North Tower witnesses

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First-hand accounts

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North Tower accounts

At and above impact zone

106th floor

Garth Feeney was at the Risk Waters conference at Windows on the World. He phoned his mother after Flight 11 hit, and explained "The floor was filled with very dense smoke. Feeney and 70 other people had been ushered into a corner of the building where there was less smoke. He said he wasn't sure he would make it out of the building."[1]

92nd floor

Damian Meehan called his brother from the 92nd floor, "It's really bad here-- the elevators are gone." His brother urged him to go to the office entrance and see if there was smoke there. When Damian put the phone down, his brother could hear the commotion but not panic. Damian returned after a few minutes and said that the "front entrance was filled with smoke". His brother urged him to "get to the stairs, see where the smoke is coming from, go the other way." Damian said "We've go to go" or "We're going." But all the stairwells were blocked at that floor. He and the other 69 people on the floor were stuck and could not evacuate. (but one was open on 91st floor)[2][3]

Below impact

91st floor

In all, there were 18 people on the 91st floor. Mike McQuaid and hist electrician crew of five were working on the 91st floor. This was two floors below the impact. Two of the stairwells were completely destroyed, but the one on the northwest side of the building was passable. 11 people working for the American Bureau of Shipping (the only tenant, with the other space on the floor vacant) were able to escape, along with some artist(s) who occupied vacant space.[4]

Gerry Wertz (who was on his way to the 93rd floor) was stuck on the elevator at the 91st floor, "he jumped from the car onto the ground, the ceiling and wallboards had collapsed, behind them the elevator seemed to disintegrate"[5]

George W. Sleigh, a naval architect with the American Bureau of Shipping, escaped from the 91st floor. "It took about an hour to get to the bottom of the building. Once I got out of the stairwell, I realized what a devastating thing this was, I could look out on the plaza, and there were piles of rubble everywhere and fires burning."[6]

90th floor

Anne Prosser, at 8:45, she rode the elevator to the 90th floor of Tower 1, to her office. As the doors opened, she heard what seemed like an explosion. She didn't know it, but the first plane had just hit several floors above her. "I got thrown to the ground before I got to our suite," she said. "I crawled inside. Not everybody was at work." She said she tried to leave but there was so much debris in the air she couldn't breathe. Port Authority rescuers finally steered her to a stairway.

89th floor

Dianne DeFontes was on the 89th floor when the plane crashed into her building. The crash blew open the double doors to the law firm where DeFontes' worked, split them in two and knocked her off her chair.[7] Those who started walking from above the 78th floor "sky lobby" did not have a straight shot to the bottom on one stairway. Some found themselves at a dead end and had to re-enter dark, smoke-filled floors to find another stairwell to continue the trek down. Dianne DeFontes just followed the stranger in front of her. "You're going to get out, you're going to get out, you're going to get out," she repeated to herself.[7] As she came down the stairwell, "pipes started to explode and water came running down the stairs"[8]

87th floor

Adam Mayblum, a broker who'd tramped down from the 87th floor, soaked his T-shirt with bottled water, ripped it in pieces and distributed it to friends who used the cloths as masks. At about the 20th floor, the sprinkler system had turned on. Water ran down the stairs, sloshing into people's shoes, slowing them down.[7]

86th floor

Louis Lesce was on the 86th floor, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the building.[8]

85th floor

Tim Snyder, who worked on the 85th floor, "We heard this huge 'whoosh' sound. The building started to shake. Our first assumption was it must have been a bomb. We saw this huge pile of debris falling out the window," said Snyder. "For a moment we weren't sure the building would stay standing."[9]

A survivor from a floor in the 80s: "The entire corridor became an inferno outside our front door. Smoke began to enter our office. There was also debris falling... The fire on the corridor was at least 10 ft high, and it ran the ... good length of the corridor. Then I saw a fireball come down the elevator shaft and blew the elevator doors. The fireball came right at me, it was a really bright color."[10]

81st floor

Michael Wright was on the 81st floor, in the restroom, when the plane crashed. He described damage including that the marble facade on opposite wall in men's restroom was shattered, with crack in drywall behind, and the floor had buckled. In the hallway, chunks of roof were falling, the facing wall was ripped open, and the elevator doors had blown out. Every joining surface was awry, every hinge was twisted or bent. A crater opened in the floor in front of him, exposing wires, pipes, girders and beams at least ten floors below. Acrid smoke poured out of the elevator shafts, and he could smell burning fuel.[11]

John Cerqueira and Mike Ben Fanter were working on the 81st floor of 1 World Trade Center when they felt the collision. "People were freaking out," said Mr. Fanter, a sales manager. "I tried to get them in the center of the office. About 40 people. I led them to the hall down the steps." He continued: "We stopped on the 68th floor. I could hear people screaming. There was a woman in a wheelchair. John and I carried her down from the 68th floor to the 5th floor, where we got out. We started to see people jumping from the top of the World Trade Center."[12]

79th floor

Norbert Peat was on the 79th floor, waiting for an elevator. When the elevator doors opened, a blast of heat and smoke sent him staggering backward. He had just made a delivery a few floors below, had never been in the building before. Where was the fire exit? He thought of his 7-month-old son. "OK, God, it's you and me now," he prayed. "You got to help me through this." He tried one door, then another — both locked. A third swung open, and he was in a stairwell walking down.[7]

