9/11 A Story of Faith and Survival
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Thirty-four year old Michael landed at Newark International Airport on September 10, 2001. He came to conduct business for his company that specialized in Internet technology and mergers and acquisitions. He checked into a room on the 24th floor of the Marriott World Trade Center, midway between the two towers. He set the wake-up call for 8:45 a.m., climbed into bed, and opened to the final pages of D-Day by Stephen E. Ambrose. Michael awoke before the wake-up call and immediately focused on his nine o’clock meeting with Dun & Bradstreet at the World Trade Center. Then he headed for the shower. 8:46 As he reached for the faucet, he heard a thud and felt the floor move beneath his feet, similar to the earthquake he’d experienced in California. Out the window, he saw small and large objects, some fiery, falling through the sky. He heard cars crashing below. Suddenly, the windowpane shattered to smithereens and shards of glass slid across the floor to where he was standing in the bathroom door. I’ve got to get out of here! Dressed in a polo shirt, jeans, and shoes he grabbed his cell phone as a jagged windowpane fell and splintered on the floor. Michael bolted for the door, ran out the emergency exit, and fell in step with others going down the dimly lit stairs. He reached the lobby and joined people moving in an orderly way toward the doors. 8:55 Once outside, he saw debris falling like rain on more than a dozen abandoned cars and an injured man in the street. Michael waited in line to cross Liberty Street. He was hungry. Where can I find a bagel?. . . Forgot my wallet in the room. . . . Got to let them know I can’t make the meeting. As he and four others stepped off the curb, a large chunk of glass and steel fell from the sky and sunk deep into the pavement. The FBI agent directing them yelled, “Get out! Everybody NOW!” Michael trotted six steps, heard a loud crash behind him, and reflexively sprinted across the street. Once on the other side, he whirled around and stared at the body of the woman who had stood next to him on the curb. Her navy business suit was bloodied, and her body nearly cleaved in two. The horror of it stunned him. Men and women, overwhelmed with terror, sat down on the curb to collect themselves, oblivious that they put themselves in danger. A man screamed, “Look a plane!” Michael looked up and saw a commercial airliner careening towards the World Trade Center. Transfixed, he saw it fly into and through the tower. He tracked the nose cone until it plummeted blocks away. The top of the tower erupted in fiery billows. Its force ejected people, two of whom fell toward Michael. He ran. They’re trying to kill us. I’m living a Tom Clancy novel. Stunned, he joined the mass of people walking down West Street, stopping occasionally to look at the flames engulfing the towers. When American Jet fighters passed by the towers, people mistook them for enemy planes and ran for cover. Michael stopped at a dry cleaning store to call his family. “Hi, just calling to say I’m okay.” “Okay? What do you mean?” “Well, you should turn on the news. I’m out and okay.” “What news?” “Any news. Gotta go. Bye.” 9:22 Not yet comprehending the gravity of events unfolding around him, Michael assumed firefighters could extinguish the fire, and just maybe he could retrieve his belongings. A policeman directed him to the Brooklyn Tunnel, and he ended up on a street bordering the west edge of the World Trade Center, three blocks from the Towers. Overwhelmed, he sat on the curb and listened to a nearby car radio. He heard that the Pentagon had been hit and the White House was being evacuated. He saw a woman dressed in a purple business suit, drenched and torn, and wearing no shoes plead with the lead firefighter. Shrieking, she told him that she worked for MetLife and had just come from the eighty-fourth floor, changing stairs at the forty-fourth floor. The stairs were completely dark and filled with smoke, and water had swept her and others down more stairs than they walked. “Above forty-four is an inferno. No one has survived. Don’t go in—I beg you.” “Ma’am, we’ve got a job to do. Please let us do it.” Undaunted, she pleaded as they strapped their tools and gear and collected their helmets. A dozen or so firefighters moved to the curb beside Michael and turned toward the tower. The lady followed, sobbing uncontrollably, pleading with them not to go in the towers. Michael heard one firefighter repeat the Twenty-third Psalm. “The Lord is my shepherd. . .” Several men crossed themselves. A short, redheaded firefighter repeated over and over again, “Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with thee.