A Refuge in Hoboken

By, John C. Moore, Jr

On the morning of September 11, I was attending a breakfast meeting as a participant at the annual meeting of the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). About 250 people were in attendance that morning in the Ballroom of the World Trade Center Marriott Hotel. Richard Scott, President of Morgan Stanley, was about five minutes into his talk about the globalization of world financial markets when we felt two jolts that felt almost like a minor earthquake. The chandeliers that covered the ceiling started to shake within seconds. We needed no prompting to realize it was dangerous to remain in the room. Spontaneously, all of us stood up and started to walk to the exits. When I had moved about two tables away, I realized that I'd left my meeting portfolio. I turned to go back, but faced with a wall of people coming toward me, I realized it was smarter to keep on heading toward the door.

When we reached the lobby we saw debris - siding from the World Trade Center -falling to the street outside the front entrance to the hotel. We milled about the lobby for a few minutes not having any idea what danger we faced (there had been no announcement). Within minutes, hotel staff quickly opened the side entrances and directed us out to the street. There was no running, no panic, but we were "speed walking" away from the hotel toward the Hudson River. When we were a block away, we looked up and first started to realize the magnitude of the damage. Massive flames were leaping out of north WTC tower at about the 80th floor. It reminded me of the movie "Towering Inferno." At that point, I didn't know a plane had hit the building. A few cell phones were working among the thousands of people in the streets and a rumor began to go through the crowd that a plane had crashed into the building.

When I was about two blocks away, looking at the blazing WTC Tower, the second plane hit the south Tower (18 minutes after the first). I only caught a glimpse of the plane. We realized then that it wasn't an accident but a terrorist attack. This was also the first time some people began to panic and run. I tripped over a low-lying fence, bruising both arms and legs, but quickly got up and "speed walked" toward the Hudson River.

At one point, probably only about 10 minutes later (I was not keeping track of time), two Wall Street Journal reporters who had been evacuated from the Dow Jones Building saw my meeting name tag and asked me for an interview. The reporters said they had seen people jump from the burning towers. I was shocked and at first could not believe it. Then, about five minutes later, I too saw a person jump, the first of several that I eventually saw that day. It did not look like these people had been pushed by the inferno raging behind them. Instead, it appeared they were taking advantage of the one freedom they had left, the freedom to choose their means of death. I was horrified.

The crowd was dispersing in all directions and I lost all contact with all the people I knew from the conference. As I continued to move away from the WTC to a point about 6 blocks away, a policeman gave me the first instructions I received that day. He said, "You're still too close, if the building collapses it will hit you even here. You need to move further back." I couldn't imagine the buildings collapsing, but I continued to move south to Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan Island. Just as I reached the edge of the park, the south tower, the one closest to me, collapsed. I was far enough away to avoid the debris field, but not far enough away to escape the gray-white cloud, 20 to 30 stories high that came racing toward me like an avalanche. It was terrifying. Many people panicked and started running. I ran too, but the debris cloud was moving much too fast to outrun.

I soon found shelter in a concrete restroom in Battery Park. But then as 10, 20, and perhaps 30 men, women, and children squeezed into the small restroom we all started to realize we had a new danger - the risk of suffocation as some of the dust entered our small enclosed space. As others tried to get in the building, someone at the door turned them away saying it was already too crowded. It was surreal. Here we were protected, somewhat, but we were also keeping others out. I wet my handkerchief in the sink and held it over my nose to breathe. I assisted a mother and young child get water for their handkerchiefs.

After about 10 minutes, the breeze cleared away enough smoke and dust. Most people then left the restroom shelter and walked toward the water on the southern tip of Battery Park. What would have been a beautiful view of the Statue of Liberty was spoiled, not only by the events of the day, but also by the gray dust swirling about everywhere.

I reached the river and the dock where hundreds were boarding a ferry, but it looked severely overcrowded, so I decided not to board. Within 10 minutes after the first ferry left, the thousands of us at the waters edge heard a loud boom and realized that the second tower, the one furthest to the North, had collapsed. We had nowhere to hide. For the next 10 minutes, I could only place my handkerchief over my nose and try not to inhale the clouds of dust that surrounded me. Fortunately, the breeze soon blew some of the dust away.

I kept looking around to try to find a familiar face. Then I overheard a young man on a cell phone, trying to call Arlington, Virginia. I introduced myself and told him that I was from Northern Virginia as well. We agreed to stay together and managed to do so for the next 30 hours.

