Christopher



// 9/11 Survivor Story  // // by Bob Jenkins  // ~Monday 9/10 he had a meeting with the New York Stock Exchange and on Tuesday he had a meeting on the 39th floor of #1 World Trade Center ~8:30 on 9/11 he was in the lobby, he describes the day as beautiful and sunny, dry and cool ~they clear security, go to the elevators, at the 39th floor they meet their hosts from Lehman Brothers and head to the conference room ~within moments there was a horrible explosion, then a nanosecond of silence and stillness ~a moment later, the building began to rock violently back and forth ~people began shouting “earthquake…”, it felt like the building was going to fall over, tables/chairs/doors/started to open and close/fall off tables/shake uncontrollably ~people tried to run to the stairs ~a woman yelled “there was a mechanical room that exploded on the 42nd floor” and the building suddenly stopped swaying and everything went quiet ~He looked out the window and saw large amounts of paper falling ~he went to the stairs and was amazed at the number of people calmly and quietly shuffling down ~there were shouts of “stay clam” “don’t panic” etc., nobody seemed to know exactly what happened but nobody panicked either ~there was a smell of burning jet fuel in the stairs, many people covered their mouth and nose to try to breathe easier, their eyes burned and tears ran down their faces ~two men ran UP the stairs, they were fire fighters, one was the Chief of the NYC fire department-the other was one of his senior lieutenants…they had a look of terror and determination in their eyes ~the doors to the stairwells lock from the hallway for security reasons so there was no choice but to continue down even as the smoke got worse in the stairwell ~Finally around the 9th floor a man said that the WTC was hit by a plane, nobody believed it because it seemed so impossible ~water began to pour down over the people due to broken pipes, jet fuel was mixed with it and even more smoke ~At the lobby exit door there were security guards rushing people out of the building ~some people ran, others walked calmly but quickly ~a quick look to the right showed a piece of an airplane wing and engine lying flat and smoking ~once outside he rushed from the building, he looked back and saw a huge horizontal slice in the side of the building…there was smoke but no fire ~debris was raining down on the street ~people began jumping from the building in an effort to save themselves from being burned to death when the fire worsened ~cell phones were useless due to the large amount of people attempting to make calls at the same time ~the street was pure chaos, people were walking around with no real idea of where to go or what to do   ~eventually he reached a safe location and was able to watch the news to see what he had just survived