My wife Joan worked on the 91st floor of the South Tower; while I worked on the 72nd floor of the north tower. We usually get into work late (about 9am), but Joan had been pushing me to get out the door earlier and I was quite proud of myself that Tuesday when I succeeded. So as luck would have it, we got in the building at 8:30, 15 minutes before the first plane hit the building.

Going up in the elevator I decided that I would take my laptop and work on the 65th floor that day, where I had been helping another Port
Authority department. Normally, I get caught up in a discussion and it takes me quite a while to get off 72; but not that Tuesday. I made it down
to 65 just 5 minutes before the plane hit. That spontaneous decision got me 7 floors further away from the impact point and that much closer to the ground. Thank God all the people I work with on 72 also made it out, so I probably would have survived either way.

When the first plane hit the North Tower on about the 90th floor it was nowhere near as dramatic as you would think on the 65th floor, just 25 floors down. There was a definite explosion but it did not sound that bad.
There was a big flash of light. The really scary part was how much the building moved, and kept moving, for a long time before re-stabilizing. At the same time we saw out the window that flaming pieces of the building were flying past the window. People on the floor were a little confused, should we stay there or start to evacuate. The Floor Wardens with their red hats
had not yet mobilized to give us instructions. They probably would have suggested we stay in the hall and wait for an announcement. My survivor instinct kicked in. I screamed out at the top of my considerable lungs that people should get to the stairs and then I did so.

We all filed down the stairs quite calmly. We also moved very fast, because we were not slowed up by people coming in from other floors until we had gotten down 30 floors or more. Some people were crying, some people were tired and not in that good a shape, but we all helped the weaker. There were several times
that 2 landings ahead of me were empty, because I was helping a heavy woman named Michele who was having trouble with her knees. No one pushed past, no one yelled at us. Many people in the stairs with me had been in the last
bombing, and they kept telling us this was much better than that time. The lights were on, the smoke was not so bad, the bomb was above, not below us - of course we were going to make it out. It wasn't until all the traffic on the stairs stopped that people got panicky and started to yell, but then a stop & go pattern developed and we were calm again.

It was on the stairs that I started to worry a little about Joan in the other tower. We started to hear that a plane had hit the building, and I
wondered if it might not bounce into the other tower. I kept trying my cell phone but it wouldn't work- no surprise. I put the thought of her being hurt out of my mind because it was only causing me trouble. We kept walking down the stairs. The smoke was acrid, for a brief moment I thought we may get poisoned, that perhaps we were not yet safe, but that passed quickly too.

Of course we were safe, we were near the ground (just 20 or so flights to go).

We saw the first rescue worker coming up our stairway on the 17th floor. I remember that because one woman said that last time she first saw them on the 18th floor. Their coming up slowed us down a little more, but we had all the time in the world... When we were almost all the way down we came upon a floor that had water pouring out from under the door. This caused a
waterfall all the rest of the way down, there were several inches of water on the floor, but it was passable and did not slow us up much.

We came out on the mezzanine level, which is the ground floor street level on the front of the building. In all it took us about an hour to get down the stairs. There was probably less than a half hour before the South Tower would collapse. The plaza was filled with burning debris, but it did not look very bad. The lower level windows to West St were completely blown out, but nothing looked bad out in the street.

It was then; however, that the seriousness of the situation became apparent. The police had panic in their voice. They yelled at us with a real sense of urgency to move. You very quickly realized you were not safe yet. I ran to the first officer I saw and asked how 2 world trade was because my wife worked there on the 91st floor. I saw his face and everything went out of me at once; I could barely speak and I squeaked "don't tell me, please, I don't want to know". I asked how could both towers be bad and he
told me that a plane had hit each building. I knew instantly that it was a terrorist attack. He asked to use my cell phone and tried to call someone but it didn't work so he gave it back. He then looked at me strangely and said "look at my name badge, my name is Morse. If I don't make it out alive get in touch with my family, let them know how I died, and that I loved them". I promised I would and ran down the escalator- dead inside because Joan could be dead, and scared because the whole building could fall any minute if that officer was so worried.

At the lower level they routed us through the basement mall. It was a surreal scene. It was completely empty except for a few rescue workers, the lights were out, the sprinklers were all going off and the floor was flooded. I looked to the right, toward the south tower, and did not see a single person moving. There was nothing to do but get out and get to a phone, call Joan's parents and see if she had called in. I was not
accepting her death until it was real. To think of it crippled me, made my heart race, my breathing rapid, and my head clouded. I had to stop thinking, I had to get out first and then find her later.