“ Months and years later Michael would remember their prayers and the look on their faces. He saw cold fear and raw courage, the same bravery Ambrose described in the American infantry on Omaha Beach. He never knew if they even made it into the building. Still on the curb, Michael looked at the door of the Marriott that he had exited a few hours earlier and heard a radio commentator scream that a jumper had landed on a pedestrian below the tower. 9:59 Emergency vehicles, rubble, and the wounded blocked streets and sidewalks. As Michael walked past the towers, thick black smoke poured out from the base of the South Tower which was only a thousand feet away. The tower is coming down! He ran and heard a loud pop. The Tower shook and swayed. Michael froze. I’m really in trouble! He dove under a dump truck and stared at the Tower that looked like a collapsing volcano spitting out automobile-sized chunks of glass and steel. The dark cloud would arrive any second. Michael’s life passed before him. He wanted to die with a clear conscience and confessed his sins. He did not fear death for he knew that he would spend eternity with the Father. Yes, he wanted to see his wife and four children, but in that moment he accepted that God might take his life. The ground shook violently, and a long, steel beam flew by and sunk deep into the pavement. Across the street, flying debris smashed a yellow and white ambulance like an egg. The ominous cloud was arriving. Suddenly, Michael felt himself sliding from underneath the dump truck, but actually the truck was speeding away into a hailstorm of steel and glass. Exposed and with no hope of escaping the thick, black cloud, he crouched beside a Volkswagen. I’m going to die. The turbulent mass nearly knocked him over. Steely grit stung his arms and face. Michael stood up. The sky blackened. Gasping for air, he pulled his shirt collar over his mouth to filter the soot and debris. His eyes burned, and his body was covered with dust. He silently shuffled through ash. I’m going to live! Other survivors, near enough to see, looked like sandblasted zombies. Tears streaked their cheeks. 10:28 When the other tower came down, the ground trembled and more ash settled over Michael. He pulled his shirt over his mouth and trudged on. Within five minutes the sky had brightened. At an intersection, a man carrying another man on the back of his bicycle crashed in front of Michael. The foot of the man on the back was nearly severed. Nearby, men distributed water and athletic socks to use as facemasks. Within minutes, they used those socks as a tourniquet above and around the man’s foot to hold it in place. Michael and another man served as crutches and hobbled the injured man to a first aid station a couple blocks away. Shop owners offered food and water along the way. Michael stumbled upon the Bowery Mission and stopped for a cup of soup. When he told the man how much he appreciated it, he said “Oh this is what we do every day.” Michael smiled. It takes a disaster for the rest of us to help each other. Across the street Michael noticed people lining up to give blood. It’s the least that I can do. As he waited in line, people at the Mission began singing Amazing Grace and, before long, people on the street joined the choir. Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see. Tears welled up deep within him. Cradling his head in his arms, Michael sobbed uncontrollably. “It’s good to be alive. Thank you, Jesus.” He prayed and sobbed his gratitude to the Savior. Though Michael had no money, no ID, and no way to contact his wife, he walked with a lighter step. He found the Dun & Bradstreet office where a woman gave him twenty dollars that he used to board a Spirit Lines cruise ship. The captain had turned it into a makeshift ferry to carry people across the Hudson River. The sun warmed Michael and a handful of passengers in a nearby boat began to sing America the Beautiful. Soon, a host sent the soothing balm across the water. Before long, male stock traders in bloodstained white shirts, construction workers wearing tank tops and hard hats, and women in soiled business suits sang their love of America. Tears again welled up as he sputtered “America, America God shed his grace on thee . . . from sea to shining sea.” Deep within him, Michael knew the Savior secured his eternal destiny, and when the day of evil came, God had saved him from it (Eph 6:17). God bless America. |