Remembering 9/11

It was barely 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning and I had not finished my first morning cup of coffee.

"Did you hear about that plane crashing into the Twin Towers?"  My office neighbor said as he popped his head into my office.

"Really? Wow, that is crazy."

I quickly opened my web browser and surfed to CNN.com.  And there it was -- a picture of World Trade Center Tower 1 with smoke coming out of its top floors.  It looked like a badly lit cigarette standing on its side.

"I wonder if the pilot was flying too low or if a bird got into the engine,"  Nowell said.

"Man, I hope he wasn't drunk," I quipped.

Nowell and I started at Alston & Bird -- a large law firm based in Atlanta -- a year prior in the fall of 2000 as litigation associates.  I have a vivid memory of that morning: The sky on that cool September morning looked clear and beautiful from my office on the 42nd floor of One Atlantic Center.  It was our usual routine to chit chat about current events in the mornings prior to starting our workday.

But that morning was anything but usual.

"Oh my God!" Someone yelled from down the hall.  There was a secretary around the corner who had the internet radio on.  She told everyone on the floor that Tower 2 had also been hit by a plane.

I turned and looked at Nowell.  Instantly, we both realized this was not an accident, but an intentional coordinated act.  I tried to get back on CNN.com, but the site was jammed.  Too many people trying to find out more news, I suppose.  The time was 9:08. 

For the next 10 minutes, I tried to logon to any news site -- Fox.com; ajc.com; NYT.com; all jammed.  I was finally able to get to Charlotte Observer website and saw the two buildings on fire.

By this time, there was a crowd of people hovering around the hallway talking about what happened. Then the news came that there was a third plane that hit the Pentagon, and then, the news that a fourth plane was missing. . . . Widespread panic set in.

There was a firm wide announcement to evacuate the building immediately.  As I was headed to the elevators, I saw people seriously worried that Atlanta might be a target.  While that may seem to be a stretch today, it was not too far-fetched to believe it at the time.  After all, the city is home to the world's busiest airport in the world (with the possibility that the 4th airplane could have originated from here), Center for Disease Control, the regional office of the Federal Reserve, and CNN, a media company that could spread news of the attack to an international audience almost instantaneously.  We worked in one of the tallest buildings in Atlanta, and one that is iconic to the city.  This made me more nervous.

The elevators took what felt like an eternity to get to my floor.  When the elevator finally came, it was full of people jammed in like sardines, going up, and not down. People on the lower floors apparently became impatient and decided to press up -- just to get the elevator to stop on their floor.  After 25 minutes of waiting, many of us on the 42nd floor decided to go down the stairs.

Each floor had two flights of stairs, so we went down 84 flights of windowless stairs. There was no cell phone connection to the outside in the stairwell, but luckily, it appeared that people were moving at a medium pace.  The stairwell was full of people and I felt claustrophobic. The stairwell was not very well ventilated, and the body heat of the crowd raised the temperature significantly.  Going down stairs still requires a not insignificant amount of physical exertion.  My heart rate rose, and I started to perspire a bit.  Worse, I had no idea what was going on out there in the world. After about 20 flights of stairs, I noticed a heavyset woman beginning to have trouble breathing. Quickly, a law firm partner and I grabbed each of her arms and tried to help her. Getting out of the stairway was not an option -- due to security system differences, my law firm key card was not compatible to the business that occupied any other floor of the building. So the choices were to keep going down stairs, or go back up stairs to out law firm. It took about another 25 minutes, but we managed to help her get down and out of the building to an ambulance that was waiting to help her.

Once the door to the outside opened, we were greeted by cool and refreshing September air. Some people were kissing the ground, some were hugging each other, and some were running to get to their cars.  My mind was racing.  How are my friends who work in Manhattan doing? Calls to anywhere in New York City were jammed -- which further added to the anxiety.

           *  *  *

I rushed into my living room and turned on the television. Before I can even sit down, I saw the footage of Tower 2 imploding.

In the footage, you could even hear the cameraman letting out a gasp in disbelief.  For a brief moment, the camera zoomed in on a person leaning out of a broken window of the other tower.  He was flailing his arms as thick black smoke rushed out from behind him. The camera also captured images of some people who had jumped out the window of Tower 1 in a desperate attempt to save themselves.  The images were truly heartbreaking.

Then, a sudden and terrible thought went through my mind.

The other tower is also going to collapse!

My heart dropped and my chest felt very heavy. There were people still trapped in the other tower's stairwell who probably had no idea that the other tower collapsed, and that they were about to die! Regardless, first responders were still heading into the building to rescue individuals. 

Please God, let the building hold up long enough for the people to get out!

Before I could finish the prayer, the other tower began to collapse. 

Oh my God!

Speechless, I began sobbing uncontrollably. Like a tidal wave, the emotion and the tears overwhelmed any physical attempts at self control; the tragedy simply was unfolding too fast and in such a magnitude that was too much for me to bear.  And watching these horrible events unfold by myself made me feel even more alone.

How can this be happening? How are the families of those trapped going to deal with such loss of their loved ones? How do you explain to a child that their father/mother are no longer on this Earth because of a senseless act by terrorists?

These questions swirled in my head repeatedly. I did not have the answers -- all I could do at the time was cry. Indeed, I don't know exactly how long I wept. Unlike the earlier events, my memory of the remaining portions of the day is a blur. 

*  *  *

Like many Americans, in the days and month following the event, my feelings of grief began to turn to anger. We had witnessed the most tragic event in recent American history. While the victims' families may have been strangers who lived so far away, their pain had hit so close to home.

Simply, life, as I knew it, was never going to be the same, and it never has been.

Note: B.J. Pak is State Rep for Georgia District 102.