Eyewitness Account of Building Explosion

Can you tell me what happened? What'd you see?

I saw,

I don't know, I saw windows

coming out of the building

and the ceiling falling on the floor where I was walking.

That's when we started heading for the exit,

and, uh,

Then we got downstairs-

We got to the first floor from eighty-second floor

... all the way to the lobby, and all of a sudden there

was this big explosion.

I don't know what-

Yeah, everything went-

Just like what you've just seen, that's what we went through before we came

out of

the building. Then when we get out the building,

then another smoke cloud came.

Then it go through that smoke cloud again.

Mama just want you to know I'm all right.

I don't know what else to tell you. We came from the eighty-second floor,

and I

don't know where Pete is. I don't know. I hope to God he okay.

That's all I can say. I don't know what... We saw a shadow. It looked like a plane.

Next thing we know it was boom, and the floor started shaking.

And then we saw debris fall down, and next thing we know we had to get out

the

building. We were stuck on the stairs for a while.

We finally got down to the lobby. Then we get to the lobby, there

was this big

explosion.

I don't know what it was. It just a cloud just like what you just

saw, big cloud of

smoke like that.

We thought we escaped that, and then we-

We escaped and then we went to come out and went to a-

We saw a wall of clouds, like pyroclastic. It was heading toward us.

So-

That's when we started running. I thought we'd be able to outrun it,

but we couldn't.

It was pitch black. It was like, uh,

it was like, uh,

a comet just hit the Earth.

Like a comet?

Yeah.

Look at this. Look at this.

Look at the clouds.

Look.

It's red.

Whatever this stuff is, I hope it doesn't kill you.

What, what floor were you on?

I was on eighty-second.

I was consu- consulting the, uh,

for the real estate department,

and, uh,

we just, we first heard the blast and then the ceiling in

our office started co- falling down and the, and the wiring

behind the ceiling, everything started falling.

And we, we look out the window, we saw windows coming down from above.

That's when I started saying that, "Well, this is not just an

ordinary emergency. It must be something really big."

Before this second explosion somebody was telling us

a p- a plane hit the building, but we didn't know about it.

I was hoping it's not a su- suicide bomber or something,

but I don't know right now.

It's red.

Don't give up now.

Yeah?

Come on. Come, come, come on. Don't give up.

I'm just tired, you know. Just, I'm tired.

Just