77th floor

Fred Segro, a manager at Martin Progressive, described the impact, "the paneled ceiling collapsed, the floor trembled, and the sprinklers turned on" Nearby, a pregnant secretary named Julie was splattered with a large plate-glass window that pushed her back, hitting her head on the desk behind her. Segro had worked with her only three weeks. He didn't even know her last name, but he offered to help her. He wrapped his tie and a paper towel around her cut wrist, put another paper towel on her cut head. As they started down the stairs, Segro was amazed how calm people were. People stepped aside for the injured. Two men were carrying a woman down. Many were bleeding from their heads and arms. "I remember this one guy, a black man, his skin was burned off . . . he was totally pink on his arms, legs, the sides of his face."[13]

71st floor

Erik Ronningen was on the 71st floor when "suddenly, and without warning the entire tower jolted south then snapped north, wrenched back and yanked north yet again, staggering like a drunk that had tripped and was struggling to regain his balance. People walking or standing were thrown to the floor while the rest of us hung on for dear life. I thought the tower was going to snap at its base and topple over like an extension ladder. The roar from somewhere above assaulting our ears sounded like an express freight train crossing an old railroad trestle. A huge flaming red and bright orange fireball came whooshing, blistering down and exploded not 25 feet outside my windows. Then the blizzard began. A blizzard of paper and debris forced out of the upper tower from the explosion, so intense I could no longer see New York Harbor, or east out over Queens and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. The floor began to fill with smoke, and the carpets with water flooding out of the freight elevator shaft. And from all around, the cry of people yelling to evacuate the building."[14]

61st floor

Ezra Aviles' office had a window facing to the north. He "saw the plane tearing through the skies, heading straight for the tower. It had crashed into the building over his head -- how far, he was not sure." As a Port Authority employee, he worked to alert police and other authorities, making phone calls. He called one colleague, John Paczkowski, and left a message, "It seems to be an American Airlines jetliner came in from the northern direction, toward - from the Empire State Building, towards us." Aviles also called the Port Authority COO, "Smoke is beginning to come, so I think I'm gonna start bailing outta here, man... Don't come near the building if you're outside. Pieces are coming down, man. Bye."[15][16]

Lobby

On the ground level, Michael DeVito was just entering the north tower lobby. He was late for his job on the 77th floor. As he walked into the lobby, he felt a huge explosion. A massive blast of air struck him. He guessed it was a suitcase bomb, but apparently it was air from the plane crash shooting down the elevator shafts. Black smoke filled the lobby. DeVito stumbled outside. He looked up to see flames shooting from the building. People were jumping out of windows.[13]

Dave Kravette had come down to the lobby from his Cantor Fitzgerald office to escort guests into the building. After exiting the elevator, he "heard a tremendous crash and what sounded like elevator cars free-falling. Then he saw a fireball blow out of a shaft. Around him, people dived to the ground. He froze and watched the fireball fold back on itself."[17]

B1 (Basement)

A witness, talking to CNN, in a clip taken before the collapse of the South Tower, but broadcast ~11:10 a.m. - "I was in the basement, it came down, all of the sudden the elevator blew up, smoke, I dragged the guy out, his skin was hanging off, I just dragged him out and helped him out to the ambulance."

Others

  • Marissa Dinardo, a broker at the Cantor Fitzgerald bond firm on floors 101-105, sent an instant message to a business associate. "It's getting smoky. I am having trouble breathing," she wrote.[7]
  • Katie McGarry Noack was in town from Connecticut for a breakfast meeting on the 105th floor. She sent a pager message to her husband of 3 months, Brad Noack, attending another meeting 75 stories below. She was scared, there was a lot of smoke. She didn't know if she would make it.[7]
  • Kenton Beerman (53rd floor), Roko Cama (window washer), Keith Kooper (56th floor), Rosa Gonzalez (66th floor), Walter Nagy (12th floor), Adam Mayblum (87th floor), Deborah Bohren.
  • A broker at Carr Futures, on the 92nd floor, sent a message from his Palm Pilot: "There's too much smoke. They won't let us down."

References

  1. ↑ Mother Recounts Horror Of Phone Call, St. Petersburg Times, September 27, 2001
  2. ↑ Glanz, James, City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center, p. 250
  3. ↑ A Brother’S Advice Not Enough To Save Damian, Irish Examiner, September 7, 2002
  4. ↑ Dwyer, Jim and Kevin Flynn (2005) 102 Minutes, Times Books, p. 34-36
  5. ↑ Dwyer, Jim and Kevin Flynn (2005) 102 Minutes, Times Books, p. 36
  6. ↑ Eyewitness to history, Akron Beacon Journal
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 One day seared into memory, USA Today, September 16, 2001.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Inside 9/11 Interview Archive, National Geographic
  9. ↑ People affected by the attacks tell their stories The Associated Press September 12, 2001
  10. ↑ (2005) "Occupant Behavior, Egress, and Emergency Communications", Final Reports of the Federal Building and Fire Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). 
  11. ↑ Miller, John, Michael Stone, and Chris Mitchell (2002) The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It, Hyperion.
  12. ↑ U.S. Attacked; Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers and Hit Pentagon In Day Of Terror The New York Times September 12, 2001
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Dorschner, John. "Heroics reflect an enduring spirit", Charlotte Observer / Knight Ridder, September 16, 2001.
  14. ↑ Erik Ronningen's 9/11
  15. ↑ Ezra Aviles - He Worked to the Last Seconds, Newsday, October 11, 2001
  16. ↑ Dwyer, Jim and Kevin Flynn (2005), 102 Minutes, Times Books, p. 17-18
  17. ↑ Dwyer, Jim and Kevin Flynn (2005) 102 Minutes, Times Books, p. 14
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