We ran down the corridor past the PATH train, the same way I left work every day. I saw the doors on the North side of the tower and the street there looked fine, but they were making us go a different way. That door was closer, but I decided to trust the police and so I went up the escalator and out the door by where the Borders bookstore was, the Northeast corner of the
complex. When we got outside they yelled for us to run, some stuff was on the ground and I realized that I could still be killed by falling debris.

They kept yelling "don't look up", so I waited until I got across Church Street next to the Millennium hotel before I turned around to see the fate of the South Tower where Joan worked. That was when I lost all hope; the second plane had hit the building below Joan's floor. The flames were leaping upward. She was in a towering inferno in the worst possible place,
trapped above the flames.

My reactions at that moment in time are very strange to me.  I thought I would have fallen to the floor catatonic, or been incapable of comprehending the information, but neither of those things happened.  Instead I focused on one thing, get to a phone, call Joan’s mother, and see if she called in.  In retrospect I chose to keep hope alive where very little existed, to delay my breakdown until it was absolutely justified, when it was certain she was dead.  At that time I still did not know that she had 18 minutes to get out.  I heard that 2 planes hit, the natural image I had formed was that they flew in formation and struck simultaneously. 

My survival instincts were still very strong.  I still did not feel safe right across the street from the building, where so many people stopped to watch.  As I ran down the block next to the old church toward Broadway I saw the looks of horror on the onlookers’ faces and I knew I did not want to look back.  I saw one policeman scream that another body was falling and then quickly turn his head away.  There was nothing I wanted to see back in that building.  Those were not images I could bear to imprint on my memory cells so they could haunt me for decades to come.  I moved fast, searching only for a free phone.

Of course every phone had a long line of people waiting, and I was brought up too polite to push them aside.  I felt their calls were as important as mine, we all had just suffered incredibly horrible things.  Besides, never one to follow the crowd, I did not want to be herded with everyone and never be able to get near a free phone.  So I ran across Broadway and up Fulton Street, dashing to some of the smaller side streets where there were less people; always heading East, toward the other river.

Even on the back streets all the phones had lines.  Inside, I thought, would be available phones.  Suddenly I saw a synagogue and ran inside.  There was a phone in the back I could use, the Rabbi told me.  Shaking, I ran back and waited a few minutes for the one other person who had thought of using the phone to get finished.  After a try or two I got through to Joan’s family and found out that she was alive and had already called in.  Now all the emotions that were hiding inside me broke out.  My sister in law told me that I was laughing and crying at the same time.  I only remember such a powerful, all- enveloping feeling of joy that seemed to rise right up through my body and soar skyward, toward God who had answered the prayers I had been saying as I ran along.

But my joy and feeling of safety vanished almost instantly.  I made another call, and as I was speaking to my father, letting him know we were alive, I heard a horrible series of explosions and everyone screaming in the street.  By now we knew this was a terrorist attack and so I thought they were bombing the city.  I hung up on my father and ran to the door.  When I opened it there was only blackness and pandemonium, everyone was running down the block to get away from the towers, and the black cloud of dust that we now know was the pulverized building completely filled the air. 

The Rabbi told us we all had to leave the building, that it was unsafe and might collapse.  He led us all out, he fighting through the dust at the head of the line of people.  I was the last to leave, trying to make one last call to Joan’s house to see if she had called in again once the building fell.  No calls would go through, so I followed the others, letting the door close behind me.

As soon as I got outside I knew it was a mistake, the dust filled my eyes, coated my mouth, suffocating me almost instantly.  I turned and tried to get back inside but the doors had locked.  I pulled on each in turn with no luck.  Finally I used all my might and pulled again and the lock gave way and the door flew open, I fell back inside to safety.

I then thought of the other people outside and reopened the door.  Very little of the dust came in; it seemed driven forward in a straight line, not veering off to the sides where I peered out the door.  I yelled for people to come inside, and a few did, but most kept running, too panic stricken to hear.  The ones who came in were covered in gray ash; it was piled 6” on their heads and shoulders and completely covered their faces.  I found a cup and water fountain and gave anyone who would take it a glass of water, I found cloth and wet it so they could wash their faces.  One of the survivors had a portable radio and it told us the tower had fell.  At least it wasn’t another terrorist attack, but it also told us there were 8 planes hijacked and only 4 accounted for.  We had not yet found safety.  We then found out that the Pentagon had been attacked and I knew at that moment that the way of life we had known was gone, in a single second.  There might never again be a place of safety.

I kept opening the door and trying to get people to come inside and protect their lungs.  Two rescue workers fell into the door, one so overcome he could not get up.  We wiped him off and gave him water and he sat up and gathered himself together.  Within minutes the two had gone back out into the dust to save more lives.  Unbelievably focused on their jobs, unconcerned for their own safety.  I felt like a coward, holed up inside protecting myself, but I was again focused on only one thing: Joan’s safety.

