P&F: Chris's WTC Story

Chris's WTC Story

Monday, 24 September 2001

Today we've got a guest Natter, from Chris, written last week, but I was too lazy to post it till now. She was back at work a few days after writing this.

My office was in 2 World Trade Center. I was late to work. This was no special divine intervention; I'm almost always late to work.

I remember being annoyed at my mother for wanting to take a shower before me, because I was trying to get there on time for once. I remember complaining to Ma about the dry cleaners starching the shirt I put on. And thinking that it was one year, to the day, since I started working for the company (Sinochem USA, an American subsidiary of the China National Chemical Import & Export Corporation. I'm the accounting manager).

The first I heard that something was wrong was in the N train in the tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan. The conductor came on the P.A. to announce that there were delays in the line because of "a smoke condition at Cortlandt Street," my stop, which runs alongside the eastern boundary of the WTC. Now, a few months ago, there was a fire in one of the escalator banks at the Cortlandt Street station, and they were still being repaired or more likely replaced, so I figured that the problem was something along those lines. Then at Whitehall Street, the first stop in Manhattan, they announced that the train was bypassing Cortlandt, and if you got out there you should get out at Rector Street, the next stop and the one before Cortlandt. It's only a short walk from there to the WTC, so I got out at Rector and walked the two or three short blocks uptown.

There was paper in the air; I saw some insurance company documents on the pavement. At Liberty Street and Trinity Place, catty-corner across the street from the southeast corner of the WTC, I could see the smoke and flames emanating from 1 World Trade Center, the north tower that got hit first. My vantage point was the opposite side from where the plane hit, so I had no real idea what was really happening. I thought that a really bad fire had broken out in one of the upper floors, that's what it looked like. I figured the south tower, 2 World Trade Center, where my office was, would be accessible in a couple of hours after the firemen controlled the fire in 1, so I looked for a pay phone to call the office and thought about going to the deli in the basement shopping concourse to get my usual bagel for breakfast.

At that point I saw 2 begin to explode. Being opposite from the plane's impact, I could only conclude that the heat from the fire in 1 had ignited something in 2 somehow. The fireball I only saw later on TV. At the time, as soon as the boom sounded everyone in the vicinity ran like hell. I ran to Broadway till I got winded, having a hard time catching my breath from the shock and disbelief of it all. I only knew I wouldn't be working that day.

I kept going east, in a daze, trying to figure out how I could get home from there. Home, by the way, is in downtown Brooklyn, with the onramp to the Brooklyn Bridge passing in front of my apartment building. I was by a church that was doing land-office business from the neighborhood when I hear a subway's rumbling from the ventilation grates in the pavement. I was by the Wall Street 2 & 3 station, which is only one stop from home. I went in, and a Brooklyn-bound train pulled into the station, so I got on it.

Walking home from the subway, I learned from some construction workers from the site of the courthouse going up across the street from my house about the planes. I took a leaflet from a mayoral campaign worker for the primaries that were going on that day, even though I don't have a party registration and so can't vote in primaries. I looked at the leaflet, and said to the girl I got it from, "Boy, this seems kind of pointless, now, doesn't it?" She could only agree. The primaries were later cancelled on order of the governor.

I knew my mother wasn't home. She had a doctor's appointment on the other side of Brooklyn, and had left home before I did. The first phone call I made when I got home was to the doctor's office to leave a message for Ma when she got there that I was OK. This was a good thing; Ma heard the news on the bus shortly before she arrived at the doctor's, and she arrived at the office somewhat hysterical until the receptionist could pass my message on to her.

She had me kind of worried herself. She didn't get home till about 2 pm, from a 9:45 am appointment. It ordinarily takes 90 minutes on the bus to get home, but the buses back weren't allowed to get to our neighborhood. Her bus terminated at Empire Boulevard and Flatbush Avenue, which is at the southern edge of Prospect Park. She walked home, to the Brooklyn Bridge, from the south end of Prospect Park, on an empty stomach no less. It took her two hours. Ma is 74 years old, and was a freshman in high school when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

After calling the doctor's office, I called Avram, who told me about the Pentagon. Then some other friends, and my brother's house and one of my sisters. Then the circuits overloaded, so I decided to go to the corner diner to get breakfast. In the diner, I heard on the radio about 2 World Trade Center collapsing. Half an hour later, I heard from outside and saw on TV 1 World Trade Center collapsing. Not in my wildest surmise would I have guessed those towers would fall.

As the day wore on, I contacted my other sister, and I fielded calls from my aunts, Avram's mother Ellen, my friend Manny in Chicago, my friend Moshe in Flushing, and others. When Ma got home, I made my first effort to get to the local blood center to give blood, but they were overloaded; I haven't made it there yet.

