The first thing I noticed when I left my house on the morning of September 11, was how clear the sky was. It was about 8:20 AM, and as I proceeded to my job at the World Trade Center, I don't think anyone could have imagined the horror that was about to begin in a little less than half an hour. Although I'm supposed to be at work by 9:00 AM, over the past couple of years I had gotten into the bad habit of getting to work anywhere between 9:15 and 9:30. I guess this was a good thing on September 11th.

I live in Brooklyn, and to get to work in downtown Manhattan I needed to take two subway trains to get there, switching at Pacific street. My first train got me to Pacific street shortly before 9:00 AM, and just as I was about to board the R train to complete my journey, an announcement was made that all trains were bypassing Cortlandt Street due to police activity. Anyone who rides the New York subway on a regular basis knows this is not an unusual occurence. Since Cortlandt Street is the World Trade Center station, I decided to walk upstairs to catch the Number 4 train, where I could get off at the Fulton Street station, about a block and half from the World Trade Center.

The first time at which I realized something major was going on was when the 4 train bypassed Fulton Street. If an announcement was made as to why the station was bypassed, I didn't hear it. The next stop was the Brooklyn Bridge station, located aptly enough, at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge on the Manhattan side. From here it is about a five to ten minute walk to the WTC. With the delays and all, it was now about 9:40 and I was concerned since I had a conference call with a client at 10:00. I had made my way up from the train platform into the station when an announcement was made: "If you work at the World Trade Center, go home."

"What?", I thought to myself incredulously. There was no way I was going to go home without finding out what was going on. As I climbed the stairs leading outside to the street, I saw a gigantic plume of thick black smoke incredibly high up overhead, and I thought, "Wow, something really big must be on fire." It never occurred to me that it could have been the WTC. I thought that maybe something else was on fire, and that possibly the smoke was blowing past the buildings and had gotten into the ventilation system. When I got out onto sidewalk I looked up and saw that my building, Tower 2, was on fire. Although there was a moment of shock, the first thing that popped into my head was that I would be working at my Long Island office for awhile. I assumed it to be just a fire in the building.

The more I stared, I realized the fire was actually pretty bad, and from where I was standing it looked as though maybe four or five floors were on fire. The side of the building I was looking at was not where the plane hit, so it just looked like an ordinary fire to me. My concern then turned to my co-workers who would have been on the 49th floor at the time. Judging by where the flames were, it appeared the fire was much higher than the floor I worked on and I only hoped everyone got out okay. Now mind you, there was a lot of smoke so I didn't realize right away that Tower 1 was also on fire. As soon as I saw it though, I knew we had been struck by terrorists. I think it's kind of impossible to explain how I felt at that moment. There are no words to describe it. From what I could see of Tower 1, there were some small holes here and there from which fire and smoke were pouring out. Given the security measures it takes to get into the building, I couldn't imagine how anyone could have gotten bombs large enough up into the buildings to do the damage I was witnessing.

All around was total chaos. People were running, mostly away from the direction of the WTC. Sirens were blaring, emergency vehicles were racing to the scene and policemen were trying to keep people back. Behind me, hundreds of people stood staring upward. I saw a guy not too far from me with a radio so I asked him what happened. When he said that planes had hit the buildings my reaction was that they were probably small planes. He then said that the planes had been hijacked and contained passengers, and my reaction again was that maybe they were small commuter planes. Another guy standing there asked him what kind of planes they were, and I think both of us were dumbfounded when he said 767s. He then told us it had just been announced that the Pentagon was also hit.

There was still a sense of disbelief at this point. I again looked up at the towers, especially my building, once again making sure that the flames were well above the floor were I worked. At this point I just wanted to get home, but not without calling my parents first. I raced back down into the train station and found a pay phone that only had three people waiting on line to use it. When I called my parents, I told them I was okay, where I was, and that I hadn't gotten to the office yet when the planes hit. They told me what was going on and I told them I was on my way home. I could hear a train to Brooklyn pulling into the station, and as I ran down to catch it, an announcement was made that all trains were bypassing Fulton Street. When the train opened it's doors, people exited, oblivious to what was going on outside. I boarded the crowded train thinking I would be home shortly, but my ordeal was just beginning.