Memories of 9/11/01

[Eddyde]

Hi all,
For some reason this 9/11 anniversary hit me a little harder than usual. Not sure why but I felt compelled to continue working on an essay I started years ago. I worked on it most of the day and for what its worth I think its sort of ready to post.


My Experience

On the morning of September 11th 2001, I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard what I thought was thunder, but it made no sense, as it was a beautiful clear day. A minute later the phone rang, my friend, M.L. was hysterical “terrorists are crashing planes into the World Trade Center, people are jumping out of the windows on fire” She worked in lower Manhattan in a building a few blocks away from the towers. She asked me what to do and I said, walk home over the bridge, don’t get on a subway.

I then ran the block and a half down to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and saw the horror first hand. I tried to process what I was seeing and hearing Bothe buildings engulfed in flames, clear across several floors. Some of the onlookers around me were screaming and crying. I had watched those towers being built when from the Promenade when I was a child. Now I was watching them die.

At the time, I was a general contractor and was supposed to head to lower Manhattan for a late morning, pre-construction meeting at the site of a major loft renovation that I was to begin in the next couple of weeks.

I decided I should go and try to find my friend by walking over the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan. I went back home and grabbed my backpack and threw a few things in it, camera, bottle of water, etc. I figured it would be prudent to have a pocket radio with earbuds to monitor the news so I went to the RadioShack, located across the street to buy one. It was there on the TV I saw the first tower fall. I headed back down to the Promenade but there was nothing to see but an enormous cloud of dust obscuring the entire view of lower Manhattan.

I then headed for the bridge, en route the second tower fell. When I got to the bridge thousands of people were coming over the roadway into Brooklyn. I waled over the bridge to Manhattan.

When I arrived, People covered with dust were fleeing downtown. I saw a woman wearing a Red Cross uniform handing out N-95 masks. I volunteered to help, and I was given a case of masks to hand out. In one of the dozens of fire trucks staged along Chambers Street, some firefighters asked for masks, I went from truck to truck handing out the masks until they were gone. Then one of the firefighters asked for some water, I went into an abandoned deli and filled my back pack with bottled water and distributed them to the firefighters. I made several trips until two police officers stopped me, they accused me of looting. I explained what I was doing and they let me go with the proviso it would be my last round.

I then headed to the job site on Franklin Street. I spent about an hour there watching the news and collecting my thoughts. I wanted to help more so I left the site to find where I could volunteer. I eventually found a police officer who informed me of an emergency aid station in the parking lot of the (former) Pathmark Supermarket at the base of the Manhattan Bridge and they were looking for volunteers. So I made my way there on foot. Upon arriving, I was assigned with other volunteers, to help decontaminate victims. We were given Poland Spring “Sport” water bottles to wash the dust out their eyes. This continued for a couple of hours until professional personnel arrived to take over and our services were no longer needed. I asked where I could help further and was told that NYU Downtown Hospital (I knew it as Beekman Hospital at the time) needed blood donors.

I made my way there. Upon arriving at the hospital, the scene was eerily calm. There were dozens of empty gurneys lined up in front of the Emergency department, waiting for masses of casualties that never came. It was apparent that there were very few injured as most of the victims died. Thus the hospital said they didn’t need any blood donations. I asked where I could help further and was told to try the World Trade Center site (Ground Zero, though not referred to that at the time).

I made my way there, being diverted at several intersections along the way by police. I eventually made it down to the battery and headed up the West Side to the site. I arrived at the area along West Street, between Fulton and Liberty Streets at approximately 3:00pm. There was no formal arrangement for volunteers but I soon found a man, John (I never knew his last name), trying to set up a makeshift table out of some of the debris. I helped him. He informed me he was a store owner in Battery Park City and he intended to distribute water and snack food to the rescue personnel as no such support was coming in from the outside.

Over the next several hours about a dozen of us civilian volunteers, took water, soft drinks, candy, chips, etc. taken from a supermarket and a couple of delis in BPC area, and distributed it to the first responders, who were trying to recover possible survivors and clear the debris. Later, in the early evening we made sandwiches and distributed those till Around midnight. Then the need for the food and water had subsided and we were asked to help look for survivors amongst the debris and wreckage of the towers. Sadly only bodies and body parts were found.

Despite the carnage, there was wasn’t really any blood to be seen, the whole area was covered in grey dust nothing looked like what it was, surreal. At one point, I stepped on what I thought was some insulation but was a severed leg.

