The Only Plane in the Sky

by Garrett M Graff

  Ian Oldaker, staff, Ellis Island: It was time to walk home. We started walking with this mass of humanity up the ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. The scariest moment for me was seeing people screaming randomly. It would be quiet, quiet, quiet. Then someone would scream because they’d realize that they had lost their friend. One guy was standing next to me, walking, and he asked me where he was. I was like, “We’re on the Brooklyn Bridge, man.” He’s in a suit. He asked me what happened. I said, “The World Trade Center collapsed.”

  We got across the Brooklyn Bridge into Cadman Plaza. We saw this line of buses. The bus driver was hollering at us, “I’m going south down Flatbush.” We got on that bus and it was so quiet. Everyone was so entranced.

  Adrian Pierce: When we got over the bridge, I sat on the curb. I said, “I can’t go no more. I can’t go no more.” An ambulance stopped to pick me up and the driver said, “Miss, you need to come with me.” I was crying. I said, “I don’t want to go with you. I want to go home. I want to let my mother and my husband and my son know I’m okay.”

  Joe Massian, technology consultant, Port Authority, North Tower: I kept walking. It was shocking. Everybody was stopped on the sidewalks. People would look at me, put their hand to their mouth, and stand there crying. After a while I’m like, Okay. What’s going on? What don’t I know about myself? I passed a building that had a reflective glass, and I realized I was covered in material.

  Jared Kotz, Risk Waters Group: Finally at about 11:00 a.m., I guess, maybe 11:30 or so—I’m not sure what time it was—I realized I hadn’t eaten, and I realized my decision to forgo breakfast and run back to the office was another reason I had survived. If I had stayed there for breakfast, I wouldn’t be alive. I was hungry, so I headed down to the street in search of a muffin or something to eat. I walked to the corner on Avenue A and people were evacuating southern Manhattan, coming from the World Trade Center area. Right at Tompkins Square Park, I saw a young man. He looked like he was in a state of shock. He was covered in dust from head to toe. The back of his knapsack, I remember, was the weirdest thing I could imagine. There must have been two or three inches of dust on top of his knapsack—this thick layer of dust—and he was also covered head to foot in a gray dust. I can’t understand why I didn’t stop to try to help the guy. I was in a daze of my own.

  Robert Snyder, professor, Rutgers University, and collapse survivor: As I got further up into the East 50s, it was a strange scene. There were throngs of people headed north in the streets like me who looked like refugees out of movies about wars and catastrophes. Yet there was a lunchtime crowd watching us too. I saw this restaurant, and all the people who worked in the restaurant are sitting in the window looking at us walk by.

  Constance Labetti, accountant, Aon Corporation, South Tower: We walked and walked and walked. We walked through pretty bad neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and people were out there with their hoses: “Do you want a sip of water from our hose?”

  Vanessa Lawrence, artist, North Tower: It was strange walking past shops where people gathered around where there was TV screens or radios and I’d be like, “No! No! I can’t!” I was looking forward, going straight ahead.

  Bruno Dellinger, principal, Quint Amasis North America, North Tower: I kept walking on Broadway. There were groups of people, cars stopped, people watching. I kept redialing, redialing, redialing. It went through to my parents. When I spoke to my mom, I collapsed. It was too much. I couldn’t articulate a word. I was crying—a big guy like me.

  Joe Massian: I ended up getting to a stoplight where there was a box truck and a bunch of people sitting in the back. They were giving rides to people who wanted to head up north. The guy said, “Jump in and jump out when you want.” I jumped in right around 14th Street, jumped out around 53rd, and headed over to Cushman & Wakefield, where my fiancée worked. When I got off the elevator and opened up the door—I remember the entire organization stood up in their cubicles and they started crying. I grabbed my fiancée. I said, “How did you know that I was okay?” She’s like, “Your picture was on the internet. It was on MSNBC.com.” It was also on the cover of Yahoo. It was on Reuters. It was on a bunch of different websites. I’ve learned a lot of people knew that I was out of the building.

