09/11/01 - WTC - I was there - Part II

(continued from here)

I quickly call my parents in Brazil and say "I'm calling from my office phone, go to the instant messenger!" we get disconnected before I can say anything else, but I go online. My mom gets online and tells me what's going on. This was around 9:15am and she's telling me two planes hit the Towers. My boss gets online (he worked from home or on site most days) and I'm relaying the information to him. My mom tells me where the planes were coming from, where they're going to, the flight numbers. I tell that information to my boss. "No way" he says "that's a bomb." Our TV upstairs has no signal (no cable, only antenna) so I can't see the news.

I don't know whether to believe the information my mom is giving me. After all, she's seeing it on TV in Brazil, here in the US they must know better, right? How can she know all that information when my boss has CNN on and he's not hearing anything about planes.

Our phones are ringing non-stop. People want to know if we're ok. We are, we're far away enough. How about the consultants? They work onsite, after all, and one of the biggest clients was American Express, on building #7, across from the towers. But no worries, they don't get there before 10am, chances are they hadn't even left home yet.

A few minutes later Mike, one of our consultants, arrive with bloody hands. I had spoken to him on the phone many times, but despite being in the company for months, still haven't met him, as he was always at Amex. He was on his way to the building, when the second building got hit, and windows from a nearby building exploded and he got hit with the glass. Nothing too bad, a few bandaids took care of it.

Paul then arrived a few minutes later. Scared out of his mind. He had seen people jumping (falling?) off the building too. He's shaking. The four of us keep staring at the window. Staring at the Towers.

Phones are still ringing, clients and the sorts making sure we're ok. Still talking to my mom and my boss through the IM. Then the unthinkable happens. One of the Towers starts collapsing. On TV later we could clearly see that the Towers went straight down. From my window a couple of blocks away all we saw was the smoke coming our way. We can hear the thunder and my building is also shaking. We got desperate. Had the building fallen sideways, my building could have been hit either directly, or by a domino effect. I'm scared out of my mind. We all are.

Let's leave.

I shoot a message to both my mom and my boss "The WTC is falling, we're leaving!" turn off the computer, turn on the night phone answering machine, and we all head down the stairs.

(to be continued)