20 Years On - My 9/11 Story

I wrote this on 1 October 2001. I rarely share the full story of my experience on September 11, 2001, but 20 years on, with the memories occasionally overwhelming still, felt like it was time to share.

September 11, 2001

Tom Guida?

A day that would start like any day.?I went for a run, Allyson went for a walk. We met up and voted together in the building next to ours, I ran up to the apartment first to start the shower.?I don’t remember what we discussed that morning, nor do I remember the familiar walk to the train.?Our station is/was served by 2 train lines, the N and the M, both of which go to Manhattan but take different routes once they get there.?I normally take the N train, which stops inside the World Trade Center.?The M train stops a few feet short of the end of the platform, and where I usually stand, I can tell by that which train is in the station without looking at the letter on the train.?But on the 11th, I stood further back along the train, and when the first one came, I took it.?It was around 8:30 or so, I noticed.?I usually try to be at my desk around 8:15 or so, and I became annoyed when I realized that I had gotten onto the incorrect train.?I rode to the second stop, Fulton Street, and followed the crowd through its tunnels to the exit somewhere on Broadway.

I don’t know when I first sensed that something was wrong, but I do remember the first moment that I saw someone looking up in the direction of One World Trade Center. When I followed where she was looking, I saw flames spewing out of both of the sides of 1 WTC.?The fire was horrible, with deep billowing clouds of black smoke pouring out. To be honest I can’t remember what side street I was on at this point, but it was definitely on the corner of Church Street, which is directly across from the World Trade Center.?The sun was glaringly bright at this time. Most people were silent, many were crying.?Then, the first streak down the side of the building.?People were jumping, and we could do nothing to stop it.?People were screaming, No! No! and crying.?Each person fell so fast.?So fast.?And at a funny angle, diagonal almost.?And each was followed by a trail of smoke.?Where we were standing shielded us from seeing them landing.?I kept saying inside “hang on, they’ll get you, hang on.”?I tried to call Allyson but the calls wouldn’t go through.?Everyone was trying to get through.?All that I knew was that there was a fire.?I don’t remember paper flying around.?No one knew anything about a plane.?At this point, I knew they wouldn’t let me into my office, in the other tower, but I wanted to see it, to see if anyone else from my firm was milling around outside.?

I must have drifted down towards Century 21, because I remember looking past its corner when the second explosion happened.?What did it sound like??That’s the right question, because the actual noise is almost indescribable on its own.?Certain things come near it.?The back lift on a truck coming down on the street??The loudest firecracker you’ve ever heard.?Over and over again.?Several percussions, and people running, me included.?I hear glass hitting the pavement before I see it, but in a second I’m in the doors of Century 21 with other people, people screaming, running through the store until they realize the only place to go it out the door on the other side.?Guards standing at the doors yelling for people to calm down.?I realize now that I must have been outside for only a few minutes when the explosion came.?I could see out of the door of Century 21 and for a minute or two glass was literally raining down onto the street.?

It stopped, and I left the store, turning left away from the WTC towards Broadway.?Not really looking at the Towers, I remember walking past a pizza place, where the owner was rolling shut the aluminum door that covered the storefront.?He gave me a wink as I went by.?I walked up to Broadway and catty-corner to John Street.?I slowed down and could now see both towers burning.?If course, the smoke cloud was much bigger and deeper around the South Tower.?More bodies falling, more bodies.?I tried to get Allyson again, nothing doing.?Again, people were just staring at the Towers, agape, and screaming.?My phone rang in my hands, it was my sister, calling from DC.?“Are you?all right??Where are you?”?I told her that I was OK, told her to call Allyson, and everyone in the family.?But I didn’t want her to get off the phone.??“People are jumping.”?I cried into the phone.?It was, at this point, just sad.?It’s sad to write right now.?I miss those people, feel a connection to them, maybe because I was there when they died.?

