Status: U

X-Sender: amyshap@earthlink.net

Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 15:55:22 -0700

To: amy@amyshapiro.com

From: Amy Shapiro <amy@amyshapiro.com>

Subject: War Zone

Thank you to everyone who has been checking up on me to see if I'm >OK. I am, Here's my story.

Amy

Woke up 8:00 am, and I have to be at work on Wall Street at 8:30. By some miracle I'm sitting at my desk by 8:35 mechanically going through the souless morning process of entering numbers into an Excel file.

I look out the window of the 3rd floor office of Brown Brothers Harriman and I see manila folders and papers flying past the window. It's like a ticker tape parade. A few of us go to the window and look up to see a huge black and grey cloud. Obviously something exploded. We go back to work. Someone says go to cnn.com and check it out, a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center, only a few blocks away. Sure enough, there is this bizarre photo of the tower with a huge red firey gash in it's side.

I go up to the 4th floor with a co-worker to watch TV in one of the conference rooms.

We see the second plane crash live on TV as our building shakes with the impact.

I'm beginning to feel a deep sadness. so much death occurring, and we can do nothing but sit there and watch it on TV. People around me are a bit more panicky. They have friends and relatives working up the block.

I go back down to my office. When I look out the window now all I see is smoke and ash. There's no question that I can't leave the building. oddly enough my telephone and computer are still working.

I call my father and tell him I'm OK.

A minute or two later, the lights flicker, and I get a gut feeling that it's about to get worse. I go to the window and look Westward. There are people in the street leaving offices, one guy sweeping up >the sidewalk. Then a black cloud a few stories high comes whooshing down the street. I stand there frozen as I watch people run for their lives. The first tower had just collapsed.

The air outside the office is now black. I go to the bathroom, throw a huge wad of paper towels into the sink and wet them down. I pass >them out to co-workers. We will need them if any of that outside air gets in here.

The building security evacuates us to the first floor. As we descend the stairs I feel the fear everywhere. A few people are crying. We sit in the millionaire's bank lobby for about two hours. They give us sandwiches and sodas. We listen to the horrifying news on a few radios. I read a chapter of the book I’m reading, The Talking Cure, by Mike Feder.

When I pull back the curtain to look out into the street I can't believe it. It looks like volcanic ash has covered everything.

Finally I leave with some co-workers to walk up the East River and homeward. I slip in the ash and my knee is bleeding. I have a wet towel over my face which just makes it hard to breath. I see a man with a mask on talking on a cell phone. I see fruit stands abandoned covered with ash.

The heaviest thing is what I don't see. Everyone keeps turning around every few minutes and looking back at the skyline. They are gone. The twin towers. They stood like upright trains forever etched into our reality. Now there is smoke and sirens and the towers are simply not there.

I got home, hugged the cat, took a bath, slept, went for a walk, and I'm still a bit shaky.

1 do not live in Northern Ireland, Beruit, Afghanistan, or Isreal. I live in Manhattan. I live in a war zone.