Witness Account of Building Collapse

Yeah, it was like there was a whole lot of commotion.

The firefighters were picking up, and they were starting to, to roll

out and, and go follow these,

um, these buses that went downtown.

And, um,

the, uh, the Red Cross rep was like, he goes over and he, and he, and he

says, "Well, you got to stay behind this line because

they're thinking about

bringing the building down." They didn't say what building.

They just said, "Bringing a building down."

So we're like, "Okay, you know, we'll, we'll take their word for it.

You know, we'll stay behind the line." And

he went over and he talked to one of the, uh, through all the commotion, he goes

over and he asks one of the Red Cross or one of the firefighters what was

going on. I guess, I don't know if he got an answer or not.

He came back over with his hand over the radio and what sounded like a

countdown,

and at the last few seconds, he took his hand off, and you heard three,

two, one, and he was just saying, "Just run for your life.

Just run for your life." And then it was like another two, three seconds,

you heard explosions,

like ba-boom. It's like a distinct sound.

It's not like when the compression, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,

like floors that were dropping and collapsing.

This was ba-boom, and like you felt a rumble in the ground,

like

almost like you wanted to grab onto something.

That to me, I knew that was ex- an explosion.

There was no doubt in my mind. And by that time,

we're running out into the street.

Half the people had taken off

running up the street, and then everybody's running i-

into the center of the

street. Meanwhile, everybody that was south of that intersection was running

up the street, getting chased by this s- cloud of smoke, which

was monstrous,

and they were just, people were getting knocked over, trampled on.

And you know, like I was asking myself, "Do I run into,

you know, into the, into the dust and run down there to maybe try to

help what, those people that were on the buses,

or do I try to help the people right here,

or do I just try to cover my own ass and take off and try to hi- you know,

or seek cover and hide?"

And I did the best that I could in the intersection right

there, picking some, a

few people up, and then I took off and ran and seeked cover for

myself.

And that was building seven falling?

That was building seven that fell.

Yes.