I kept calling the house, finally I got through.  No, Joan had not called back in once the tower fell.  My heart sunk.  They did not know where she was when she first called in.  I had time to call, why hadn’t she?  I had no idea that the tower had imploded, so I feared the building had toppled and killed hundreds more.  What if Joan was hanging around the building looking for me?  She had called in first, so she did not know that I was safe.  Oh God, what if she had stayed around for me and died because of it?

I choked this thought back quickly, it threatened my very sanity. No, Joan was a very smart woman, she would have gotten away.  There was no way in the madness for two people to find each other.  We owed it to each other to get to safety and then connect through a common phone line, her parents.  God could not have delivered her miraculously from the building (I think I still did not know about the time lag) only to take her life afterwards.

The dust was gradually clearing, the sun was shining through again, and the phones were not working at all, so I decided to take my chances in the street.  I wanted to get uptown to my in-laws so I could be with them while we waited for word from Joan.  I took off my shirt and wrapped it around my face and headed east.  There was an ambulance handing out dust masks so I got one of those, put my shirt back on and headed up with the other survivors.  Just a few blocks north, as I crossed under the Brooklyn Bridge, the air cleared enough to remove the mask and the sky was a clear perfect blue.  People were walking over the bridge to Brooklyn, people were flowing uptown, everyone was being led out of downtown.

As I walked along I saw several people from the 72^nd floor.  It seemed many of them had made it out (in fact almost all did).  I came upon some people from 73.  I spoke briefly with each group I came upon, but it was a real struggle to keep composed and act normal.  I walk fast, and I would quickly leave them behind, telling them I had to find what had happened to my wife. 

On Canal Street, while walking with a co-worker named Sam, we got stuck for a minute while traffic passed ahead of us.  I had a clear view of the remaining tower, the one I had worked in.  As I watched in disbelief the building chose that moment to fall.  It crumbled, appearing to melt down from the top.  It looked like a very controlled demolition, and I began to theorize that the elevator workers had planted bombs, but I heard enough since then to realize that the building was actually designed to fall that way if the worst happened. 

As an Engineer I was so impressed and proud that they had incredibly planned for what had happened.  So many lives saved because of such careful, well-thought out design.  When I later found out that a 767 loaded with fuel had hit the building I was even more impressed.  The impact was so minor, the swaying of the building so much less than one would have expected, the explosion so muffled, that I could not believe how well the building was constructed.  The fact that my client, the Port Authority, had been responsible for the design and construction made me even more proud.  Were it not for this we all would be dead today.  The buildings gave us a lot of time to get out.  It was like they valiantly held themselves together as long as possible so the greatest number of people got out, and then expired in a way that harmed the least number of people in their passing.

But as I walked uptown from Canal Street my mind was not on the buildings, it was on my wife.  At least I knew she got out of the building.  The odds were now so much better that I was very optimistic, but of course I needed certainty.  I kept trying my cell, I waited on several corners and tried by pay phone, and I went in a few buildings to use their phones, trying to get word on Joan.  A few times I got through to her sister and Joan had not called.  My hopes were sinking again. 

Somewhere in Soho I came upon a church.  I was staying on the side streets, away from the crush of people on the main avenues.  I went into the cool, empty, beautiful church and kneeled in a pew in the back.  I had stopped going to church years ago but my belief in God had never wavered, I just worshipped Him in my own way.  I prayed for Joan’s safety, but asked that if in fact it was her time to go that God take her to heaven, where one day we might be reunited.  I promised to be a better Catholic, and to devote my life to helping others.  I promised to change for the better, to learn the lesson this time that I somehow forgot after the San Francisco Earthquake.
 
 Finally, around 30^th Street I got through on my cell phone and heard that Joan had called in and was ok, still no word on where she was but she was definitely ok. Again I fell back, unable to stand at the strong emotion that gripped me.  Again I was unable to speak, to get out words, again the joy engulfed me and made me whole.   
There were still a few hours of uncertainty ahead, because I still had not spoken to her and no one knew where she was. Later, Joan told me that she was in her office on 91 and heard a crack like thunder.  She looked out her window and saw the fireball from the North Tower and felt an incredible heat.  The heat was so intense that she left her office to call me, and when she did not get through she grabbed her pocketbook and headed for the elevator.  It took her and many co-workers to the 78^th Floor, where they had to wait for another elevator.  The scene was relatively calm, it was the other building that had a problem, but they were evacuating all the same.  Remember that there was only 18 minutes before the next plane hit, so every second counted.  Joan spoke to a few people she knew.  Horribly, some of these people apparently returned back up to their offices and died when the plane hit.  A friend was on the phone with his wife and she was watching on TV when the plane struck.

