A morning like no other: A personal account of that fateful day in New York City

It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years.

Twenty years ago, in the summer of 2001, I was a reporter in New York for BridgeNews, an international newswire then circling the drain of corporate bankruptcy, brought to that state by the failure to bill all of its customers. Or even know who they were.

I covered natural gas markets and electricity prices, and spent several months covering the United Nations as the UN Security Council wrangled over the fate of the corrupt Iraq oil-for-food program. It was a fun job with a company full of bright, motivated, clever and oftentimes slightly off-base people who were all really good at what they did.

I loved working there. And I still miss it.

But there was bankruptcy, and those of us who hadn’t moved on — I wasn’t looking for work very seriously — had all received our layoff notices. Sept. 15 was to be our last day.

BridgeNews had its New York editorial offices on several floors of what was formerly called Three World Financial Center (now called 200 Vesey Street) — the world headquarters of American Express — right across from the World Trade Center. The Twin Towers loomed huge over southern Manhattan, casting shadows into the air in the way I remember only western mountains did during spectacular sunrises or sunsets.

I had just arrived at work and sat down at my desk when I heard it — a series of whooshes, each growing deeper and louder and closer, until there was a horrific grinding sound. Heads popped up over cubicles, looking around, asking some form of “What was that?”

And then the burning debris falling outside my window caught my eye. Huge chunks of building, maybe, or aircraft, maybe, on fire, plunging 30 floors to the ground below.

It was hard to tell what had just happened. Even the few people with office windows overlooking the World Trade Center complex itself weren’t sure what they’d just witnessed with their very own eyes.

“It was a plane, I think. Hit the tower. At least I think,” one co-worker said.

A group of us gathered in a corner conference room that had a spectacular view across West and Vesey streets of the towers and gazed at the sight in front of us. Looking up, we saw a huge, jagged, gaping wound near the very top of the North Tower, belching fire, smoke and paper. Looking down, the streets were covered in shards of glass and steel and quickly filling up with emergency vehicles.

“An airplane has hit the North Tower,” crackled American Express’ building-wide intercom system. “There is no need for alarm.”

We didn’t move, transfixed as we were by the disaster unfolding above and beneath us. I tried calling my wife, but the cellphones didn’t work. Southern Manhattan’s big cellphone antenna was atop the tower that was now on fire.

We stood there staring and speculating; for how long I don’t know. I do remember what came next. I heard it first — the sound of that second airplane as it came into view. I watched it bank, it was so close I saw the sunlight streaming through the little oval windows, and then that jetliner glinting in the bright morning sun … disappeared into the South Tower in an explosion of fire and smoke I could feel across the street and 30 floors up.

There was a great motion of people away from the windows. None of us waited for American Express to give an evacuation order. I grabbed my things and hurried to an elevator when I heard an editor yell: “DON’T TAKE AN ELEVATOR! IF THERE ARE MORE AIRPLANES COMING, WE’RE IN THE NEXT TALLEST BUILDING!”

I ran down 30 flights of stairs, terrified, inside a great flood of humanity. On the street below, I heard a frightened New York City Fire Department captain screaming to head west, to the retaining wall that is the western shore of lower Manhattan, and then walk north. I walked quickly to the ferry slip in front of the New York Mercantile Exchange, past a triage station where the wounded — one man clearly covered in someone else’s blood — sat propped up against the side of the World Financial Center (now called Brookfield Place) while the more seriously injured were treated.

As I waited for a ferry to get to New Jersey, to get to my wife, Jennifer, I stood in the midst of a great crowd that gasped and pleaded and cried out “No!” “Don’t!” “Stop!” with every body that tumbled from the towers down to the ground.

I watched six people die that way.

And as I gazed up at the two burning towers, fire and smoke and great heaves of paper staining an otherwise cloudless sky, I suddenly had words, spoken but not spoken, in my head — “My love is all that matters. And this is who I am.”

It was the crucified and risen Jesus who spoke to me that day, in the midst of the terror and death. I know that without a doubt. I’m still trying to make sense of what he said, and what it means for my life. Mostly, I fail.

I managed to get on a ferry, crossed the Hudson River, hugged my wife, and sat on a small park bench in front of my waterfront apartment building in Jersey City and watched the towers collapse. For the next two days, I alternated between numb shock and absolute terror whenever Air Force fighter jets roared overhead.

This isn’t a story I tell very often. Mostly no one asks. More days followed. The sun set, and rose, and set again. Life settled down again, became normal and routine. I am no longer so bothered by the sound of airplanes as I once was. But the rest of it … still feels like it just happened. Like it was yesterday.

And not 20 years ago.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.