Reply #94: You're not the only one CP. [View All]

"At this point I stopped filming, and went back inside my
apartment.

Upsetting enough, but then:

4) As more and more and more and more and more emergency vehicles
descended on the World Trade Center, I hear a second explosion in
WTC 2, then a loud, low frequency rumble that precipitates the
unthinkable -- a collapse of all the floors above the point of
explosion. First the top surface, containing the helipad, tips
sideways in full view. Then the upper floors fall straight down in
a demolition-style implosion, taking all lower floors with it, even
those below the point of the explosion. A dense, thick dust cloud
rises up in its place, which rapidly pours through the warren of
streets that cross lower Manhattan...........

Upsetting enough, but then:

6) I decide it's time to get my daughter, who was taken by the
parents of a friend of hers to a small office building, six blocks
farter from the WTC than my apartment. As I dress for survival:
boots, flashlight, wet towels, swimming goggles, bicycle helmet,
gloves, I hear another explosion followed by a now all-too familiar
rumble that signaled the collapse of WTC 1, the first of the two
towers to have been hit. I saw the iconic antenna on this building
descend straight down in an implosion twinning the first.

This dust cloud was darker, thicker and faster-moving than the
first. When this round of dust reached my apartment, fifteen seconds after collapse, the sky turned dark as night, with visibility of no more than about a centimeter.

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Vallebuona: . And so I walked up and I started to say something to him, they’re going to need everybody, we’ll just start from here. So I went back. The chief started putting his gear on. I went to grab my gear and stuff and I heard boom, a loud boom, I thought. I looked up, it was a beautiful sunny day, and I heard that crescendo sound.
But something scared me. It sounded like – it must have been all the aluminum on the side, like just shhh, shhh, shhh. I looked up and it looked like a fountain, like a firework. It was the south tower collapsing. I looked up. I said, oh, my God. I tell you I thought I was back in the firehouse asleep. I said this can’t be real.
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I wanted to be closer. At the corner of Liberty and Broadway, I angled my way through a large, packed crowd to get the best view. We talked about people jumping. The police stood behind the yellow tape. Minutes later, there was a boom. I thought it was a bomb, so I crouched, but people ran, so I ran. I couldn't see anything. I don't know how far I ran. Couldn't see where I was running. Didn't know if I was in a street or next to a building. Didn't know what street I was on. No one could talk because the dust filled our throats. After about 10 steps I tripped over a pile of people and then people tripped on me. I lay there. The only sound was the falling of dust and debris. No one moved under me.
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living 3 blocks from the WTC, as I do, I was astonished by the loud proximity of the first crash, and went down to the street in time to see the second fireball plane exploding. I went up to get ready to get out, and the worst sound effect of all, a huge explosion approaching my house, shaking like an earthquake on a train toward me, and then a black cloud of dust blocked all the sunlight, I was plunged into the nuclear winter of burning soot and ash and toxic fumes, and lost sight of everything
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then came upon a guy with a telescope aimed at one of the towers. The picture I will never forget. At about the 60-70th floors, people were hanging out windows trying to get air. Literally holding onto the side of the building waving a T-shirt to try to get someone's attention. I couldn't watch any longer. I kept walking, and about 10 minutes later I was about a half mile away and was talking with someone and we heard this sound that can only be described as a "thundering crack." That is the best I can do. I then saw what I thought was just a chunk of the WTC but it was actually the whole tower. I said it wasn't ... I couldn't believe it ...
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Many people were busy on cell phones, trying to reach friends and relatives they knew in the buildings or to alert their own loved ones that they were all right. But the circuits overloaded. Fear mounted. And then it got even worse. Police officers warned people in the vicinity to move north, that the buildings could fall, but most people found that unthinkable. They stayed put or gravitated closer.
Abruptly, there was an ear-splitting noise. The south tower shook, seemed to list in one direction and them began to come down, imploding upon itself. "It looked like a demolition," said Andy Pollock. "It started exploding," said Ross Milanytch, 57, who works at nearby Chase Manhattan Bank. "It was about the 70th floor. And each second another floor exploded out for about eight floors, before the cloud obscured it all."
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We saw Special Operations Battalion Chief John Pailillo, Deputy Chief Galvin and 22 Truck. We headed right past them. As soon as 22 Truck came through the doors, we went into the lobby of the Marriott and then walked in maybe 50, 100 feet and all of a sudden, we heard an explosion. We stopped dead in our tracks and Brian goes, ooh, that doesn’t sound good. And there was a second of nothing. Then you felt a heavy vibration like an earthquake, then you start hearing the pancaking collapse.
Brian said it’s coming down, and we all just scattered…………………….
….Then we heard the explosion of the second one, which was the same sound I heard when I was down in the lobby. I remember turning around and looking at the north bridge. I remember looking over my shoulder and going oh, and I saw you’re on your own. The guys dropped me, and I don’t blame them, you had to run for your life
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About 8:45 AM what seems like forever ago, last Tuesday, I was getting ready to go over to my office from my apartment, which as many of you know, is diagonally opposite the World Trade Towers by about ½ block to the southwest………

I put on the TV and the FBI was stating that they were NOT declaring this as a terrorist attack, when the second plane hit. Frank Samaritano and I were commenting how tough these two buildings were (I believe the actual statement was something like "strong as a brick shithouse").

Another friend, Mike Benjamin, called to tell me that his brother Arthur had made it out of the building, when I started hearing a series of bangs, one right after another. I sounded like those building demolition shows on TV, when simultaneous charges are detonated and set off one by one.

I heard people in the street screaming (remember, I am on the 22nd floor) and all of the sudden, I saw a huge tidal wave of thick, black dirt cloud flying past my apartment at a very rapid pace. I felt like I would drown, and in fact, the dirt came into my apartment to such a strong degree, that it was like being in a cave, absolutely no light whatsoever.
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tried going to my office, across the street at 20 Vesey Street, but upon arriving I was told that the building was being evacuated. Standing on Vesey Street, near my building, I tried calling my wife again, but could not get a connection. I kept redialing until I heard a loud rumble and looked up at the south tower. As I watched, the top half of the tower broke off and fell towards the west. It was inconceivable that the tower fell. After the tower fell, there was this huge cloud of smoke, ash, debris, etc. coming right toward me."
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I had been out of the building for only 15 minutes. We were about 5 or 6 blocks from the WTC when I heard some explosions and turned to look up at where they had come from. What I saw was surreal.The antenna and the rest of the roof atop the building I had just left, leaned to one side and fell in on itself. The rest of the floors below collapsed under the weight and an enormous cloud of dust and debris was expanding outward from the Trade Center. Everyone turned and hauled ass."
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