heart attack three years earlier so the men wanted to make sure that he’d be ok making it down 57 flights of stairs. They closed the door to the construction site and to the stairwell so that in case the fire reached their floor, it wouldn’t get into the stairs. Everything seemed to be under control. It was like a routine evacuation, as if nothing was really wrong and an airplane had not just hit the building.
Eddie began to notice that the stairwell walls were buckled and cracked. The temperature began to rise within the stairs and it had become very dusty. There wasn’t much smoke, more dust. At around the 20th floor the men decided to stop to take a break. They got out of the stairway and went onto that floor. It was getting smokier and dustier the longer they were in the building. On the 10th floor they encountered two firemen who asked if there was anybody that was behind them. The men told them about two women, one who was overweight and the other who may have been pregnant who were having trouble getting down the stairs. The firemen were told to go up to the 100th floor, and Eddie could see the look of fear on their faces. Hopefully they got out, Eddie reflected later. Another man came running down the stairs, all cut up. The people in the stairs all got out of his way so he could get out safely, people were not thinking purely of themselves, they were out to help everybody.
At the concourse level, every type of government official was represented, marshals, cops, firemen, engineer. They were all there guiding people out of the building. Everything still seemed very much in control, although the pace of the walking had sped up to a fast walk. Eddie and his coworkers walked past the path trains and went up the escalators. They ended up on Church and Vessey St. near the cemetery attached to St. Paul’s Episcopal church. They looked up to see both buildings on fire. All of them tried to call their wives or family on Bill’s cell phone but the connections were not working. They then called Samuel’s Electric, which is their central headquarters, and told everybody there that they were safe. They then asked if the people there could get in touch with their wives of family.
They walked towards the Federal Building, as they were walking they heard a huge roar, like a 747 had come right next to them. Eddie wasn’t sure if it was a missile or another plane. As he turned to look, he was almost convinced that he had seen the first tower fall, but an engineer who was standing near him said that it was impossibility for the towers to fall. He said that they were built to withstand earthquakes and various other natural disasters, and that there was no way they could fall. Since they were only a couple of blocks way the dust cloud came towards them. A woman on the ground next to them began to have an asthma attack. Eddie and the other men picked her up and dragged her out of harm’s way. They tried to get over to a side street, but the smoke had cleared. Two ironworkers were standing next to them. They started to tell the men how they had been putting iron antennae’s on top of the AT&T building when they saw a plane coming in real low near SOHO. The plane turned to its side to avoid the antennae’s that the men had put up and the American flags that had been on top of the antenna had ripped a little from the plane’s close proximity. Eddie and the men then continued onto Broadway and heard a second huge roar.
Michael George got out of bed at 6:00 am, and caught the 6:37 train out of the Garden City station. After arriving in Penn Station, he caught the 1 and 9 train that goes down to the World Trade Center. By 7:30 he was sitting at his desk, preparing for the day. He and one of his co-workers were hammering out the details of their contest to lose twenty pounds by Thanksgiving.
At 7:45 am, Andy went over to the window to demonstrate where they’d put the scale, when they heard and felt a rumble in the building. At that point everyone ran to the window, but before they could get there, they saw smoke, metal, paper and all kinds of debris completely block their view from the thirty-three floors up. Michael yelled across the floor for everyone to get the hell out. He grabbed his bag and ran towards the exit. As he entered the hallway and ran past the elevators, one opened. He started to go in but stopped and headed for the stairs. Later he learned that the guys that had taken the elevator were down and out of the building in ninety seconds as opposed to his twenty-minute climb.
As Michael’s entire floor emptied into the stairwell, they encountered the traffic of the thirty-three floors below them doing the same. At times no one moved for a minute or so, but for the most part it was an orderly process. Everyone was calm, but nervous, as they still didn’t know what had happened. He heard bits of other people’s conversations, “a plane hit tower 1”, which he pictured to be a Cessna, knowing that no jetliners routes brought them that close to the World Trade Center. When they arrived on the fourth floor, an announcement came over the PA telling everyone to stay in the building; the accident was isolated in Tower 1 so there was no threat to the tower 2 that they were in. Thankfully, no one Michael knew paid that any attention. The reality of the situation hit everyone when they reached the ground floor and saw the carnage that had fallen into the courtyard. The wreckage of the plane and pieces of the building were piled on top of what use to be the state where they held concerts during the summer. As he went towards the window, to look up at the point of impact, Michael stopped as he noticed people falling to the ground. That was the point that his fight or flight response took over and he began running towards the exits.
There were Port Authority employees directing everybody through the mall to avoid the falling debris. As Michael was running, one of his friends called him over saying that they should relax and stick together. He paused for a moment, as if he was going to take his friend’s advice, but he was unable to overcome his fear and continued running.
Michael exited out on Liberty St. with 2 World Trade over his right shoulder, crossed the street and headed south. At the time, he had no clue where he was going, he was just running. As he crossed the street he heard the sound of what he thought was a missile from behind him, heard the impact and felt the heat from the 85 stories above. Fortunately, he was far enough away from the building not to get hit by any falling debris. As he continued on, tripping over papers and other stuff from the towers, he noticed how he could barely see the blacktop of the street; it was so full of debris. Women were losing their shoes as they ran, many stopped to look back at the towers, Michael just kept on running. As he ran, he frantically tried calling his wife, then his mom, then his in-laws all with no luck. After 10 minutes of trying to run and get a signal, he threw his phone into his bag, at which point it finally ran. It was his mother in law, calling to see that he was ok; he let her know that he made it out ok, and at that point his phone went dead and he lost the signal.
Millions of thoughts were running through Michael’s head at this time. He covered his mouth fearing chemical weapons, wondering who was doing this, was it happening in every other major city, what was going to hit next? Keeping one eye forward and another towards the sky, he moved north, using the Empire State Building as his guide. He finally stopped after twenty minutes of running and looked back at the towers.
Jeffrey was sitting at Grand St. when the second roar occurred, and although he couldn’t see the second tower collapse, the smoke that accompanied it let him know. Ken decided to walk towards the 59th street Bridge. It was eerie how empty the streets were. While on the bridge, he heard the second roar and turned to see a huge cloud of dust where the trade centers had once been. Ben was in the train station when the second roar came about, and then suddenly, just as the first cloud had overcome the station, the second cloud covered the station. Eddie and his coworkers kept walking as the second tower collapsed, they weren’t running, but they did not want to be engulfed in the huge cloud of smoke that was rapidly approaching. Michael finally got to Penn Station and stopped at a store to get a bottle of water, when he saw Tower 2 collapse on TV.
Writing style inspired by John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Special thanks to Jeffrey Lawrence, Ken Sapanski, Ben Stanulis, Eddie Cooke and Michael George for their candid stories.