  Vanessa Lawrence: I managed to get ahold of my friend Amelia and she was like, “Come here, now!” I think she was near 28th Street. Amelia said when she saw me that I looked like a sculpture walking toward her. She said it was a really strange thing. I was completely covered. I showered and then I kept getting really itchy and sore. It took me three showers to really stop the prickly feeling I had on me and in my hair and everything.

  * * *

  John Napolitano, father of FDNY firefighter John Napolitano: I was in a car heading downtown with my brother-in-law. His cell phone rang, and he got very excited on the phone. He said, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, all right, all right.” He said, “Turn around and go home.” I looked at him and saw he had a lot of concern on his face. I said, “What’s the matter?” He said, “Turn around and go home. You have to go home. Something happened. You have to go home.” I did a quick U-turn.

  Terri Langone, wife of FDNY firefighter Peter Langone: I went to get the girls at school. I definitely knew he was there. When I saw the building come down, I knew in my heart he was gone. I knew without a doubt. He was in the second tower to fall, Tower One. I found out about Peter’s brother, Thomas Langone, later on that afternoon. He was a police officer with ESU Truck 10. He was in the other tower.

  Michael McAvoy, associate director, Bear Stearns, Brooklyn: I decided to go to my brother’s firehouse on 13th Street. From a few blocks away, I saw a ton of firemen, plus a ton of fire trucks. I had a little hope. The firemen were from firehouses all over the city. It was total pandemonium. I saw a fireman I know. He was covered in soot. I look him in the eye, I say, “Was my brother down there?” He says, “Yes.” I say, “Any chance for survivors? You can tell me.” He says, “Mike, I wish I had better news, but no. The place is the worst any of us have ever seen.”

  John Napolitano: I got to my house. I went upstairs and my wife was on the floor, kneeling, being held by her sister. She was saying, “My baby! My baby!” Over and over and over, “My baby! My baby!” I looked at my sister-in-law. She says, “We got a call. John’s missing.”

  Paul McFadden, firefighter, Rescue 2, FDNY: I remember speaking to one fireman—it was probably by O’Hara’s on Cedar Street—and he was telling me how his daughter worked on the 109th floor, and he was saying, “You don’t think she made it, do you, Paul?” What do you say to a guy like that? I said, “We don’t know. Let’s keep our hopes up.”

  John Cartier, brother of James Cartier, electrician, who was working in the South Tower: We pulled up to my parents’ house, and we were completely covered in the silky soot from head to toe, both of us. My parents came out and they were hugging my sister. Then I remember my mother asking about James. I looked at my father and said, “I couldn’t get to him. I couldn’t do it.”

  * * *

  New York City’s leadership found themselves refugees in their own city, unable to communicate, and tried to find a space to regroup and coordinate the rescue and response efforts.

  Andrew Kirtzman, reporter, NY1: We kept walking, and Giuliani kept turning to me to say, “You’ve got to tell the public to stay out of here so our emergency vehicles can get through.” He’s like, “Please. Everyone south has got to get out of here. Go north. No one should come south.” I said, “Well”—I’ve got my little StarTAC flip phone—“would you go on live with New York 1 and tell the city yourself?” I called New York 1 like 10 times, finally got through, and the control room was crazy busy. I said, “I’ve got Giuliani on the phone!” They were overwhelmed. I waited and waited. I don’t know whether it was 30 seconds or three minutes. Suddenly the phone went dead. I was never able to get through to them. We were on our own.

  Rudy Giuliani, mayor, New York City: A few police officers ran ahead and picked a hotel
we could use as a command post.

  Andrew Kirtzman: We were walking up Church Street. Giuliani’s team decided at first to try the Tribeca Grand Hotel. The news had not hit them yet, and there were all these tourists. Tribeca Grand was this ridiculously trendy SoHo hotel, and there was this dissonance between this nomadic tribe covered with dust walking in, and all these trendy people wearing black, going about their day.