I eventually turned and walked further away.?I ran into another TPW associate, someone who I’d seen in the halls but had never met before.?We introduced ourselves, and walked through Chase Plaza together, turning up Nassau Street and walking catty-corner to Pine Street.?He was the first person who mentioned that there had been a plane.?I didn’t believe him.?But I did.?This had blown all coincidence out of the water.?What makes this amazing, looking back, was how calm we were—Just a couple of New Yorkers.?We both tried to get through on our phones.?When I wasn’t trying for Allyson, I tried to get my friend Pete’s phone.?I knew that he was likely working on one of the upper floors of 2WTC.?No dial tone.?We split up, him to go find his daughter, an associate herself at Sullivan & Cromwell, and I to see if I could use a phone at one of my client’s offices.?I entered the lobby at 70 Pine Street, and felt a shear wave of panic from the people there.?The space was too small for me, there were too many people there, most of whom wanted to go up to their offices.?The security guard called up to my client’s offices, but she wasn’t in. I asked the security guard to call another person, who worked for the same client in a nearby building.?He was at his desk, I asked the security guard to tell him that I was on my way over, and I made my way around the corner to his office.?However, the security guard wouldn’t let me go up to his office, and I was stuck leaving him messages.?(I learned later that he had gone downstairs to look for me, and was partly caught in the soot when the buildings came down).?When the security guard wasn’t looking, I snuck in a call to Allyson, somehow the phones were working and I got through.?“Where are you?” she screamed into the phone, and it was truly a joyous conversation.?Her voice was so sweet, but so tense.?We spoke for a minute, I told her that I’d missed my train and that I was going to walk home on the Brooklyn Bridge.?A quick “I love you” and we were off.?

I started out for the bridge, and took a path that led back through Chase Plaza and down Cedar Street, towards the WTC.?In the melee and crowded streets, this seemed like the correct path to take, particularly because we never expected the buildings to collapse.?Again, thinking that I’d run into other Thacher people.?I snaked along Cedar to Nassau, and then to Broadway.?I knew that I needed to take a right and go to the bridge, but I had to stop and watch the buildings.?There was a large hole in the South side of the building, it must have been where a fuel tank had exploded.?People were staring, crying, joking.?A few had bought disposable cameras and were taking pictures.?Then, in an instant, it seemed like the building started shedding pieces.?Slivers of steel came crashing down, and then all of a sudden, it was the entire building coming down, from the top.?People turned and fled back down Nassau.?People coming, coming.?People falling on top of each other, I kept thinking, as I felt legs hard against mine, that I couldn’t fall, no matter what.?I slipped once and got up.?In less than 3-4 seconds, the color had gone from sunshine to gray, like a storm cloud coming over, and as I skirted the side of a building, large panes of glass were breaking away and falling to the sidewalk.?I thought for a second to jump into a window, but I could see the glass shards hanging off, and my instinct was to run, run.?Of course, my first thought was “Allyson thinks I’m OK, she thinks I’m on the bridge.?How will they tell her that I died? And that I was where I was, when I should have taken the long way around?”?The darkness came only 10 or fifteen seconds later, and then the dust.?Again, a roar, like sheets of steel being banged on.?And again.?This was the moment, I think, that I thought was my last.?That any second a building would collapse on me and I would feel nothing.??

