Remembering 911

World Trade Center Attack ground zero plus 100 yards

An Eye Witness Account

By Patrick Oliver-Kelley    

Selected by NRCC
2004 Businessman
of the year

At 8:45 - September 11, sitting in our living room, I see four basketball size balls of fire, accompanied by a loud, deep thump, blaze past the window of our 18th floor apartment, a hundred yards from the World Trade Towers. Had a repair job of some kind gone wrong? Looking at the flaming globs, I notice out of the high left periphery, flames blazing out of the top 25 floors of North WTC. I ring you in Japan and say, 'I don't know what's going on but the WTC is on fire'. I have no camera. Watching NY 1, our local TV station, It isn't clear what had happened. No sirens, nothing, just four flaming balls on the street below and flames visibly are intensifying in the North Tower.9:00 Announcer says, 'there's a report of an airplane hitting North Tower'. Sirens blare. People walk calmly about to and fro, tho in a general direction away from the trade towers. No hurrying, no panic9.05 I see an enormous burst of flame from WTC South! The show I watch televises the fire in Tower North, only to co-incidentally record a second plane, plowing into the midsection of South Tower.Flames increase in Tower North. I see a bundle cleave from near the top of the building. I think the building's disintegrating, falling to pieces, but, as the bundle falls to the middle portion of the building, I see that the bundle has arms and then I see that it has legs. Shortly after, a second bundle begins its descent; minutes later two more bundles depart, they appear to be joined; they're holding hands! I can't watch it anymore. I have nightmares, still now.

9.50 a.m. - There's a huge explosion in South Tower. Walls begin to rumble and fall toward the ground making a noise like a huge, distant waterfall, like just becoming aware of Niagara Falls. From our bedroom window, I see a wall of smoke and ash rush toward me. I run from the room. It's suddenly mid-night outside, but I'm also engulfed in a total darkness inside. I had left the bedroom window open a half inch last night, and the room instantly fills with ash, soot, and smoke. Electricity goes out; water stops; the phone is silent. I fumble my way to the kitchen, as if blind; I have no earthly idea where a candle, a hand torch, radio, or even a match can be found. As the smoke and dust clears inside and out, visibility returns. I return to the bedroom window to see if the second tower is standing. Too much smoke to tell. I notice a computer disc wedged deeply enough between the metal frame and glass of the bedroom window that it takes pliers to remove it. I keep it as a momento. It's knarled from intense heat, but the corner that thrust into the window, had it gone through the glass, would have been a lethal weapon.

11:00am - Joseph Gibney, my paraplegic neighbor and his 74 year old mother knock at my door. Joe is an attorney for the NYSE and works on the 25th floor of the South WTC. He should have been at work, but had been ill and stayed home. He is pretty shaken because he should have been in his office. He reflects on his luck- would he have gotten out of the building in time? If he had, would he have been on the pavement, waiting to be evacuated, when the building collapsed? He sure would have. I do a rethink on fate, Kismet, and guardian angels. Only three days later we learn that his 6 office
colleagues, too, survive the collapse.I fill two half-gallon jugs with what remaining water drips from the tap.
Joe has radio, but no batteries. I have six new 'D' batteries, but no radio. We're a perfect team. We listen to the news. 200 firemen missing; 135 policemen are unaccounted for, but it's early days. They're saying to evacuate the area. But we are evacuated; we're home, where are we supposed to be? We assume that the notice to evacuate means to get off the streets;
I'm safe. I feel as though I ought to be down stairs, offering to take in anyone in need. We stay put, Joe, his mother and I. we hear estimates of 5-10,000 possible casualties. I think it could be more.

We have one of the best views in NYC- on one side, the WTC; the Statue of Liberty on the other. It's a perfect view to see what is going on at ground zero. Fireman and police arrive. The streets fill with equipment; flat beds, dump truck, EMS vehicles, swarms of people rush from surrounding buildings. They rush to the dock to be ferried to a safe harbor in NJ. There must be thousands. Mounds of debris begin to be shifted from one place to another. Parked cars that have gotten severely damaged are hoisted out of the way. The incessant whir and clank of trucks, metal scraping on metal or pavement fills the air. Injured are wheeled to ambulances. Fire hoses litter every alley, lane and road. I have a sponge on a stick long enough to clear some of the ash and soot off the window to view the activity. It looks like I've cleared fog off the window to watch people dance a macrabe minuet. Singles, couples, groups in grotesque formations of aiding one another; darlek-like firemen, heads purposefully bent into the inferno, police and National Guardsmen with no obvious leadership or direction, seem to be doing exactly what, from my vantage point, they ought to be doing.

11pm - I go to bed. Having cleared up as best I can, the ash in the bedroom, though burnt ash smell lingers, I am too tired to care. The rumble of salvage rings in my ears until I fall asleep.