As there was no way for heavy equipment to get into the wreckage at that time. We were also asked to help move heavy pieces of steel so bodies could be recovered. Ropes were attached to the sections and a hundred or so of us would pull it away. I also assisted in bringing Oxygen and Acetylene tanks over piles of debris to the guys cutting up the steel.

At one point my eyes were burning from the dust and I received aid at an aid station. I collapsed in a corner, from exhaustion around 5 am. I awoke about 8 to find the national guard and the Red Cross had arrived and they were distributing proper water and food etc. I left GZ around 10:00 am Sept 12.

On the way home I saw the National Guard with machine-gun armed Humvees around City Hall and realized the world would never be the same.

Debunking Notes:

I was present, about 2 blocks away, from Building 7 when it collapsed. A few minutes before it did, a firefighter was announcing it was in danger of doing so and everyone should stay clear. When it came down there was a roar and rumble of sound and vibration but absolutely no explosions or sharp shockwaves, associated with high explosives, were heard or felt. I had attended the controlled demolition of the Elmhurst Gas Tanks earlier that summer (7/15/2001), so I had a fresh reference of how that would have sounded and felt.

As a construction professional, I was curious as how the towers were constructed and took note. A lot of the beams and columns were bent and twisted, many were still straight but they all had separated at the joints. It was apparent the bolts holding them together had failed by shearing off. In hindsight, I saw no evidence that any of the untouched structural pieces, having been cut or compromised by explosives, thermite or any deliberate means. Only the pieces that needed to be moved to recover victims were cut with Oxy-Acetylene torches, after the fact.

Edward de Laurot

Photos:

9/11/01

On the morning of September 11th 2001, I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard what I thought was thunder, but it made no sense, as it was a beautiful clear day. A minute later the phone rang, my friend, M.L was hysterical “terrorists are crashing planes into the World Trade Center...

www.flickr.com

 

[francist]

I’m glad you were able to finally get that out, Eddy. I can imagine it will have been gnawing at you all these years.

It’s strange how things affect people differently, and how we process those things. For me I couldn’t stop drawing, but I kept drawing the same shapes over and over again, unconsciously whenever I was holding a pencil or pen. It lasted for months until I finally sat down and sketched enough to work from. Then I bought steel, and welded it together, painted it in red oxide primer and put it up in my back garden. It’s there to this day, my silent tribute to the fallen.

-frank

 

[Aukai]

Well put together story, very interesting reading. I was just getting up at the ambulance station that morning. Very chilling thinking about the people involved, the first responders, and not being able to do anything, but watch. Thank you for writing that up.

 

[Ischgl99]

Thank you for your story, and everything you did to help. I know exactly how you feel and I still find it hard to talk about the events of that day. I grew up in NJ and seeing the Twin Towers was a normal part of traveling near the city. My first time visiting them was in about 1978, I think I have a picture with my uncle and brother on the roof observation deck somewhere in my collection. My last time visiting them was a few weeks before the attack, I met my wife, then girlfriend, at the towers on our way to dinner. She asked if I wanted to come up to her office, but I was hungry, and looking through the machining magazines in the Barnes and Nobel in the lobby, and said that could wait until next time…

My wife and I have never been to any of the memorials, and can’t watch the news on the anniversaries to this day. I was working on a project at a wastewater treatment plant across the river in Newark and had a great view of the Twin Towers. I came down from the processing room after getting the machines started for the breakfast truck shortly before 9am and saw the north tower on fire. I grabbed my breakfast and ran up to the roof stopping to get my camera on the way up. By time I got to the roof, the second tower was hit, but I didn’t know that, so I started to take some pictures. Some guys from the plant were on the roof and saw all of it and explained what happened. As I was running up to the roof, I thought it was just a fire in the north tower and not that big a deal. Boy was I wrong. My wife was my girlfriend at the time and worked on the 87th floor of the North Tower and the expression it hit me like a ton of bricks would have been an understatement.

It took about an hour to get in touch with my wife, turns out she was on the train on her way in to her office and in the tunnel under the Hudson River when the first plane hit. All the trains into the city were stopped and held position until the knew what was happening. They then reversed direction and went back to the stations in NJ. When she called, I raced to her town to meet her at the train station, I was never so happy to see her as that moment when she walked off the train.