My new companion's name was Bill Filer, a broker in training with Morgan Stanley. He had been attending the training program on the 51st floor of the World Trade Center building that was hit first. But just before a meeting break at about 8:30 a.m. he had gone to the basement of the building to pick up some medicine. Some of his colleagues had gone to the WTC observation deck. Bill was distraught thinking that everyone in his class, which numbered more than 250, had most likely perished in the collapse of the tower. We agreed that we had two immediate priorities, to find a way off Manhattan Island and to call home.

We were unsuccessful at calling home as we had no working cell phone, and none of those that were offered worked. But within about 15 minutes, another ferry came up to the dock where we were standing. It was a triage ferry for the sole purpose of carrying those who were overcome by smoke, or who were otherwise sick or injured, to the first aid centers across the Hudson River in Jersey City. Bill and I decided to help out while we waited for another ferry, and we lifted many people over the railing and onto the ferry. When the ferry was ready to pull away, the Captain told Bill and me that we were welcome to get aboard since we had been helping load the ferry. About 15 minutes later, we were in Jersey City.

It was only then we started to realize the magnitude of the damage. Now we were no longer concerned for our own lives, and we could see the tremendous plume of smoke over all of lower Manhattan. We asked officials where we should go and were told to board a bus that would take us to a Red Cross staging area. We found a pay phone on the street and, for the first time, almost two hours after my evacuation from the hotel, I was able to call my wife and assure her that I was safe. We walked towards the bus area but decided instead to take refuge in a bait and tackle shop at the Jersey City Marina. We wanted to make more phone calls, to find a place to stay that night, to work out how we would get home, and to wash some of the WTC dust off our faces and suits. The Japanese and Koreans who ran the shop did everything they could to help us. They offered us anything we wanted to drink and let the two of us use their telephone numerous times. They refused to let us pay for anything. We watched CNN with them and their relatives, mesmerized by what we had escaped.

Through her brother's assistance, my wife put us in touch with a family in Hoboken (just north of Jersey City) who offered to give Bill and me a place to stay that night. Since our new Hoboken friends had recently moved to the 18th floor of a waterside apartment building, we had a view across the Hudson River of the smoke covered lower tip of Manhattan. Our hostess lamented that she had never bothered to take a picture of her beautiful view of the WTC towers, and now they were gone. That night, we took our hosts to an Italian restaurant, only three blocks away in downtown Hoboken. On the walk back to the apartment, we passed a Catholic Church and stopped in to give thanks to God that we had survived and to pray for the families of those who did not.

The next morning Jim and I took the Path Train back to Manhattan's Penn Station (midtown area). At one point we walked across one of Manhattan's busiest streets, Seventh Avenue, and saw almost no cars, just lots of people. At the train station I met a young couple on day three of a one-week NYC vacation. They had decided to return home to San Francisco ASAP and had decided to spend the rest of their vacation traveling across country by train. We caught the 12 Noon Metroliner to Washington, D.C. In spite of the disaster, the trains were running on time and I arrived at Union Station, DC at 3 p.m.

As I think back on the events of that day, several images and sensations stick in my mind. A catastrophe brought thousands of people together as one family. Strangers spoke to one another, helping each other in any way they could and sharing their experiences. They shared cell phones, though most of the time they didn't work. For me, the importance of having a friend during a catastrophe such as this was made clear. Once I teamed up with Bill Filer I was not nearly as anxious about what might happen to me. Street vendors gave away their entire inventory of bottled water or juice to help people who were coughing from the smoke and dust. I probably had at least three offers for bottled water as I was waiting for a ferry. The vendors even asked for help from the crowd so they could quickly distribute their inventory.

I don't panic easily and I remained fairly calm through most of my odyssey. I know I was very lucky. I escaped with only bruises and lost baggage (including my Agency's computer and my best business suit). I did not get hit by large debris from the collapsing buildings or the burning planes. I didn't see any severely wounded people. I did see people nearly overcome by smoke and dust. And I wasn't caught on any stairwells trying to escape the World Trade Center towers. What did scare me was the collapse of the first building - I was too close - and the sight of people leaping from the burning buildings, an image I will never forget. I learned later that the dust cloud that hit us was mostly concrete and other building materials that had been pulverized by the gravitational forces from the collapsing buildings.

I later heard that everyone who attended the conference at the Marriott Hotel escaped. However, two hotel employees are still missing. An economist from the FDIC whom I met at the conference had his wife and two children with him. He stayed in the hotel until he found his family and they all got out. But they lost their belongings including their car, which was parked in the underground garage. I also heard that a policeman was killed when he was struck by one of the people who jumped. Almost all of Bill Filer's training class managed to exit down the stairwells and escape unharmed. Sadly, those who went to the observation deck are among the missing.

John C Moore
October 2001