12 September 2001 - I awake at 5:00am. There is a deathly quiet. I listen for sounds but there are none! Had I dreamed the entire episode? Is this a joke I played on myself? Out the bedroom window I see plumes of smoke. It isn't a joke; the WTC is gone, for real. I go to check how Joe and his Mom fared. Both are nervous but brave. Drink water and have some peanut butter on raisin bread. Tempo outside picks up. Noise increases. Hear many dogs barking in flats throughout the building. Beautiful day except at ground zero.

11:00 a.m. - A knock at the door...it's the police giving me 30 seconds to clear out of the flat. I grab my backpack with a clean tee shirt, PDA, shaving kit, a ball of string and a chapstick. Nothing like being prepared. If word gets out, I'm sure the Boy Scouts are going to ask me to return my Eagle Scout merit badge.

I go to Joe's flat. He and his mother are keen to get going since we don't know how serious the Police are about having 30 seconds. We hump Joe down the stairs in his chair. I help his mother make her way down the darkened 18 floors. Joe has a tap light that helps light our way. Air is stifling and everyone is concentrating on getting down the stairs. Everyone is polite but thoughtful.

On the ground floor, we find Angel, our doorman and that we are the only people who had not already evacuated. There are 35 floors, seven flats per floor...and we were the only ones who hadn't already left. A large percentage of our neighbors live here expressly because of its easy access to the WTC. So many, I guess we will never know, were in those Towers. 9:00 is not early for the financial markets.

Was I in the one of the Towers? Wrong question: How many times a day would I be in the WTC? Is the correct one? Not 'was', but 'When' was I going to the WTC. That goes for almost every person in our complex.

I wheel Joe through the next building, to the promenade. Ash and burnt papers pouf up, ankle deep. Smoke and dust make breathing impossible. Our eyes burn from the acid smoke we?re walking through. We're handed facemasks.
At the dock I persuade a Nassau County Police boat to take us over to the NJ side. Other boats are busy bringing bottled water and supplies. I wouldn't expect them to stop everything just to help us. Heave Joe and his mother aboard. On the Jersey side, there are too many boats loading for us to be off-loaded on the dock where EMS is set up. Police take us to the Liberty Harbor Marina and RV camp. I wheel Joe across the tarmac to the Marina Trailer. His mother and I go in but are asked to leave. We explain that we've been evacuated from the WTC, but the lady doesn't care and seems not to even be aware of the emergency. 'If you're not paying guests of the Marina, get out', she says, pointing to a pay phone on the porch. Luckily I have my mobile phone; soon as the battery is charged,
we ring Joe's father. About 50 miles away, he leaves to get us. Many roads are cordoned off or are closed. At each blockade, he rings us so we can persuade the Policeman that he is indeed on a mission of mercy. We sit four hours in blazing sun, courtesy of the lady at Liberty Marina. If lightening needs a place to strike, I can suggest one.

Tearful reunion for Joe and his mother, with his father. They kindly invite me to their home in Wayne NJ. Gladly accepted. We're safe. Watch the TV coverage. Salacious voyeurism abounds. Connie Chung especially, keeps trying to wring bathos from ever person she interviews. She should be fired. The girl in the eyeglasses that look like the front end of an Edsel, should go too. She grabs firemen as they wearily trudge by and asks if any has seen any bodies!? Where's the gore, she seems desperately to ask. Peter Jennings does great job of non-sensational reporting.

WTC plus one hundred yards from Ground Hero:

Where's Superman or Batman and Robin, when we need them? This is a catastrophe worthy of our mightiest Gotham warriors. Hasn't Hollywood convinced us that there is always a superhero to save the day? It?s our American mystique.

I saw the Super Heros, but they aren't wearing capes and blue tights. They are dressed in cumbersome black fire-retardant gear, bearing parallel yellow stripes. What selfless dedication I witness: fireman, police and National Guardsmen thrust into the face of smoke, ash, rubble, fire, crumbling buildings; Not hesitating for their own safety. How many Americans will pay with their lives for this heinous crime? A crime perpetrated on a nation that opens its arms to all comers; provides a haven for the downtrodden, and opportunity to disadvantaged. New York City, the home of more Jews than in Tel Aviv, more Iranians than in Tehran, more Irish than in Dublin, more Pakistanis than in Islamabad, more Indians than in Gujarat. And they often work shoulder-to-shoulder, when in their own countries they would never speak to each other.

Lessons? Emergency clear backpack containing: flashlight, batteries, a small radio, candle, matches, first aid kit, a knife, string. Put this emergency pack somewhere it's easy to retrieve.

Notify everyone you love to assure there's a way of you being contacted. Give them your telephone number and your email address. Though I was safe, I had no way of letting my loved ones know that I was okay. Sounds reasonable, but you'd be amazed how few close friends could find me after the phone went dead.

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