And it was smoky, and they were sweating already. We all just started walking and walking and walking down. Systems analyst Lazaros: We got into the stairwell, and it was so quiet.Įverybody knew something really bad had happened, and everybody just wanted to get out of there. It just didn't withstand a fire from the thousands of gallons of jet fuel that were incinerating everything in there. Salvatore Cassano, a Fire Department assistant chief of operations who became chief of operations right after September 11: The World Trade Center was built to withstand a plane crash. The only reason we all lived is that Rick ignored what they were saying. The Port Authority was telling people not to leave. So, we had no way of knowing what was going on unless somebody texted you. There was no internet the way we know it now. I didn't know the towers got hit by planes, but standing there on the street, it looked like something from The Towering Inferno. It's hard to remember that 20 years ago there was no Twitter. It took about 35 minutes to get out of the building. Lolita Jackson, an assistant vice president for Morgan Stanley Investment Management's Mutual Fund Sales Department, who worked on the 70th floor of the South Tower: We were told to listen to our company's head of security, Rick Rescorla, and he told us to leave. So, after the second plane hit, I became emotional and felt tears well up in my eyes. We also had more than 100 people in a private dining room.
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I thought of all my friends and colleagues at the restaurant, and I started to do a mental list: Who's up there now? Who's working? We had 72 of our Windows family working that morning. I looked up at the South Tower and saw the moment of impact. I made a couple of calls to let people know I was safe. Michael Lomonaco, chef and director of culinary operations at Windows on the World, a restaurant on the North Tower's 106th and 107th floors: I'd been in the shopping center on the lower level when the North Tower was hit. I told my colleague, “This is no accident. Investigator Green: I saw the second plane come around and go into the building. Kelly Guenther/The New York Times/Redux Pictures It was my ex-partner's mother saying, “Turn on your television.” When I saw the North Tower burning, I immediately thought it was terrorism, because I knew, based on my experience, that that amount of fire could not have been set by a small plane or helicopter. I was at home in Brooklyn, having my second cup of coffee, when I got a phone call from Kentucky. We thought it was some pilot who didn't know what the heck he was doing.īrenda Berkman, a lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department: I was off duty. Vincent Green, a top anti-corruption official in the city's Department of Investigation, who was in an office that faced the twin towers: We didn't think it was an attack at that point. One of them says, “A plane hit the building.” I thought, Sure, a little Piper. She says, “A big one.” I say, “What do you mean, ‘a big one'?” She says, “It looks really bad, Mrs. I think we need to get out of here."Īda Rosario Dolch, principal of the Leadership and Public Service High School, three blocks south of the towers: I was in the school's lobby, greeting students. We just all stood there, looking at each other, and I remember I said to my girlfriend, “Something bad happened.
I thought everything was going to fall down.
It was such a noise and such an impact that you actually felt it. Margaret Lazaros, a systems analyst for Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, who worked on the 27th floor of the building: It was unbelievable.
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