Acknowledgement Thanks to all of the survivors, firefighters and family members who poured their hearts and souls to make this book a reality. I am indebted to every survivor who I have had the privilege to connect with. Over the course of forming the September 11 Survivors of Three World Trade Center charity, my life has intersected with some of the most amazing people I have ever met. They have become my extended family. Thanks to Bill and Laurel Vaughan, Frank Razzano, Richard Stark, Leigh and Faye Gilmore, Greg Frederick, Anulfo Ponce, Milcia Pena, FDNY Heinz Kothe, FDNY Jeff Johnson, FDNY Jason McGimpsey, Patrick Anderson, Father Engel, Matt Harttree, Denise Campbell, Crystal Cattano, Drew Porter and so many others I have connected with. I would also like to thank my early board of directors who helped with the initial stages of the non-profit. Frank Razzano, I am grateful for your straight talk and legal guidance. Underneath the tough exterior, you have a heart of gold. To Bill Vaughan, whose gentle soul and moral support I will always value. You are a wonderful musician and I will always remember how your 9/11 inspired music touched everyone. To Patrick Anderson, my counterpart in Michigan, who has dedicated much of his time to preserve the memories of 9/11 with his non-profit charity Michigan Remembers. You were one of the first survivors I talked to after 9/11. Thank you Patrick for your support and advice throughout the past years
To my friend, Leo Blume who believed in the mission of the 9/11 survivors. To my friend Dave McLure, we became friends as a result of the Boston Marathon attacks. Although our bond was formed as a result of another tragedy, I am glad we became friends. Thanks for offering to help out any way you can in our mission. To Sal Iannuzzi and Lise Poulos who also supported our mission to remember 9/11. To David Hastings who helped me a great deal during the initial stages of forming a non-profit and always believed in the importance survivors play in history. To Teresa Mathai from Mass 9/11 Fund, who is one of the strongest women in the 9/11 community and someone who I could always go to for advice. Thanks to all the staff and volunteers from the 9/11 Tribute Center. I was one of the first volunteer docents when the Tribute Center was in its infancy. The community was valuable in that it enabled us to heal by allowing us to tell our stories. A shout out to Kim - you cared so much about the 9/11 community, including fetching a rescue puppy for a little girl. Thank you. To Amy Weinstein, Jan Ramirez and Joe Daniels from the National September 11 Memorial and Museum - thanks for supporting the survivors community and working with me over the years, including attending our gatherings. I would like to thank my parents for their love and support. To my husband, whose never-failing support, encouragement and love made this book happen. You have been a true partner every step along this difficult journey and we have done this together. None of the charity work, annual commemorations and creation of this book would have been possible without your unwavering love and support. You suffered tremendously on 9/11 when I went missing. But when we reunited, I saw the tears and look of hope in your eyes. You inspired me to write this book through your life-long thirst for knowledge and truth. Your compassion, dedication to public service, and unfaltering altruism will always serve as an inspiration 8
in my life and the lives of others. And during those weekends I spent working on the book, thank you for being a supportive father. To my daughter, I wrote this book for you. When you were six years old, you asked me an insightful question: How is war and killing other people supposed to bring peace in the world? Your thought-provoking question is the basis behind this book, and highlights an important perspective only the innocence of a child can provide. You may be too young to understand, but I started this project to ensure our stories are preserved for you and future generations. One day, you will grasp the importance of maintaining the history of 9/11 in order to make the world a more peaceful place. It is our hope that the next generation can help promote peace and tolerance in the world. When you saw me working on the book covers, you said, Mommy I want to help make you a good cover. Your covers were the most thoughtful of the bunch; thank you for seeing the beauty in everything. The buildings shone in the sky. 9
After September 11, the United States was shattered. America will remain strong despite everything. 10
In memory of Todd Hill, James Cleere and Brett Owen Freiman, the registered guests who died in the hotel. 11
Patrick L. Anderson Ten Minutes to Escape for a Michigan CEO Patrick Anderson is the CEO of Anderson Economic Group. He is from Michigan and was staying on the 5 th floor of the hotel inside the World Trade Center. On the morning of 9/11, he was attending an economics conference in the hotel when the attacks occurred. Patrick and a co-worker escaped before the hotel collapsed under the falling towers. Since then, Patrick founded Michigan Remembers, a 9/11 charity that preserves the memories of the 19 people from Michigan who lost their lives. PERIODICALLY, WE HEARD THE AWFUL SOUND OF SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT INANIMATE. IT WASN T A BUILDING OR A PIECE OF A PLANE. IT WAS SOMETHING WITH A PURPOSE AND A LIFE. WE KNEW, BUT DID NOT WANT TO KNOW, THAT THE TERRIBLE SOUND MEANT THAT LIFE HAD ENDED.
