NYDailyNews

In a Flash, Offices Turned into Hell Seconds divided life and death

By DAVE GOLDINER Daily News Staff Writer

an Baumbach was switching on his computer on the 80th floor of 1 World Trade Center about quarter to nine yesterday, ready to begin another day at work.

Janitor Michael Wainwright was sipping coffee downstairs and sweeping up the first trash of the day when hell came like a bolt out of a brilliant blue New York sky.

Within seconds, fiery debris was raining down from the high floors, flames shooting out the windows.

Ceilings started falling. Smoke poured into offices.

Trailing flames, a deliveryman burst out of an elevator and rolled on the ground in agony.

Soon the second tower was ablaze and doomed office workers jumped — one after another — to their deaths from 1,000 feet above lower Manhattan.

"If people didn't believe in the devil, they can believe in him now," said the Rev. George Rutler, who gave last rites to dozens of victims, including a priest. "It's so diabolical. So vicious."

Nobody had to tell Baumbach what to do when he heard the explosion a few floors above him. He knew it was time to run for his life. "I just wanted to get out," said Baumbach, 24. "People were hysterical."

Like hundreds of others, Baumbach ran to a stairwell. He rammed his shoulder into the door, but it wouldn't give.

"I thought, that's it, I'm not getting out," he said, standing shirtless outside St. Vincent's Medical Center hours later.

Racing to another stairway, Baumbach ran beneath a burning ceiling and past blood-spattered and screaming people. Forty minutes later, he was safe.

Wainright made it out okay, but he trembled as he searched for his fellow janitors. "I can't find any of the guys I work with," he said.

The children of Public School 150 were filing into their school three blocks from the World Trade Center when the plane flew through the sky right over their heads.

"Daddy, what happened to the plane?" a boy asked.

Parents began to weep and scream. "The plane hit the building!" one said as the children were quickly herded into school.

In the moments after the first plane hit, panic quickly spreaded in the plaza between 1 and 2 World Trade Center.

Fires spurted between twisted piles of shiny metal and huge chunks of concrete. Bodies were strewn about. In the middle of the plaza sat an empty baby stroller.

Far above, flames shot out and a blizzard of debris and paper descended in a swirling cascade.

"God, it was the scariest thing you've ever seen," said John Enlish of River Vale, N.J., who left his car, dropped his wallet and ran.

"I saw everything falling," Ronald Norville, 24, of Valley Stream, L.I., who dodged debris the size of park benches. "It was like it was moving in slow motion. I thought it was all over."

The Rev. Kevin Madigan of St. Peter's Church rushed out of his church across from the twin towers hoping to help the wounded after the first plane crash.

"Lightning doesn't strike twice," he murmured to himself.

He was wrong. Minutes later, people looked up to the smoke-streaked sky — and spotted another plane zooming taking dead aim.

"It was coming in so low," said Virgilio Guzman, 42, a superintendent of a building in Battery Park City. "You could see the writing on it."

Inside 2 World Trade Center, the horror was just beginning for Kelly Reyher.

He was working inside his office on the 100th floor when the first plane slammed into the other building. He got down to the 78th floor when the second plane hit.

The elevator doors opened, and all he could see was a wall of fire. He picked his way over dead and wounded bodies, trying to help a burned co-worker.

"The building was swaying like it was made out of rubber," said Gustavo de los Santos, 38, of Brooklyn. "All I knew was I needed to get out of there."

Out on Vesey St., a police officer was screaming, "Get outta here!" when a flying shard of metal hit her in the face.

A chunk of debris struck a bicycle messenger in the head 10 feet away. He died on the spot.

Waves of screaming people broke across Church St., looking for anywhere to hide.

"People all had terror in their eyes," said Marina Aquino, 37, of the Bronx. "It feels like the end of the world."

When the panic subsided for a moment, dozens of empty shoes, handbags, backpacks and abandoned bicycles were strewn across the street.

High in the sky, the most horrifying drama of all began to unfold.

Trapped by searing smoke and flames, desperate people started to plunge off the top floors of the towers, some flailing as they went.

"They were jumping out of the windows," said janitor Nancy Joyner. "They were just jumping and jumping and jumping."

Construction worker Edwin Moore watched in horror as a man tried to shimmy down the outside of the tower. He made it about three floors before flipping backward to the ground.

"I'm just never going to forget what I saw," said John Perrotta, 47, of Huntington, L.I. "It's etched in my brain."

Triage was set up out in the open in front of the Hilton Millennium Hotel on Church St. next to the Trade Center. Office workers sat on the sidewalk with serious burns and blood streaming from open wounds.

A woman in a red flower dress calmly answered questions, her face covered in blood.

As injured people streamed out of the buildings, scores of firefighters and rescue workers were racing into the buildings as they blazed.

But no one seemed to suspect what was coming next.

Instead of simply burning, the soaring steel buildings started to crumble from the top down.

Firefighter Matt Tansey, 27, was on the sixth floor of one of the buildings when "what sounded like an avalanche, an earthquake and an explosion all rolled into one" unfolded.

Firefighter Mike Miraglia fought his way through fires in the lobby to get inside when the building started to come down.

"You couldn't see, but you could hear steel bending and people's voice screaming," he said.

Three firemen hugged a support pole as the skyscraper crumbled around them.

Firefighter William Quick found himself plunged into the inky darkness.

"I was trying to survive. It was total, pitch black for 10 or 15 minutes, said Quick, 45, of Atlantic Beach, L.I. "I hid in my coat."

On the street, people looked up and saw huge clouds of dust and debris sweep down the building.

"It went like a stack of cards," said stockbroker Anthony Vaccardo, 22, who was emerging from a subway station. "There was no warning. it was a surreal experience."

Tom Fitzgerald, had just escaped from his office on the 14th floor, started running toward the South Street Seaport in hopes of finding refuge.

"It was like a scene out of 'Godzilla,'" said Fitzgerald, 43, of upstate New York. "When the smoke cleared, No. 2 was gone."

Lawyer Jennifer Kouzi stumbled and was trampled along with a co-worker as they tried to escape from their office building a block from the Trade Center.

"I thought I was going to die right then and there," said Kouzi, 24. "We just held hands and prayed. I never felt so scared in my life."

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2001