Terrorist Attack on NYC & DC

NEW YORK, NY: September 11, 2001 — In a horrific sequence of destruction, terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center and the twin 110-story towers collapsed Tuesday morning. Explosions also rocked the Pentagon and the State Department and spread fear across the nation.

"I have a sense it`s a horrendous number of lives lost," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said when asked about casualties. "I don`t know yet. Right now we have to focus on saving as many lives as possible."

Another explosion was reported at a building near the center. An eyewitness said he saw bodies falling from the 110-story trade center, the target of a 1993 bombing by terrorists from the Middle East; dazed workers, their clothing torn, were led from the buildings, where 50,000 people work.

One of the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center was reported hijacked from Boston – American Airlines Flight 11, en route to Los Angeles. The Federal Aviation Administration stopped all takeoffs nationwide, and the Capitol and the White House were evacuated. All bridges and tunnels to Manhattan were closed, as was the city`s subway system.

"Today we`ve had a national tragedy," President Bush said in Sarasota, Fla.

Both World Trade Center towers were aflame. Dave Billig, spokeswman for the Fire Department, said there were reports of injuries, but there was no immediate accounting of casualties.

John Axisa, who was getting off a PATH train to the World Trade Center, said he saw "bodies falling out" of the building. He said police told him to get out of the building immediately. He said he ran outside, and watched people jump out of the first building, and then there was a second explosion, and he felt heat on the back of neck.

An hour later, there were more explosions, as the top of one of the towers sheared off and fell to the east in a huge cloud of smoke. "I just saw the building I work in come down. I just saw the top of Trade Two come down," said a shocked Gabriel Ioan, an eyewitness.

According to Sara Kugler, an AP reporter at the scene, when the tower came down, "we heard a noise and saw the World Trade Center falling."

Glass doors shattered, cops and firefighters ushered people into subway stations and buildings. When Kugler emerged from a nearby lobby, the air was completely black, from the pavement to the sky. "People were covered in ash, coughing, crying," she said. "I couldn`t see anything. It looked like it was snowing gray snow and the streets were covered with ash, as if there had been a volcanic eruption."

Dicerbo was at work in the offices of First Union National Bank on the 47th floor of the World Trade Center`s first tower when the plane crashed into the building. "I just heard the building rock. It knocked me on the floor. It sounded like a big roar, then the building started swaying, that`s what really scared me."

He and about 40 other First Union employees walked down the stairs to the ground, emerging stunned and dazed, coughing because of the dust in the air, their clothes torn.

Dicerbo escorted about 40 other First Union employees to the stairs, and they walked all the way down. When they arrived, many were coughing, stunned, dazed with torn clothes.

The Fire Department called in all of its employees – including those who were off duty or on vacation – to deal with the catastrophe. A flood of emergency vehicles poured into lower Manhattan, as black smoke engulfed the neighborhood.

A judge canceled Tuesday`s primary election for mayor and other city offices. Buildings citywide, from Police Headquarters to Rockefeller Center, were closed in the wake of the explosions. Giuliani ordered all of lower Manhattan evacuated to make way for emergency vehicles.

FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force officials were seen running down Church Street, a few blocks away, toward the towers.

The crashes came eight years after terrorists bombed the towers, killing six people and injured more than 1,000 others.

Luigi Ribaudo, an eyewitness, said he saw a two-engine airplane make a strange noise as it flew too low near the World Trade Center, then saw the plane crash into one of the towers. "It was going to hit something, and it hit and exploded inside," Ribaudo said.

When the second explosion happened, hundreds of people on the streets screamed, fleeing the building. Streams of shredded paper rained on the street, and floated over the East River to Brooklyn. Pairs of shoes, briefcases and paper, pencils and other articles from people`s desks could be seen blowing in the streets as far as three blocks away. David Reck was handing out literature for a candidate for public advocate a few blocks away when he saw a jet come in "very low, and then it made a slight twist and dove into the building," Reck said. "We heard a large boom and then we saw all this debris just falling," said Harriet Grimm, who was inside a bookstore on the World Trade Center`s first floor when the first explosion rocked the building. "The plane was coming in low and ... it looked like it hit at a slight angle," said Sean Murtagh, a CNN vice president, the network reported. "I was watching TV and heard a sonic boom ...," witness Jeanne Yurman told CNN. "The side of the World Trade Center exploded. Debris is falling like leaflets. I hear ambulances. The northern tower seems to be on fire." Robin Marin, 37, ran out of his downtown apartment almost immediately after hearing the first explosion at around 8:50 a.m., which he described as loud as a "sonic boom." Marin said he could see both towers from the north-facing window of his apartment in downtown Manhattan. "After the first explosion, there was lots of smoke and debris flying off of Tower 1, which is closest to the river," Marin said. Marin described the scene on the streets as "debris and metal and mayhem." Joan Goldstein, communications project leader for The Associated Press, was on a bus from New Jersey at about 8:50 a.m. when she saw "smoke pouring out of the World Trade Center building. We said, `Oh, my God! The World Trade Center`s on fire!" Perhaps 10 minutes later, "All of a sudden, there was an orange plume, a huge explosion. It shot out the back of the building. Everybody on the bus was just moaning and gasping," said Goldstein, who wept and trembled as she spoke. "It was the most horrible thing I`ve ever seen in my life," said Golden. Thousands of pieces of what appeared to be office paper came drifting over Brooklyn, about three miles from the tower, one witness said. The planes are not the first to crash into a New York landmark. In 1945, an Army Air Corps B-25, a twin-engine bomber, crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building in dense fog. The accident killed 14 people and injured more than 25. Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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Author: Choice Content