The dust came down my back and I felt it on my hair.?It was cold.?And then, all around me I could feel the swirl of the dust.?On my face.?My hands.?I could feel people around me, but I think that I stayed up.?The dust was in my eyes, in my nose, my mouth.?I have a small cold as I write this and the pressure on the back of my throat has brought back all sorts of sensory memories.?Not being able to breathe.?Feeling like I had a mouthful of dust and dirt.?And I didn’t die.?I remember that thought as well.?I’m alive.?I’m surviving.?Keep walking.?It was still black, but I thought that I had the direction right.?I stumbled into a candy shop in an alcove in the building, there was a dim fluorescent bulb that lit up the dust, but it was crowded, and I ducked out and kept running, trying to pull my undershirt up over my mouth and nose.?I came to a door in the building and went in, it was the side lobby of 120 Broadway, I think.?The air was musty but I could see again.?There was a newsstand in the lobby and people were running into it, looking for water.?It was controlled, but there was a lot of fear.?People were taking bottles of water out of the cases in the newsstand, and taking long drinks.?I took some into my mouth and spit it onto the floor hoping to get some of the dust out.?People were sharing water bottles. I gave mine away but another came my way and I took it and ran it over my face, trying to get the dust out of my eyes, which already hurt.?I decided that getting as far from the towers was the best thing to do, so I got out of the lobby and headed through a wide open space with small steps, which I thought was Chase Plaza.?To be honest, my memories of these few minutes are very hazy.?Without my sense of sight the memories are merely of dust and quiet.?The darkness was starting to abate, it was more a deep gray, and so quiet.?Eerie.?It had gone from being a dust storm to a driving blizzard.?And then lighter.?My eyes hurt badly at this point, I could feel dust under the lids and my field of vision was obscured.?I walked down what I think was Pine Street, there’s another Deli on the corner and I went in.?There was no one at the cash register, but that was ignored.?There were two deli clerks in red-striped aprons, handing out bottles of water to people.?I took another big drink, rinsed out my eyes again.?As I left, I could hear the phone ringing behind the counter.?“Hey, they have a phone on here” I yelled, but decided that if I went behind the counter someone might have thought I was up to no good.

This was the first time that I had heard my voice, it hurt a lot to speak.?I went further down Pine and found myself on Water Street, where suddenly it was almost sunny again.?I walked out towards the piers, and turned left.?At that point, I realized that I needed to get some of the dust out of my lungs.?I coughed deeply, and ripped my undershirt, and then dress shirt, so that I could blow my nose.?My eyes kept hurting more and more (Later, I realized that the dust underneath the lids was abrading my eyes over and over).?I stopped a group that was walking along and asked if they would wash out my eyes (I was still carrying a bottle of water).?They made me kneel down and they poured the entire bottle on my eyes.?They must have known that I couldn’t see very well, because they gently but firmly told me that I was going to walk with them, and I was in no position to argue.??We walked for a while, it turns out that they all worked at Goldman Sachs.?We talked about what had happened, and debated whether to head home to Brooklyn.?Everyone tried to get through on their cell phones.?I finally got through to Allyson, she was much calmer than I expected, but of course, she had no idea I was near the Towers when they came down.?You’ll have to ask her what exactly what I said.?She wanted to come meet me, but I told her that I was going to need her when I got home, and that she should stay put and wait for me.?A few of the people in the group asked me to have her call their relatives, and she took a bunch of numbers.?We signed off with another I love you, and all I wanted was to be at home.?When we got to the Manhattan Bridge (the Brooklyn Bridge was closed), two of the girls in the group (who also lived in Brooklyn) and I decided to walk over.?They were nice enough to walk all the way home with me.?When I entered my apartment, Allyson came around the corner and I never again want to see her face look the way it did at that moment.?I think that it’s a good thing that I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror up until then (although I had an idea when a women who I’d stopped to buy a bottle of water from in Chinatown, just shook her head and looked sad).?Allyson was crying, but was quickly over it as she realized that I needed help fast.?The girls made themselves at home and started calling relatives to come get them while I got into the shower and started trying to rinse myself off (and my eyes, out).?It didn’t take long to realize that my eyes would need further attention, and as soon as the girls had left, one of my neighbors drove us to the emergency room of my local hospital.?The diagnosis: two badly abraded corneas, which were treated by first flushing the dirt, soot, and pebbles out of my eyes, and then my applying medicine and bandages for 4 days.?Now, three weeks later, they have still not recovered completely, although they are expected to.

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