Hmm, maybe I only
think that I'd written of his experience - if I did, it would have been after the fact since I wasn't a member here then.
My brother traveled there fairly regularly to teach. He teaches QNX, TCP/IP Network Administration, and Security Admin for Solaris, on contract... he is a seriously bright techie-geek programmer!
He was on the 18th floor of a small building (a few blocks south I think? maybe you know it, a few floors were Dept of Justice.). They all went to another classroom on the opposite side, where there was a direct view between taller buildings of the closest tower with smoke pouring out. Being a bunch of techie-types, and not imagining it would ever happen, they calculated the approx height of the towers (300 metres?) relative to the distance away (800 metres?) and decided they were safe if it fell.
Once they evacuated, he didn't know where to go, since he knew most of the subways had stopped running, he started heading for the one that runs up the side of the island.. he was just turning onto Broad St. to head south (from Pine I think, aiming for Water St.) when he looked over his shoulder and saw that the grey billowing cloud of smoke wasn't in the sky anymore but on the ground and coming fast. He did not hear or realize that the 1st tower had fallen or what he was running from. It caught up with them just as they reached the waterfront, he climbed up the raised highway and saw the crowds waiting for ferries and realized he had to turn head towards the Brooklin Bridge to escape (he had his shirt up over his face but needed to get to clean air, he has bad asthma), but this meant heading back inwards too. He had a view in between buildings and saw the second tower fall.. and only then realized what he'd been running from.
Late that night he went out to Times Square, looking for a restaurant and said it was eerie with only a handful of people. He bought a bunch of train tickets out of a machine, in hopes that he might get lucky and he did! He gave the rest away the next morning, when you couldn't buy a ticket to save your soul. We met his train when he arrived in Toronto (it was stopped and well searched at the border twice, once by the Americans and then again by armed(!) Canadian border guards. They had to disembark and open their suitcases before the train was allowed to cross the border.)
We were so happy to have him home! That day really influenced their lives and they both made a conscious decision to play more and work less. His wife quit her job and got her pilots license too (they own a little cessna)... saying that "Life is too short to be a passenger".
Sorry, didn't mean to write so much!!