Joan however stayed focused, and got in the first elevator that came, which unfortunately only went down to the 44^th floor.  Co-workers that waited and got in one that went all the way down were a few blocks away when the 2^nd plane hit.  Unfortunately, Joan was still walking down the stairs from the 44^th floor and had made it to the 10^th floor when the plane hit and the building swayed.  It was calm on the stairs till then, but at that moment people gasped, a few screamed.  Most people miraculously stayed calm however, and filed down the remaining stairs and out.  She told me there were times when slower moving people held up the line, but still no one trampled them or shoved them out of the way.  No one realized how much danger they were in, no one knew the building would fall down.

When Joan got to the mezzanine level she did not see the carnage in the plaza.  I did not either but my friends described a horrible scene of body parts and human organs. When she got to the mall the sprinklers had not yet gone off, the floor was not flooded, nothing.  She had actually got out before me because she used the elevator.

Unfortunately, Joan did what I feared most, she stayed around the building looking for me.  She asked a policeman where the people from the north tower were coming out.  She tried every phone but they would not work, her cell phone was worthless.  She didn’t know if I was alive or dead.

The scene was calm enough that a few friends stayed with her.  They went to an ATM so her friend could get some cash (survival training).  It was there at Citibank that she finally got a call through, letting her mother know she was alive, checking on me, and leaving a message at her sister’s office (who was outside a seminar downtown laying on the sidewalk screaming because she saw the plane hit Joan’s building).  She didn’t get the message until Thursday, when she returned to work.

Joan and the other South Tower survivors she was with then actually went to a coffee shop to get something to drink, and were in the Starbucks just a few blocks away when the ground shook, the building trembled, and the lights flickered on and off.  People began screaming and other in the street ran by the building, (think of Godzilla movies).  The South Tower, the second one hit and the first to fall, had collapsed, imploding upon itself.  The dust cloud went east, up the block I had taken refuge on, not North, where Joan went.  Joan and her friend got out of the building and walked uptown.  Some time later while sitting on a hydrant next to a building she looked back, saw the smoke clear, and saw the antennae on the roof of the north tower sink down.  Still she did not know my fate.

A lot of people want to know how we reconnected.  I walked way up to the 90s, joined my in laws around noon or 1pm, and waited for Joan to get there or call in.  She had already called in twice, but despite that, we began worrying again when so much time went by, because it turns out that she spoke to someone at my other sister-in law’s job and we were not sure if it was before or after the buildings fell.  Finally around 2pm she called again, and I ran out down 2^nd Ave to meet her, ultimately joining up on 66^th  Street.  Words cannot describe how good we both felt to see each other.

Joan and I have a deep and true love that has gotten stronger and stronger since we met New Years Eve in 1980/81. Our souls have merged and it is hard to imagine life without her.  Today we are even closer, maintaining more constant personal contact, as though by holding her hand I can prevent evil forces from taking her away.  Today will be our first day apart since the attack, and I am filled with great anxiety, but like all Americans we are putting fear behind us and re-building our life.

So what are we left with, in the aftermath of this great tragedy?  Thousands of people are dead, our world stands poised on the edge of senseless destruction, and survivors like Joan and I fear a repeat performance.  If that were all, the Taliban would have succeeded, and struck a victory.  Instead, in that dramatic morning, because of a cruel and inhuman act, America was given back its humanity. Churches are full, God Bless America is sung at all gatherings of people I have attended, and we are discussing world events more than our personal lives.  People have donated time, money, clothes, their blood, and most important of all, their lives, to help others through this difficult time.  We are taking the first steps toward being a better people.

Unfortunately, there are always ignorant and cruel people in every culture, and some Americans are senselessly attacking innocent people from other countries who live in America.  Typically, this happens quite far from the place where the attack took place, and is perpetrated by those who lost no one or nothing in the attack, except their feeling of security.  At Ground Zero we feel only numbness, and an intense feeling of vulnerability.  We want only a place of safety.

When we ran that day down the stairs we thought we were safe until a plane hit the building while we were still inside.  When we miraculously got to the downstairs we thought we were safe until the first building fell, and when we were not hit by debris we heaved a sigh of relief, only to have our lungs filled with dust from the pulverized building.  Now although some of us are back home in our own beds, we still did not find a place of safety, because of world events. My heart pounds and the adrenaline flows when it is not needed and I find it hard to eat.  But still we get up, shower and dress and go about our everyday lives, and try to find the greater meaning.  I for one will try to find it in helping others every day, in being kinder and more patient, in re-establishing my ties with God, and in sending out messages of hope like this so my worst fears do not come true