In the days following the attack, we found out all the people and companies affected. A good friend of the family was a lieutenant I believe of an engine company at the FDNY. He retired a couple months earlier, but his entire engine company, including the guy who replaced him, was lost. My dad lost a cousin he hadn’t seen in about 30 years, but recently got in touch with and planned to get together a couple weeks later. I found out later my dad was on a plane at the time of the attacks and my mom was going crazy wondering about him, but also my girlfriend she had just meet the week before. I’m glad I didn’t know he was traveling at the time. Turns out my parents were supposed to be taking my aunt and uncle into the city to see the Twin Towers on the 11th, but my dad had a last minute business trip and they went in on the 10th instead.

My wife worked for a software startup company, they tended to start their day later then most, so there were only a few people in the office at the time of the attack. A coworker of hers said the office was instantly on fire when the plane hit, they were two floors below and on the same side as the first plane impact. From what I read, everyone below the floor of the attack was able to safely get out, nobody above that could. A lot of that is owed to the men and women of the Port Authority who saw how long it took to evacuated the buildings during the first attack in 1993 and quickly realized three hours is an eternity during an evacuation. A friend of mine was on the team that revamped the escape plan and the reason so many people survived. If the attack in 1993 never happened, it is unlikely so many people would have been able to get out in time and the number of victims would have been several times as many.

Some hard lessons on risk management were learned that day. My wife’s company was working on their first software product, needless to say everything in their office was destroyed that day. They had a backup server that backed everything up each day, in the South Tower… They lost everything they had been working on for months and thought they had to start over, but one of the designers took a copy of the software home to work on after hours, even though the code was not supposed to leave the office, so they had an older copy to work from and were able to spend the next couple months rebuilding.

In regards to the building design, I saw a documentary a number of years ago talking about the truss design and that it was bolted to the inner frame and the outer skin, and required both for support. This is what enabled the open floor structure that was so appealing to tenants. When the jets hit, the outer skin was destroyed on those floors and the high temperatures from the flames weakened the trusses to the point they started to sag and fracture. Once one floor fractured and fell, it put too much a load on the next floor down causing that one to fracture as well leading to the total collapse. As an engineer, I found the documentary fascinating, but also scary how something like this could happen.

 

[intrepid]

Thank You

 

[RJSakowski]

Thank you for your accounts. It's stories like yours that add the real dimension to the incident. My brother is an avid 911 conspiracy advocate and I haven't spoken to him for more than a decade as a result. To demean the efforts of all those so closely personally involved is a travesty.

 

[Eddyde]

Thank you for your story, and everything you did to help. I know exactly how you feel and I still find it hard to talk about the events of that day. I grew up in NJ and seeing the Twin Towers was a normal part of traveling near the city. My first time visiting them was in about 1978, I think I have a picture with my uncle and brother on the roof observation deck somewhere in my collection. My last time visiting them was a few weeks before the attack, I met my wife, then girlfriend, at the towers on our way to dinner. She asked if I wanted to come up to her office, but I was hungry, and looking through the machining magazines in the Barnes and Nobel in the lobby, and said that could wait until next time…

My wife and I have never been to any of the memorials, and can’t watch the news on the anniversaries to this day. I was working on a project at a wastewater treatment plant across the river in Newark and had a great view of the Twin Towers. I came down from the processing room after getting the machines started for the breakfast truck shortly before 9am and saw the north tower on fire. I grabbed my breakfast and ran up to the roof stopping to get my camera on the way up. By time I got to the roof, the second tower was hit, but I didn’t know that, so I started to take some pictures. Some guys from the plant were on the roof and saw all of it and explained what happened. As I was running up to the roof, I thought it was just a fire in the north tower and not that big a deal. Boy was I wrong. My wife was my girlfriend at the time and worked on the 87th floor of the North Tower and the expression it hit me like a ton of bricks would have been an understatement.

It took about an hour to get in touch with my wife, turns out she was on the train on her way in to her office and in the tunnel under the Hudson River when the first plane hit. All the trains into the city were stopped and held position until the knew what was happening. They then reversed direction and went back to the stations in NJ. When she called, I raced to her town to meet her at the train station, I was never so happy to see her as that moment when she walked off the train.

