Outstretched Arms

It’s 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday September 11th 2001. and boy do I feel good. I’m on the train headed to lower Manhattan where I work as a broker in the north tower of the World Trade Center. I love what I do and I love the people I work with. So I’m just now getting off the train with a cup of coffee and a bagel in hand. I guess you could say this is my battle gear. It gives me the energy I need to do what it is I do and now I’m headed for the towers. I’m at the plaza area of the towers and even though I walk through here everyday to get to my building the beauty of this area never gets old. I feel so lucky to work at the deluxe office in the sky. After entering the building I make my way through the war zone we commonly call the ground lobby and get inside the packed elevator.

Here begins my long trek up to the big 94 Yes, I work on the 94th floor of the north tower. With this elevator packed like it is this usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes given all the stops we have to make. This elevator ride is an expedition in and of itself, but we’ll get through it. So after an unexpected 16 minute flight to my floor I finally make it to my office. I had to eat my bagel and drink my coffee on the elevator or else it would’ve gotten cold. As I get to my office space I notice the gang is all here. Every business tenant of this empire in the sky is on deck: Cantor-Fitzgerald, Euro-Brokers, May-Davis, Morgan-Stanley. Pick your poison and we have it all at the World Trade Center.

It’s been a solid 20 minutes or so since I first made it up here for the day and everyone is just getting on the up and up. The work day has just started and all of these office workers are on the move and in good spirit. As I’m sitting at my desk and getting ready to send an email out something…impactful happens. An intense boom suddenly shakes the building. It sounded and felt like an explosion from beneath us and it was as if a tornado-like wave was coming upward towards our floor. Everyone screams and is knocked over. Our office space was destroyed. The desk were knocked over, the walls were almost completely torn apart and the lights went out and it got dark. It feels like a bomb just went off.

The shaking wave that impacted us starts to subside as we are all surrounded by utter destruction. Everyone comes to and makes it to their feet. All of us are disoriented and wondering what just happened. The lights are still out and now a smoky haze slowly starts to enter our floor. Now fear is starting grow among everyone in the room, myself included. I think we have to get out of here. Pandemonium erupts as everyone starts making their way to any exit they can find. If it was an explosion then of course the elevators wouldn’t be the safest option, so our best bet would be going for the stairwells.

When we get to the stairwells we find them to be completely destroyed, apparently impassable. Not only that, but the heat and smoke seem to be a lot thicker as we try to go down. I don’t know what’s going on but I’m really starting to get scared right now. I really feel like my life is in danger along with my cohorts. To make matters worse it looks like the field of damage where the smoke and fire are coming from is starting to grow. Everyone then decides to go back up. It looks to be too dangerous for us to go down. To make matters worse the phones aren’t working on our floor so we can’t even call for help. It looks like our best bet would be going further up if we can’t get down. As far as calling for help goes we can only hope the people on the lower floors and the ground outside can see and know what’s going and that help is on the way, until then all we can do is dodge this field of thick smoke and fire as long as we can until help gets here, which second by second is about to get harder.

As everyone frantically scrambles to figure out what exactly we should do to keep safe the smoke and fire from the lower floors is quickly starting to grow. Speculation starts to spread among our crowd saying that the building was hit by a plane. I personally don’t know how matter of fact that is, but it does seem likely and if it is true then that would explain the growing fire and heavily dense smoke, it’s jet fuel burning. If it was just a bomb then the smoke wouldn’t be getting more dense overtime, but being that it’s jet fuel the fire is being fed with a source that is making it bigger and hotter. Oh God no! That means we won’t have much time until we’re overwhelmed and who knows how long it’s gonna take emergency services to get up here.

It looks like we’re all gonna have to start making our way to the upper floors until they get here. As we head for the stairs to try to get to the upper floors the fire and smoke is quickly roaring it’s way up to our floor. As everyone frantically runs for the emergency exit many find these pathways molded by a new wave of smoke, fire and intense heat. Some of the crowd just barely misses the heat and makes it to hardly stable sections of the stairwell that can take them upwards, but the rest of us are forced back into the fiery, heated haze of our floor. To make matters worse the thick black smoke is starting to split us up and the fire and heat have violently start blowing out the windows on our floor.

As the smoke, fire and heat engulf our floor even more it seems like we’re almost completely trapped. We can’t go upward and can’t go downward. We are surrounded by an intensely violent firestorm and it looks like there’s no where to go. As I’m off to the side of a smoky corner with four of my colleagues we suddenly catch a glimpse of light in the distance. We can also see one of our other colleagues in the distance walking towards the light. It seems like it might be an area of refuge, but where did it come from? This floor was almost completely overtaken by the jet fueled field of fire. As our colleague walks closer to the light I slowly start to realize what that light was and by the time I did, it was too late. The light was the outside of the building and he stepped right out of it and fell out of the building from a thousand feet in the air.

Dear God the sight of that was heart wrenching. As horrified as we were by what we just witnessed, our surrounding ordeal was still becoming worse. The fire and heat in all its glory had reached our floor and was just minutes from overwhelming us. None of us wanted to say it out loud, but we knew this was the end for all five of us. In these final moments we sit together and think about the greatest moments of our lives and everyone we love and care about. We don’t want this to be the end, but this is the end.

No matter how it ends we are all grateful to be surrounded by each other. Comforting one another and not letting our fellow brothers and sisters die alone. We spread our arms across one another protecting each other from the fires of the ensuing end. What a brave and heartfelt way to go with outstretched arms.

~~Dedicated to everyone who perished in the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001.