Message #166447

[Freedom Fighter]

Luis Gonzalez was among a group of workers from a nearby construction site who went in to help, and recalls the bombing of the same building in 1993. He was trying to get at 25 port authority police seen going into the second tower to fall. "We were cut off by all the stuff falling around us, we got out two elderly men, but couldn't get in any further. All I can think about is those people stranded up there who could not get down. Can you imagine, just waiting to die?"

All morning, those in flight streamed up the highways and over the bridges that ring the city. Mayor Rudi Giuliani made his official appearance in the early afternoon, to praise the rescue effort and promise that "the people of New York are much stronger than barbaric terrorism". Then he made a spine-chilling, logistical announcement, as school closing time approached: "If any children don't have parents come to pick them up," he said, "we'll be holding on to them at a special centre."

Jackie Greene, a 45-year-old accountant from Jersey City, was at work at the Bank of New York opposite where the first plane crashed. "We just heard a boom. We opened a window and saw a fire. We got out of the building. We were standing about 50 yards away when the second one hit. I've never seen anything like it. I don't know where the rest of my co-workers are. I don't know what to do."