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Reporting from ground zero
I was in my apartment in downtown Manhattan when I heard a tremendous explosion. I ran to the street with my cell phone, and started moving south.
I spent several hours looking out from the terrace of a building two blocks away from the World Trade Center, watching people inside waving madly for help. The building above them was engulfed in flames. Two planes had hit the Twin Towers. The buildings were in danger of collapsing. There were flames behind the people, and one-by-one, I could see people jumping to their deaths from the upper floors.
Later, after the buildings fell, a cameraman and I cut through the dust and walked toward ground zero, where the sky was filled with fine pieces of glass and acrid smoke. The concrete had a thick coat of grey debris.
The dust thickened as we neared the Trade Center buildings, and down on the ground lay people's resumes next to office supplies and photographs. By then, the two buildings had collapsed, and this stuff was strewn like confetti across a city street
Doctors raced down the block and emergency workers, acting on practiced instinct, moved cautiously toward the buildings.
We kept walking, filed a story from two blocks north of the burning building.
We heard another explosion and heard a firefighter yell, "That building's going to come down, too." A third building had been crushed under the debris of the collapsing Twin Towers and was ravaged by flames.
Shortly after we began to move away, the building we'd just been near would also collapse. Boom. It just came down.
We saw a firefighter who had just come from trying to rescue people at ground zero, but he had been turned back by the impending collapse.
"What did it look like? What did it feel like at the base of the building?" I asked.
Very hot, pitch dark, couldn't see anything," he said. "A lot of rebar and broken glass and a lot of brick. Not really much smoke. Just debris."
He looked at me blankly and said, "There are people in there."
Another firefighter approached. He had just watched as debris came down on top of his truck, on its way to a rescue. The debris hit the truck, crushing all his colleagues except him.
"It was a nightmare," the firefighter said. "A choking feeling. Total blindness. Covered in dust and rubble and everything. I dove under the truck. I was the only one who made it
Near ground zero, it was almost like night time. Except for the burning. What was left of the buildings was just fire, hulks of twisted metal and concrete and glass.. Heat. Fire. Dust. The sounds of the sirens. Pieces of the building that kept falling. A thick, grey rain. Rescue workers now were pushing people away from the scene.
We walked back. Away from ground zero, heading into a haunting silence
Several witnesses told what they'd seen, heard and felt.
'We saw the plane veer'
Midtown Manhattan, a man identified as a pilot tells
This morning we were at Midtown Manhattan on the 31st floor of a building facing south. We saw a (Boeing) 767 flying low down the center of the island of Manhattan, heading toward downtown Manhattan. About, maybe, 20 blocks north of the World Trade Center, we saw the plane veer to the left and fly directly into the north side of the south tower. This was the first plane, a 767."
'Jumping out the window right now'
Downtown Manhattan, a woman near the World Trade Center, tells
"We heard a big bang. Everybody started running out and we saw the plane on the other side of the building and there was smoke everywhere and people were jumping out of windows, they were jumping out of the windows. ... Everybody was wondering where to go, everything was blocked off by security, they told us to get out but there was nowhere to go. I don't know ... Then I heard that another plane hit. And if you go over, you can see people jumping out the window, they're jumping out the window right now. Oh, my God."
'Coming too fast, too low'
Washington, a woman who was driving into the city on Interstate 395 as the Pentagon was attacked:
As we were driving into town on 395, there was exit -- we were trying to get off the exit for the Memorial Bridge. Off to the left-hand side was a commercial plane that came in -- it was coming too fast, too low. And the next thing we saw was it go down below the side of the road, and we just saw the fire that came up after that."
'Don't look back, don't look back'
New York, Matthew Cornelous, who found himself trapped in the World Trade Center as the attacks began:
Sixty-fifth floor, that's where I work. I arrived at work a little bit early today -- I work for the Port Authority aviation department. I was just putting my stuff away and all of a sudden, we heard a loud crash. The building started shaking, kind of moving like a wave.
I had no idea. We figured either an airplane had hit it or -- our first instinct was an airplane. Everybody started screaming, 'Move away from the windows, let's get out of here.' And we saw debris fall past the window on the north side.
"We really had no idea at all what had happened until we exited the building. We took the stairs. ... We made it pretty fast down to the 40th floor. And from there, the smoke got a little bit thick and it was a lot slower. We made it about a floor every two minutes.
"... It was packed, it was a virtual traffic jam in the staircase. Up and down. It was very full.
"Everybody maintained calm really well, I was impressed with that. I think for some people it brought back memories of the (1993) bombing, people who'd been there before when that happened.
"But I was amazed, really. We got into the stairway, we were moving down. The fire department, when we were coming out, said, 'Move to the left, move to the left.' Everyone complied.
"A couple of people started crying a little. But we said, 'We're going to get out of here, we just have to take it one step at a time. It wasn't quiet, people were talking -- in fact someone was laughing, I was hearing that, I thought that was strange. But it was pretty normal. We didn't know what was going on.
"We didn't really understand the full severity of the situation, so people weren't panicking. Once we got down, they put us on the plaza level, which was disturbing. There was a lot of debris in the plaza level, a lot of carnage, basically.
"We moved out the back toward Broadway. The police were saying, 'Don't look back, don't look back. And of course, we made it about half a block and I saw the other tower on fire and I couldn't believe it.
"... We never had any fear of the building collapse. ...It's still sinking in, the full severity of it. ... I'm very lucky. I thank God very much."
'It was just sheer terror'
Washington, Mike Walter, USA Today, on the road when a jet slammed into the Pentagon:
"I was sitting in the northbound on 27 and the traffic was, you know, typical rush-hour -- it had ground to a standstill. I looked out my window and I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. And I thought, 'This doesn't add up, it's really low.'
"And I saw it. I mean it was like a cruise missile with wings. It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon.
"Huge explosion, great ball of fire, smoke started billowing out. And then it was chaos on the highway as people tried to either move around the traffic and go down, either forward or backward.
"We had a lady in front of me, who was backing up and screaming, 'Everybody go back, go back, they've hit the Pentagon.'
"It was just sheer terror."
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