Diana I. Gregg, September 2001

I was still in my room on the sixth floor of the Marriott when the first jet hit the north tower. I had planned to cover a 9:30 session and one at 11 before checking out and taking the 2:30 Delta shuttle back to Washington, D.C. that afternoon.

I left my room immediately after the explosion, when I went to the window and saw cars swerving to avoid pieces of
concrete raining down on West Street. I remember passing Dick Berner and Joel Prakken in the lobby and may have said
something to them but mostly I remember crossing the street and looking for a phone in the lobby of the building opposite the Marriott. I called my husband to let him know that a plane had hit the World Trade Center and that I was
safe and would try to get home soon.

Probably that was around 9 so I must have been just across the street when the second attack occurred. I know the jet
came from the right, but it sounded as if was flying over my shoulder. Everyone uses the same words to describe that moment:
horror, utter disbelief. I know that I screamed and ran back, towards the river. I knew what I had seen slam into
the south tower was a jet, and that there were people in it. Sometime later I heard that planes had been hijacked from
three airports, but at that moment I thought simply "attack." I know that in choosing the route south, and
sticking by the water, I was prepared for the possibility of another attack.

I moved steadily south, to get away from the epicenter and because I could not stand to look at the burning towers for
very long. There is no memory from that morning more painful than the sight of men jumping from the top floors of the
north tower. When the south tower fell I probably was some blocks away, by the river, and I did not need to look back to know what that roar meant. For the first time I glanced at my watch: 10 o'clock. I wrote that down on a piece of paper, as if it
would help me make sense of the chaos later. A policeman said the area ahead was safe, far from any buildings, and I found I was standing by an old fort, with deep windows cut into the stone. It must be right in the middle of Battery Park. When the north tower collapsed, I was with four other people and we all jumped up into the window opening to avoid the second cloud of ashes and
debris. Two of my companions turned out to be, not New Yorkers, but NABE members; Jamie and Tyler, who work with
Mary Ann Greenwood of Fayetteville, Ark. It was really comforting to talk to them and know that we were all looking
for a way out of Manhattan, to go home to our families.

For us, that came in the form of a ferry to Jersey City. What an incredible sight, the skyline of lower Manhattan,
with smoke where the twin towers had stood, and the Statue of Liberty on our right. Eventually we found our way home. In Jersey City buses took us to Newark Penn Station. I got on a train to Trenton and Jamie and Tyler located a friend who was driving down from Maine. I had expected that D.C. would be shut tight, like Manhattan, and that I would spend the night in Philadelphia
but in Trenton I found the Metroliner was going directly into Union Station. Some time around 4 I finally got through
to D.C. on someone's cell phone.

I did not know any of the more than 6,000 people who perished in the twin towers. The people trapped in the top
floors, the brave fireman who went in, they were all strangers. But not a day goes by that I don't think of them.

Diana I. Gregg
BNA Publications
Washington, D.C.