In the days following the attack, we found out all the people and companies affected. A good friend of the family was a lieutenant I believe of an engine company at the FDNY. He retired a couple months earlier, but his entire engine company, including the guy who replaced him, was lost. My dad lost a cousin he hadn’t seen in about 30 years, but recently got in touch with and planned to get together a couple weeks later. I found out later my dad was on a plane at the time of the attacks and my mom was going crazy wondering about him, but also my girlfriend she had just meet the week before. I’m glad I didn’t know he was traveling at the time. Turns out my parents were supposed to be taking my aunt and uncle into the city to see the Twin Towers on the 11th, but my dad had a last minute business trip and they went in on the 10th instead.

My wife worked for a software startup company, they tended to start their day later then most, so there were only a few people in the office at the time of the attack. A coworker of hers said the office was instantly on fire when the plane hit, they were two floors below and on the same side as the first plane impact. From what I read, everyone below the floor of the attack was able to safely get out, nobody above that could. A lot of that is owed to the men and women of the Port Authority who saw how long it took to evacuated the buildings during the first attack in 1993 and quickly realized three hours is an eternity during an evacuation. A friend of mine was on the team that revamped the escape plan and the reason so many people survived. If the attack in 1993 never happened, it is unlikely so many people would have been able to get out in time and the number of victims would have been several times as many.

Some hard lessons on risk management were learned that day. My wife’s company was working on their first software product, needless to say everything in their office was destroyed that day. They had a backup server that backed everything up each day, in the South Tower… They lost everything they had been working on for months and thought they had to start over, but one of the designers took a copy of the software home to work on after hours, even though the code was not supposed to leave the office, so they had an older copy to work from and were able to spend the next couple months rebuilding.

In regards to the building design, I saw a documentary a number of years ago talking about the truss design and that it was bolted to the inner frame and the outer skin, and required both for support. This is what enabled the open floor structure that was so appealing to tenants. When the jets hit, the outer skin was destroyed on those floors and the high temperatures from the flames weakened the trusses to the point they started to sag and fracture. Once one floor fractured and fell, it put too much a load on the next floor down causing that one to fracture as well leading to the total collapse. As an engineer, I found the documentary fascinating, but also scary how something like this could happen.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Miraculously, no one I knew died that day though I did know several people who worked in the WTC towers at the time.

I have visited the memorial a couple of times, It is poignant & respectful. If you ever feel up to it, it's worth the trip.

I saw an episode of Nova the PBS Science series, that gave the same explanation of how the towers collapsed. It had the interviews with the architects and engineers that built them. That explanation makes perfect sense.

 

[Eddyde]

Thank you for your accounts. It's stories like yours that add the real dimension to the incident. My brother is an avid 911 conspiracy advocate and I haven't spoken to him for more than a decade as a result. To demean the efforts of all those so closely personally involved is a travesty.

Thanks for being on the side of logic and reason. I have "lost" a couple of friends because of these conspiracy theories...

 

[Ischgl99]

Thank you for your accounts. It's stories like yours that add the real dimension to the incident. My brother is an avid 911 conspiracy advocate and I haven't spoken to him for more than a decade as a result. To demean the efforts of all those so closely personally involved is a travesty.

There is a saying that a conspiracy theory is just a spoiler alert, and there could be a shred of truth to some of them, but most of the ones they came up with for 9/11 are so far fetched, and easily refuted, but they still persist...

 

[Ischgl99]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Miraculously, no one I knew died that day though I did know several people who worked in the WTC towers at the time.

I have visited the memorial a couple of times, It is poignant & respectful. If you ever feel up to it, it's worth the trip.

I saw an episode of Nova the PBS Science series, that gave the same explanation of how the towers collapsed. It had the interviews with the architects and engineers that built them. That explanation makes perfect sense.

Sorry if I hijacked your thread with my story, I meant to write a short comment and kept on writing. I appreciate hearing of your experience and it is helpful to hear it from a very close perspective.

I have several near miss stories, but luckily I don't know anyone personally that died either, just one or two steps removed. I think the episode on Nova was where I saw them talk about the cause of the collapse. They also had people from the fire department talking about how the truss design is known to fail in fires, but the designers thought the fire retardant layer on the beams would protect them. I think it was also in that episode that they said the explosion from the impact blew the protectant off the beams and made it easier for the fire to weaken them.

I'm sure one of these days I will make it to the memorial, I want my kids to see it so they understand what happened. We've told them their mom worked there, but I don't think they really understand. My town has a very nice ceremony every 9/11, and just built a new memorial for it, I almost went this year, but my daughter is taking Chinese lessons and has a lesson Sunday morning before church, so the timing didn't work. A lame excuse, but I think I was just looking for an excuse not to go again.