14 Ten Minutes to Escape for a Michigan CEO Ten Minutes to Escape I grew up in a small town in Michigan, and didn t want to live in the big city. However, by some manner of divine providence, I found myself at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and survived to return home unlike many others, including others who risked and lost their lives to give me a chance to escape. For that reason, I have joined with survivors and patriotic Americans to remember that day, the heroism and the loss. In Michigan, the Michigan Remembers 9-11 Fund annually sponsors a Run to Remember, and every day remembers the Michigan victims of this tragedy. We share the mission of the Marriott World Trade Center Hotel Survivors to ensure that the history of this day, and the remembrance of the victims, continues onward. This story is a remembrance of ten minutes at the World Trade Center that day, beginning about five minutes after the first plane hit. For some of the people mentioned, I know whether they lived or died; for others, I may never know. However, the story should be told. The Crash of a Thousand China Cabinets At 8:47, I was in my hotel room at the Marriott. I had been on the top of the building just 25 minutes earlier, but had come down after ironically complaining that I couldn t find a stairway down. As I learned later, parts of the plane that hit the first tower fell through the ceiling of the Marriott. Coming downstairs before then was the first brush with death for me that day. When the plane did hit, I felt the building sway, in a manner that could not be explained. I heard a sound like the crash of a thousand china cabinets falling over. Looking outside, I could already see fire, debris, and death. Inside, I could feel doom. Still, it was another several minutes before I left the room encouraged, perhaps, by the announcement to stay in your rooms that played over the loudspeaker. When I did leave, I had one shoe on, and one shoe off, and left everything I had brought to the city except my wallet, cellphone, and pocketknife. I didn t know it then, as I began running down the stairwells, but I needed every second I had.
Patrick L. Anderson 15 The Useless White Suitcase Down I went in the staircase, pausing only to put one shoe on and lace it quickly. As I got toward the second floor, more people joined me in the stairwell. Soon, I burst out of the interior staircase, now joined by dozens of others, swelling into hundreds of people escaping from both towers who had entered WTC 3. They were confused, scared, agitated and remarkably uncertain about what had already happened. Many attempted to talk on cellphones, which were already failing to work. It didn t stop stories from spreading; the most emphatic, told to me by a man who appeared to know, was a Cessna hit the tower. Having already heard, and felt, the impact of the first plane, I didn t believe that assertion but I hoped it was close to true. On the second floor, there was a large, semi-circular staircase that led to the first floor lobby. There was now a full-scale exodus in place, and dozens of people moved hurriedly toward the staircase and down it. Outside the window, we could see debris fall in an irregular rain, some wafting down in a black, circular death wallow. As I went down the staircase, a woman walked irregularly next to me, struggling in her panic to carry a white suitcase. She was old, and she was hyperventilating so much I thought she might fall over at any moment. The suitcase was very important to her so important she was struggling to carry it, even as precious moments ticked away. I turned to her and spoke directly to her face, in a way you do when you are thrown together with others who are in the same peril. We re going to live. Let s just walk out of here. Then I took the suitcase from her hand, and carried it down the stairway. It was heavy. At this time, I still didn t know how much of a peril we were in. I felt the doom, but still hoped the Cessna hit the tower assertion was true. At the bottom of the stairway, I handed the burden back to her. We were now moving slowly, and she could briefly rest the suitcase if she needed to. Later that day I wondered what was so valuable in the suitcase, and why she would risk her life struggling to carry it out of a burning building. I later decided that, if I had known what lay ahead, I would have thrown the suitcase away and told the woman nothing in it could possibly be worth losing her life.
