We knew to get out
by Linda Jasper

September 11 began like any other day for me. My PATH train to the World Trade Center was late, and I was scrambling to get upstairs by 8:30 to my job as the public relations specialist for Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield, on the 28th floor of Tower One.

I exited the elevator and walked past the row of clocks depicting time across the world, noticing that it was 8:36 am. I had no idea that in ten minutes, my life would change forever.

I was reading the Wall Street Journal when I heard a monstrous crash above me. I felt a tremor pass through me, as if I had absorbed part of the crash. My head jerked up and I prayed for whatever happened to stop immediately.

I looked out the window and saw white debris falling down the side of the building. It began to sway, and seemed to stretch further to each side with every movement. There was silence, except for the loud creaking of the tower itself. It sounded like the noise that comes from the hull of a large ship. I was sure it was going to topple over.

Everyone had the same look on their faces—suppression of panic. We knew to get out.

The stairwell was filled with people and smoke. I moved into line and immediately my eyes began tearing and my nose was running. A colleague handed me a one-ply Kleenex that I held across my nose and mouth the entire descent. I thought I was going to gag on the smoke.

People were not panicked, but I was annoyed that they weren’t moving with a little more urgency. A lady behind me was wearing a surgical mask. I felt unprepared.

It seemed to be an eternity before we reached floor 27. Once there, I saw a large man in a wheelchair with another man next to him trying to figure out how to get him down the stairs. I assumed that he would be helped down. It was an entire week before I learned that this man was Ed Beyea, a quadriplegic who, along with his friend Abe Zelmanowitz, was crushed to death when the building fell. Abe chose to stay with Ed rather than leave him.

It was an agonizingly slow descent. Every time I saw a floor number lower than the one before, it felt like a mini-victory. People started bumping and shoving, and I had to elbow the guy behind me to keep him from cutting me off. Not knowing what the day had in store for me, I chose very impractical shoes that morning. They made a loud clicking sound against each concrete step.

Around floor 11 we moved out of the way to let two security men make their way up. They were dressed in plain clothes and had walkie-talkies. I don’t know if they are alive or dead today, but they had tremendous courage to walk up while everyone else walked down.

Around floor 8, the sprinklers went off, and people began to slow down because they were afraid they would slip on the stairs. At floor 6, I hit the mezzanine with a door to the outside. I was directed by security personnel to run, but not panic, and make my way to the causeway that goes out to the Hudson River. On my way, I passed what used to be the plaza outside WTC. It looked like Armageddon—pockets of fire and smoke, unrecognizable debris and glass everywhere.

On my run to the causeway, I was showered by glass from above. Once inside, I looked at the buildings and noticed that both towers were on fire. I had no idea what had happened.

I made my way outside, where thousands were milling and staring above. I frantically tried to call my husband, Dan, but the cell phone lines were jammed.

I walked east to find a pay phone. There were people walking in every direction in the streets, and all the sirens were hurting my ears. No one knew where to go. I tried to call Dan from a pay phone, but hard telephone lines were jammed too.

When I walked away from the phone, I looked back up at the tower and saw people jump to their deaths from the top floors. This was the better of two choices—jump off a 100-story building or incinerate at the top. A stranger yelled at me to get out of there.

I walked north a few blocks, trying to reach Dan by cell the entire way. I decided to try a hard line again and stopped at a parking lot with a one-man cashier booth where I begged them to let me use their phone.  The call would not go through.

Angry that I could not get through to New Jersey, I decided to try my mother in Connecticut. The call went right through.

I became hysterical at the sound of my mother’s voice, but was able to get across that I was okay. I begged her to find my husband and tell him that I was okay. “I’m on with Dan on the other line right now,” she said. She volunteered to come get me in the city. At first, I didn’t think she understood the gravity of the situation, but later I realized that she understood completely and, as a mother, she would have found a way to get me if she had to.

As I walked out of the parking lot, I didn’t even realize that I was still dialing Dan on my cell, because all of a sudden his office phone was ringing. I forgot, however, that he was working from home that morning.

Why am I getting his stupid voice mail, I wondered angrily.

I was in the middle of my message when I heard screaming. Then, I heard an incredible rumble, like an explosive thunderstorm approaching, and people started to run. Tower Two was falling, and I missed getting caught in the debris by a few blocks. The sound of it toppling over, however, was on Dan’s voice mail for days, with me screaming “I’m okay, I think I’m okay.”

I never wanted to get to New Jersey so badly in my life, but there seemed to be no way off Manhattan.

Instinctively, I knew to go north. Within minutes, I turned around and saw Tower One fall. I had no reaction watching the building I had been in 30 minutes earlier fall. My emotions had completely shut down. Military jets flew overhead and I felt completely alone in a war zone.

My feet were bleeding from my impractical shoes as I walked through Tribeca. Strangely, customers were eating breakfast in a local coffee shop as if it was any other day.

As I walked, I pressed re-dial on my cell. I finally reached Dan, and told him I was now on the corner of 28th and 5th. He told me to meet his father, who worked close by, on the corner of 30th and Madison.

I stayed at my father-in-law’s office for the rest of the day, mostly in a catatonic state. I finally learned exactly what had happened. Later, the owner of my father-in-law’s company drove me to Maplewood, where I expected to fall into my husband’s arms, cry and reluctantly let go. Instead, I greeted him with a luke-warm response and had to persuade him to let me go. I felt like I left my emotions somewhere in lower Manhattan.

Two months after the attack, my company eliminated my position. Despite this, and the attack in general, I know that I am extremely fortunate, much more so than the five Trinity alums who did not make it out of the building. Nine people from my company also died, including Abe and Ed, and two others whom I knew.

People ask how I can stand watching the news—seeing the images over and over. The images filtered through television don’t bother me; rather, it’s the intangibles of the day that stay with me—the sounds, smells and feelings. What bothers me the most, however, is the realization that I was personally closer to tragedy than I had ever been, and I nearly made my husband a widower at age 28.

I feel better every day, and I’m looking forward to things to come, like starting a family, finding a new job, and my 10-year reunion. See you there.

Linda
 

back to top