Wednesday, I called my doctor and my psychiatrist to let them know I was alive (and that I might need them later), and then waited 3 1/2 hours at the blood center without getting admitted. Upon my return, Ma told me that Ellen had called and said that a cousin of hers was missing. Avram has two cousins who I knew worked at the WTC; one worked the floor up from me, and I'd run into him in the elevator every so often. The other, who's the sister of the former, I think worked in 1, and I don't know which floor. Thinking she was missing, I called Ellen immediately, but fortunately she and her brother were fine; one of her in-laws, who I don't know, was the missing cousin. I hope they've found her by now. I spent the late afternoon and evening with Avram.

Thursday I called information and got the home phone number of my company's CFO. She informed me that my workmates were all safe. I never really doubted this, as we had our offices on only the 22nd floor of 2 World Trade Center (the second to get hit, remember), so I was confident that everyone had time to get out, but it was good to get hard information. And no one had my home phone number, so I was able to confirm my safe escape. At this point, of course, I have no idea when I'll be working again. The president of the company will return to China as soon as he can to see what our parent company wants to do from here. As the company's other American offices are all in Florida, it is possible that they'll decide to relocate my office there too, in which case I'll be out of work in this economy, just like that. And I knew I was lucky to have a good-paying full-time job, things being what they are. At least I'll have no problem with any unemployment claims.

I went into Manhattan in the late afternoon to visit my friends in Avram's office. The subway I took in made all stops, to my surprise. When Avram and I left the office we went to Union Square, where an impromptu memorial has been building itself up. A candle-shaped sculpture apparently built from a piece of pillar from one of the fallen towers is the focal point, and writings in at least seven languages express sorrow and love for the missing and lost. A copy of this memoir will end up there too.

I'm aware how lucky I am to be alive, and that no one I know has yet gone unfound. (I temped for 16 months at the New York Board of Trade at 4 World Trade Center, and haven't checked the status of my friends there yet, but I'm sure they evacuated successfully.) Too many brave and good people aren't so lucky, and they have my deepest condolences.

A few stray thoughts: It is beyond all fathoming that my workspace, my office building, the entire neighborhood, is just gone. We could see the towers from our living room window, and now there's much more sky than there was at the beginning of the week. My WTC ID card is a collector's item, or a family heirloom. We had been in the process at the office of modernizing the technical infrastructure. We got a new phone system, enabled for voicemail, installed on Friday. Verizon installed our new DSL line on Monday. A private management company had taken over management of the WTC from the Port Authority at the beginning of August, about six weeks ago. One of my planned tasks for Tuesday was to pay our second rent bill from the new management. I suspect that our municipal term limits law, which was knocking most of the city's incumbents out of office this year (including Mayor Giuliani), will come in for some serious reconsideration. I know Rudy, who I otherwise have no great fondness for, is in his element in this sort of crisis to an extent that none of the six candidates to replace him convince me they are.

What happens from here? Of course, we must strike back. Turning the other cheek is, alas, not an option with terrorists determined to destroy us. But against whom, and where? We need to get it right as no one has ever needed to get it right before this. And did we really know nothing at all? (Our secretary of defense knew more was coming when he was informed of the first attack. Maybe it stood to reason, but I do wonder if Donald Rumsfeld, who none other than Henry Kissinger has called the most ruthless man he's ever met, was as completely blindsided as the rest of us. I don't believe our intelligence had no inkling -- that it went unheeded, I can believe, but not that no warning was ascertainable.) Our current administration has spent the last six months spoiling for a fight, and it sure got one. My confidence in our president is not high; he's certainly not Roosevelt or Lincoln-caliber, and whether he can rise to the occasion remains to be seen. However, I don't doubt this country's will or determination to vanquish our adversary. (The thought did occur to me that the militias who talk so tough about defending America have a perfect opportunity to prove themselves here. But I don't know if I'm more frightened by their possible failure or their possible success.)

But even at our very best, will we prevail? I wish I were sure we will. But in all our previous wars (Vietnam included), our adversary was clearly identifiable, with some defined goal. What do the terrorists want? Probably not to take over the US. Jerusalem? Do they expect us to hand Jerusalem to them on a platter now? What can they possibly expect as a tangible gain from this attack? I'm mystified. And most important, in facing any other adversary, we could count on their senses of self-preservation to use in our favor. This adversary doesn't seem to consider the prospect of its own annihilation to qualify as a defeat. And if they don't fear their own deaths, will they fear the deaths of everyone else, or of the planet as a whole? This is what we're up against.

I love this city to the depth of my soul. I possess more conventional patriotic sentiments than many of my friends and acquaintances; I like singing the Star-Spangled Banner (of course, I can sing it), and attending the Millennium Philcon two weeks ago confirmed to me that this country is a wonderful place. I like this planet, and I like living on it. I only hope that it's in the civilized world's power to keep our species going.