Escape to Staten Island
by Bruce Kratofil (Cleveland), September 2001, Revised January 2002
Since I take pictures of the speakers to post on the NABE web site, I was sitting at a table up front, in front of the podium. The first thing I noticed were the lights flickering. I looked up at them- the banquet room's lights had hundreds of glass prisms hanging down below the lights, and they were swaying back and forth. I had time to think "Earthquake" and then I heard the booms from the explosion. It was then that I thought "I'm at the World Trade Center- this is a bomb and not an earthquake."
There were probably 200 of us in the banquet room, maybe 50 yards from
the base of the North Tower, which was the first one hit. Some people
were yelling "Get out, Get out" but there was no real panic,
although we were moving fast. I remember grabbing my briefcase, and hugging
the wall as I left. The room emptied out into a foyer, which in turn emptied
out to the main hotel lobby, which faced west out to West Street. Hotel
staffers were not letting us out onto West Street, where we could see
debris raining down. At this point, I didn't know what it was- another
bomb in the parking garage, a truck bomb, or what. Most of us headed south
through a hotel restaurant that had an exterior door south onto Liberty
Street. Once out, I headed west across the street to a plaza. I remember
a policewoman trying to keep the lane in front of the hotel clear for
fire trucks, and I remember a utility worker already heading down a manhole,
presumably to shut off a gas line. There were already sirens everywhere.
As I exited the hotel, my first thoughts were on how to find my wife
and 13 year old daughter, who were also at the meeting. They were going
to be sight-seeing in the morning, and I wasn't sure where they were.
As soon as I got across the street, I used my cell phone to call my wife's
cell phone. According to cell phone records, the first call was at 8:49-
I only got her voice mail. It was only then that I turned around to look
at the hotel and WTC, and that is when I saw the hole and smoke in the
North Tower. Since I was standing at the opposite side from where the
plane hit, the hole was small, and the flames at this time weren't bad.
I was only there another minute or two. Many of the NABE people were there, and quite a few maids and staff from the Marriott. Suddenly I hear "Dad, Dad!" and my daughter comes running through the crowd to me, with my wife right behind. They hadn't left our room yet, which was on the extreme south end of the hotel, on the 18th floor of the 21 story hotel. Ours was one of only two rooms on each floor that faced south. They were as protected as you could be from the first plane (although our room couldn't have been more than 500 yards from where the second plane hit, facing the same direction. I'm sure that impact blew out the windows in our room.) They left the room immediately- there were fire stairs almost right outside our room, and they ran down the 18 flights. These stairs ended at the hotel's second floor, which had exits east out to the plaza level of the WTC. My wife remembers seeing chunks of concrete and flaming debris out on the plaza. They then were directed down to street level, and went out the same door I did. They recognized NABE people with the convention name badges, went to them, and that's how they found me.
At that time, we did not know it was a large jet, since we were seeing the smaller hole at the back of the building. The flames were getting worse, and there was a heavy chemical smell in the air. We got to the edge of the Hudson, and decided to head for open ground at Battery Park. We were about a block south when we saw the United Airlines jet roaring in over us. Luckily, we were shielded by some of the Battery Park City buildings from seeing the actual impact, although we could hear it and feel it. All we knew was that New York was under attack, and we wanted to get off the island. The fastest way seemed to be the Staten Island Ferry.
We were probably among the first 300 people or so to line up inside the ferry building. There was an announcement that the ferries were being searched for bombs, and that the first one would dock in about twenty five minutes. While we were waiting in line, there was another rumble and the ground shook. We didn't know it at the time, but it was the first tower collapsing. We did see the ferry come to the dock, and they opened the gates to let us in. While people hurried aboard, there was no stampede and no pushing. Probably for the first time ever on the ferry, as everyone took a seat they also took out a life jacket out from their storage places.
Finally, the engines rumbled, and we could see the Ferry Building slide away through the windows. But then we entered a white fog so thick we could see nothing- no sun, no water, no landmarks. It may have been five minutes before things brightened up- I remember finally looking out and seeing Ellis Island off to the right.
We were finally out in the sunlight and going at full throttle. We docked at Staten Island sometime around 10:30 to 10:40. There were Coast Guardsmen, policemen and paramedics waiting to board to head back to Manhatten. We wandered around until we found a rental car place. Unfortunately, they were not allowed to rent out any cars, but they did tell us and another couple of a bed and breakfast place on the island. They called and got us rooms at a place about a mile north of the Verranzano Narrows Bridge, where we holed up for the rest of Tuesday.
On Wednesday, we found out that it isn't easy getting off Staten Island. But after a bus ride and a long walk over the Bayonne Bridge, we got to New Jersey. A series of bus, taxi, and train rides eventually got us to the Philadelphia Airport by 5 pm, where we rented a car to drive back to Cleveland.
(A more detailed version of this story is at http://www.bjkresearch.com/ny/