16 Ten Minutes to Escape for a Michigan CEO The crowd now swelled to two hundred or more. We were in the first floor lobby of the Marriott World Trade Center, or WTC 3. People leaving the tallest towers were arriving by the minute, as were others from trains elsewhere in the complex. It was about 8:55 am, and the first plane had hit the North Tower just 8 minutes ago. As we learned later, the South Tower occupants hadn t yet received a formal evacuation order Three NYFD firemen were there. They announced sternly that we should proceed toward the south entrance, where they were sending groups running across Liberty Street. The front of the building facing the West Highway was too dangerous to enter, as debris continued to fall don, as well as large objects that, we could sense, was much more than debris. We moved, steadily, toward the doors; periodically, another group would sprint across the street to the south of the WTC complex. It couldn t have been more than 6 minutes; it is frozen in time for me like it was 60. The Fireman s Last Carry As I waited, a woman fainted (perhaps she was the woman with the white suitcase; I ll probably never know.) The tallest of the three firemen picked her up over his shoulder in a fireman s carry, and shouted gangway. I looked straight into his eyes, which were very brown, and very determined. The crowd parted for him, and he ran out with her over her shoulder. I realized later, and it brings tears to my eyes as I wrote this, that after he carried that woman across the street, he came back into the building to help more people get out. There, he died, probably when the second of the two tallest towers collapsed onto the Marriott World Trade Center. The lobby of the WTC Marriott was buried so deeply under the rubble of three buildings that they didn t find his body until January 1 of the following year. I think about this from time to time; a thousand of us walked in once and ran out once; this man ran in twice. He could not have misunderstood what he was doing; all of us felt the impending doom and knew that building was going to fall that day. Yet he did not abandon his post or neglect his mission. I never met his family, and I hope one of them one day reads this story and knows the heroism of his last hour. I dedicated a book I wrote a few years later to the memory of these three men.
Patrick L. Anderson 17 The Final Volition I waited my turn in the crowded lobby, more people poured in from the two tallest towers, from the Marriott, and as I learned later, even from the transit hub underneath the center. The scene outside the windows was surreal, as bits and pieces of the burning building above fell down. Sounds of banging, and yelling, and of sirens, and stressful voices, and footsteps and hard breathing filled the air. Periodically, we heard the awful sound of something that was not inanimate, that wasn t a building or a piece of a plane, that was something with a purpose and a life. We knew, but did not want to know, that the terrible sound meant that life had ended. I cannot plumb the depths of despair and horror that must have moved them to take their final step, high above, facing death on all sides. I cling to a thread of hope, or perhaps a speculation about the serenity of a man s final decision, that at the very end they chose volition. The Plane that Shouldn t Be Overhead The crowd pressed forward toward the south-facing doors. More debris fell down. It was nearly my turn to run. I knew that once out of the doors, whatever came down from the sky could land upon you. It was my turn. I sprinted south. Suddenly, I heard another sound, very loud; it was the screaming of a low-flying jet plane. I looked up, and saw the second plane coming right over my head. I thought immediately that the plane was in the wrong place; that it was too low; that the flight controllers couldn t possible send the plane there. And then I realized the true horror: that the hijackers were trying to fly the plane into the building; that the plane was going to fly into the building; and that everyone of the plane and many more people in the building were going to die. Probably for everyone in America that day, there was the moment you realized what was truly happening. As I realized the plane, now banking as it rifled toward the tower, was being piloted for this very purpose, one second stretched to many seconds as my mind recoiled from the knowledge. I was running, the plane was flying, people were screaming, but time crawled as the darkness of evil men flooded my senses. At this point, I thought I would probably die, too. The plane would