  Rudy Giuliani: As we walked in, I looked at the fire commissioner and the police commissioner. They looked at me, and we walked right straight through and out. It was a totally glass building. We figured a glass building is not a good place to be.

  Andrew Kirtzman: We kept walking up Church Street. There were crowds on the streets, on the sidewalks, and as they saw Giuliani they started cheering. One person was like, “Go, Giuliani!” We went a little further, and there was this young policewoman—she was trying to control this pandemonium as thousands of people were walking back and forth—and she made eye contact with us and Giuliani. She was scared to death. Giuliani rubbed her cheek as he walked by. It was fatherly. He tried to calm her down.

  Now we’re at the south end of Greenwich Village, and they decide to locate into a firehouse. There’s a firehouse on the west side of Sixth Avenue. It was deserted because all firemen were at the Trade Center, and it was locked. The leadership of the city was gathered outside this firehouse door that we couldn’t get into.

  Bernie Kerik, commissioner, NYPD: We had to break in.

  Rudy Giuliani: NYPD Det. John Huvaine had to knock open the door of the firehouse. He used a fire extinguisher to do it and we got in. That was the first time I was able to get on a hard line. The first thing I did was call Governor Pataki, because he had been trying to reach me. The governor said, “How are you? We were very worried about you. There were reports that you were missing.” Then he said, “I’ve alerted the National Guard. Do you want them?”

  In part I had not wanted the National Guard because I think the police department is so big and has expertise in an urban environment that the National Guard doesn’t have. I always resisted the National Guard. Immediately, I said, “Yes, I want the National Guard.” I knew from the moment I saw the man jump that we were in over our heads. This was beyond the resources of the largest city in America. I needed all the help I could get. I said, “George, I need them.”

  Andrew Kirtzman: Giuliani, once he walked into that fire command office, he called New York 1 and gave them his message. New York 1 is a sister station of CNN, so they gave that to CNN and broadcast it to the world. I have to say, Giuliani was a flawed man, but he was the calmest one in the bunch. He never exhibited panic or fear. Someone once said that Giuliani was most hysterical when things were calm, and most calm when things were hysterical. This was the perfect example. The city, the world, was desperate for leadership. Bush was out of communication for hours. All they had was Giuliani, and he rose to the occasion.

  Sunny Mindel, communications director for the mayor of the City of New York, Rudy Giuliani: I saw my colleague Beth Petrone. Her husband, Terry Hatten, was captain of Rescue 1. I asked her where Terry was, and she looked at me and said, “He’s dead.” I looked at her. I got angry with her, and I said, “No, Beth, you don’t know that.” Beth is possibly the most even-keeled person I know. She got agitated with me, and she said, “He’s dead. I know he’s dead. I know he was in there, and he’s dead.”

  Andrew Kirtzman: It started then to sink in. I ran out of the firehouse. I was completely dehydrated, and I went into a deli across the street and got all the Gatorade I could. I asked that man whether I could use his phone. I called my parents. Suddenly it all hit me—it struck me how many people were losing their lives.

  Det. Hector Santiago, NYPD: The boss [NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik] makes a command decision. “Okay, we’re going to establish a command center. We’re not going to let anybody know. I don’t want it over the radio. We don’t know what’s happening.” We confiscated a bunch of cars and motorcaded all the way up to the police academy, where we regrouped.

  George Pataki, governor of New York: That afternoon, my team and Mayor Giuliani and the city’s team sat down together to discuss what had happened and what we were going to do. There was enormous uncertainty as to whether there would be additional attacks. I made the decision that we could only have one response center—we couldn’t have a city command center, a state command center, a FEMA national command center. We had to all be together.

  Sunny Mindel: There was a facility at the police academy we converted into a press filing area, and we had to do a formal press conference that would be carried live. It suddenly occurred to me while we were in this facility, the city was still at risk. If we used the stage of the auditorium, our exact location would be very apparent to anybody watching TV. I looked at this room and said, “Everybody turn around. Sorry, we’re gonna do this backwards.”

