My adventure started on the 55th floor.

My adventure started on the 55th floor.

BY BRIAN MCGURN
Friday, September 14, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT

Amazing what even a tax accountant can learn about war these days. Ten years ago, I might have sat at my desk and watched a computer keyboard and papers flutter by my window on the 55th floor of Two World Trade Center and wondered what idiot was throwing garbage off the roof. But the human mind learns to absorb and process information even when we are not quite conscious of it. And so when I heard a noise and saw debris pass by my window Tuesday morning my mind immediately said: It's a bomb.

Before the 1993 attack, I didn't think that way--and I don't think most anyone else here in lower Manhattan did, either. I was then with Daiwa Securities, in the same tower but on a lower floor, and I remember the fear and panic as we went down unlit stairwells choked with smoke; that time the bomb had hit the basement, and the smoke bellowed up. The result was that this time I knew to evacuate and yelled out to my co-workers to do so as well.

I walked down with two of them, Brinley Evans and a pregnant woman who worked in our office but whose full name I still can't remember clearly. As we were starting down the 50-something flights of stairs, we didn't know that a plane had hit the other tower. So when 28 minutes later the second jumbo jet plowed into our own tower, we literally did not know what hit us--even though the building was rocking back and forth, we were thrown across the stairwell and we all thought that was it; we were going to die. Another reflex, no doubt a result of a Catholic school upbringing, kicked in: I blessed myself and noticed others doing the same.




It was terrible, but--unlike the '93 bombing--there was no panic. How's that for irony. This time many thousands more people are killed, and all I can remember is how decently people behaved. In retrospect, it was remarkable. Going down the stairs, one man started commanding the women to take off their high heels: "Don't panic, move quickly, don't panic" he kept saying, in a reassuringly firm voice. And that's just what most people did. One or two people did elbow their way past others, but I was thinking to myself, you can't die a coward, and so Brinley held on to the pregnant woman's hand and I followed behind, bent on moving her down as quickly and steadily as possible. She was hyperventilating pretty badly, and at one point we contemplated carrying her down. But in the end we didn't have to.
Once down, we were directed outside to Church Street. I turned and saw both buildings burning and saw two or three bodies hurtling toward the earth. The absolute sense of helplessness these poor souls must have felt. Yet most of us were too shocked to cry or scream, and the building workers who directed us out were heroic, staying at their stations as they saw us to safety. For their dedication they paid the ultimate price. God bless them.

Presently we were able to make our way north, close to Federal Plaza, where a law office opened its phones to us. I was finally able to call my father, having been unable to reach my wife. After our pregnant colleague made contact with relatives who were coming to get her, she told us to get to our own homes. Immediately thereafter the first building collapsed, and sheer horror was the only feeling one could muster. I would be remiss not to report the palpable anger and calls for vengeance out on the streets.

I thought of the poor people trapped inside, the families anxiously waiting at home, and recalled an old Irish blessing about the Lord keeping us in the palm of his hand. At that point I hadn't heard from anyone else on my floor, though the next day I heard from several when we all called one another and our company's London office to see who was missing. The company was totally supportive and had already accounted for most of the staff. Some of my co-workers told me that they had started down, went back up when they learned that our tower had not been hit, but then ran back down when they looked outside and saw a gaping hole in tower one. Some talked about the sickening feeling of looking out their windows and watching other human beings jump from the tower just across from us.




Mayor Giuliani told people to move north if they didn't know what else to do, and that's exactly what we did. We ended up walking two hours north, to the Dublin House on 79th Street. We shared our stories and bartenders and patrons alike bought us drinks. Thanks, guys, you were great. Everyone was great, including the woman who filled up her car with complete strangers like me and drove us across the George Washington Bridge so we could get to our families in New Jersey. On the other side of the bridge, in the early evening, my relieved father picked me up and delivered me home to a grateful wife and children.
Everyone asks how I feel, and I must say: extremely lucky. But no one who got out feels much like celebrating, knowing as we do the thousands of others stuck on the floors above. My own horror lasted less than 45 minutes. But upon arriving home, I learned that three people in my home parish, with more than a dozen children among them, are missing. My brother spoke of driving past a house in his own neighborhood near midnight, with lights on for a dad who will never return home. And the unclaimed cars that remain in the commuter parking lots along my train line attest to the thousands of such families who will still be paying the price for this butchery long after whatever replaces the World Trade Center is built. The irony is that on Monday night I had just brought back from the photo shop a roll of film I had discovered, of a family visit back in December: My children are photographed on the World Trade Center concourse, with the towers looming up behind them.

And so we learn. An accountant such as myself learns to distinguish the distinct smells of a bomb blast from burning jet fuel. Secretaries learn that taking their heels off can spell the difference between life and death. Thousands of American children learn, long before God ever intended, the lifetime of loss imposed by determined, evil men. In 1993 I thought my co-workers and I had learned all we ever would about terrorism. How many lessons do we need?

Mr. McGurn is a tax manager for Garban Intercapital North America.

Thanks for being there for me.​