FG radfam: September 2009

It's hard to believe something can feel like it happened a life time ago and just yesterday, at the same time. So many of us can recall the exact events we were engaged in when this tragedy happened. I remember thinking " how awful a plane crashed into the World Trade Center," then when the second one hit I thought " the smoke must be so thick the second plane didn't see the building!" I never thought it was done on purpose. My friend Terri who lives here with us immediately said "Osama Bin Laden did this" I asked her, "who's that?" I had no clue. Then the phone calls started. Everyone knew that Frank worked in the city on a daily basis, plus, worked many times at the Twin Towers. To be exact, he worked for Morgan Stanley and Cantor Fitzgerald, the only company to lose all their employees. I still have his ID cards showing he was there 2 months before this. As all the calls came in, I told each one, " Nope, Franks not there today, he's on the other side of Manhattan " I even called the union hall just to make sure, and was told " all of our men have been accounted for " Unfortunately, that wasn't true, 3 electricians went to the roof and didn't make it home that day. So finally at 12 noon, Frank calls. I said " did you hear what happened? " He said " hear? I'm in it!! " He was working down there, but in a building attached to the Millennium Hotel right next to the Twin Towers. He said when the first plane hit the lights went out but came right back on, the men heard what happened and started their way down in the elevator to get out of there. When the second plane hit they lost power again, and was stuck in the elevator for maybe 15 minutes or so. When Frank got outside he couldn't believe what he saw, and heard. He said he saw people running and screaming all over the place. When he saw the buildings burning on all four sides he knew they were coming down. He knew he had to get out of there fast, but before he knew it they started to fall. He began to run away from them and just turned off of Church st. when that now infamous cloud of smoke and debris that you see over and over on TV, came towards him. He pulled his t-shirt over his mouth and nose pointed himself straight and started walking away from it, knowing he would be engulfed at any moment. He was! He tried to feel for unlocked cars to hide in, but they were all locked. He knew he would need to stay calm, and just try to get out of that mess. As he was walking,
( he was afraid to run being he knew that would make him breath too hard and fill his lungs with all that garbage faster.) He felt someone grab his arm and pull him to the side. It was a women police officer, she was standing on the side of the road and could see people in the cloud of smoke, and was " plucking " them out to cleaner air. He walked to a fountain and washed out his eyes and started walking, right across Manhattan. He walked to the Mid-Town Tunnel! He was going to walk through the tunnel, but a police officer saw an airport van that was waiting his turn to go in, being they were only letting one car in at a time, was empty, and told him to fill it up and then to go through, So Frank got a ride. He finally got to a train station in Flushing and got home around 4pm. He was covered with that dust "from head to toe." He needed to go on antibiotics because of all the dust he breathed in. Our school put teachers on all the buses and brought the kids to their houses instead of the stops, because they didn't know what they would find when they got home. The teacher on our bus happened to be Dominic's teacher from the year before. That class went on a trip to the towers and Frank met them there, so she knew he had worked there. When she looked at her clip board of students names, the first four were the Capobianco's. She said a panic came over her. Frank had just gotten home and was sitting on the front porch when the bus pulled up. When the teacher saw him, she jumped off the bus, crying and hugged me. She said she was so scared of what could have been some very bad news. Frank stayed home the rest of the week. When he went back the following Monday, the area was already fenced off and he needed to be let in and escorted by security to his job site. Here are some pictures from what he came back to.