  George Pataki: I’ll never forget one obviously homeless gentleman coming up and giving me a hug, and me telling him, “We’ll get through this,” and him saying, “Thank you, I’m sure we will.”

  “I love you. And I’m staying.”

  * * *

  Midday in Washington

  Underneath the White House, inside the bunker complex of the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the vice president and aides struggled to comprehend what had transpired and to make sense of the casualty toll.

  Commander Anthony Barnes, deputy director, Presidential Contingency Programs, White House: Things began to settle down—noonish, 1:00 p.m., we knew the last impact had already taken place by then. I knew from reporting that the airplane’s impact point at the Pentagon was the Navy Operations Center. Being a navy guy myself, I can remember vividly imagining, I’ve definitely got friends or shipmates that were in the impact point. I probably lost close friends. As it turns out, I did.

  Matthew Waxman, staff member, National Security Council, White House: I remember at one point somebody estimating out loud that something like 50,000 people had been killed as the Towers collapsed. There was a ton of information coming in—some of it accurate, some of it inaccurate.

  Mary Matalin, aide to Vice President Dick Cheney: That was truly emotional, when we learned that Barbara Olson, a friend of all of us and the wife of the solicitor general, was on the plane that hit the Pentagon. The horror of seeing buildings collapse and seeing planes go into buildings, that didn’t jibe with any experience anybody had had. But to isolate it to a person—terrified obviously—sitting on that plane, brought it home to everybody. That was a moment of real terror and emotion for all of us.

  Matthew Waxman: The emphasis shifted from immediate crisis response to more deliberative discussion about what we did next. Basic questions like “Do we put the president on TV and what do we have him say?” but also starting to engage in planning for the days that would follow—organizing meetings to make sure the president could be best informed of what was going on, to lay out the necessary response options and things like that.

  Also, a whole bunch of questions or issues that senior leaders had to deal with or answer, some of them big and some that seemed small. There were at least two foreign heads of state inside the United States who couldn’t get home because air travel was shut down—Australia and Lithuania. There were questions like, “Hey, a foreign head of state is trying to exit the country. What do we do?”

  Gary Walters, chief usher, White House: I received a call from Mrs. Bush’s staff. Her assistant, Sarah Garrison, asked about the whereabouts of their personal maid and the dogs and the cat. She said, “I’m going to come back in with a Secret Service escort and get some clothes for Mrs. Bush. We don’t know what’s going to happen from here and we’d like to pick up the dogs and the cat.” They went off to an undisclosed location.

  As the fires continued to burn on the other side of the building, Pentagon leaders went to work to secure the country. Outside the command center, firefighters and operations personnel continued their efforts
to save the Pentagon, while families waited for word of loved ones and the community rallied to help.

  Col. Matthew Klimow, executive assistant to the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, Pentagon: I remember Secretary Rumsfeld, in command voice, said, “Okay everybody, what else can the enemy do?” He wanted us to think. That’s Rumsfeld’s way. He was always challenging his staff to think out of the box. Almost immediately General Myers piped up and said, “NBC,” which means “nuclear-biological-chemical.” That seemed like the most logical thing short of an airplane attack that the terrorists would probably try.

  Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, senior military assistant, Office of the Secretary of Defense: At 11:47 a.m. there were only 200 aircraft still airborne across the United States. It was pretty amazing. At 12:18, there were 50 aircraft in the air.

  Col. Matthew Klimow: The chief of the Pentagon police force, Chief John Jester, a civilian, came in to brief us. He said the lower-floor fires had not been contained at that time. It was just before 1:00. It was hard to know how many people were really in the building—some people were in meetings and they didn’t know how many may be missing. General [Ralph] Eberhart reported that they were closing the massive doors about 1:30 at the NORAD bunker inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs. That evoked this thought of the doomsday scenario. We didn’t know what else could happen.