Precursor to 911

Remembering February 26, 1993, at about 17 minutes past noon, a thunderous explosion rocked lower Manhattan. This was the first attack on the WTC, the one many forget. Some were killed and hundreds injured.

The blast shook the windows in our West St office. Several of us rushed down West St and moved towards the noise to see what was going on. Arriving at the WTC, I saw people rushing outside, faces covered with black soot from the explosion, gasping for air and met by NYC emergency crews and people assisting.

Terrorists were somehow able to park rented vans full of explosives in the basement hoping this initial attack would cause the tower to tilt over and crash into the other tower. Authorities later learned, after the arrest of ?mastermind Ramzi Yousef, other attacks were in the planning stages.

I had been driving into the city for years ?parking at the Battery or William St garages, or taking NJ Transit (or driving) into Hoboken and riding the Path into the basement of the WTC, taking the escalators up and exiting onto the street almost always getting hit in the face with a blast of wind coming from 4 different directions, brutal in the winter.

So, every time we bow our heads in memory of?911 and its many tragedies, my mind wonders to the warnings of 1993, how fortunate I was no longer commuting during 911 and if we could have been better prepared for the 2001 attack