An Eyewitness Account Of The Chaos

Many people with connections to Newtown were in New York City at the time of the attacks on the World Trade Center towers. The Bee has heard of none who were closer to what is now being called “ground zero” than Howard Lasher of Dodgingtown.

Mr Lasher is a broker on the American Stock Exchange. He was in his office at 2 Rector Street, just three blocks from the World Trade Center, when the first airliner struck the north tower. He said the building shook and debris started raining down from above. He and some of his colleagues went to a corner office to see what was going on, and they then noticed that one of the trade center towers was on fire. “While we were staring at this in total disbelief, I saw the second plane hit the building.” He said his reaction was plain and simple – fear. “We were too close.”

It didn’t take long for the governors of the AMEX to decide to close the exchange and evacuate the building. “We all gathered together and started helping everyone get out of the building,” Mr Lasher said. “All I could think of was to help the people in the AMEX community. My offices is on the 25th floor, and I got out of the building [on an elevator] before the power was lost.”

He said he was inside the exchange when the first tower came down. “It was like being inside an earthquake. I never had such a feeling in my life. Smoke started coming into the building. I was escorting people out of the building.

“When we got outside, it was like Beirut. It was like a war zone. There had to be a foot of debris everywhere. There were injured people… people with blood streaming down their faces,” he recalled.

Out in the street, Mr Lasher joined the massive exodus of battered and shaken Wall Streeters trying to find a way out of the immediate area and eventually uptown. He said he saw many incredibly selfless acts, especially on the part of New York’s police, firefighters, and EMTs. “They did such a phenomenal job helping people at a total risk of their lives,” he said, choking up at the recollection.

Ordinary citizens, as well, performed acts of kindness to strangers. Mr Lasher walked from Wall Street to the apartment of a friend at 66th Street, and then eventually to an apartment he maintains at 82nd Street. “I was covered with ash from head to toe, and all along the way people kept stopping me to ask if I wanted water.”

Mr Lasher has no idea what happened to his car. He stayed in New York Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning, he said the city was empty – it was eerie.

“This whole thing was right out of a Tom Clancy novel, only it was real,” Mr Lasher reflected. “This country and this city will never be the same.”

Close Calls

Gina McDade of Sandy Hook said her niece, Beth Carey, was spared because she was laid off from her job on the 105th floor of the first World Trade Center tower the day before the attack.

“She graduated from Fairfield University last year and worked in marketing at E. Speed, a division of Cantor Fitzgerald, “ Ms McDade said. “She lives three blocks (away) in an apartment on the 21st floor of a building on West Street.”

On Monday, the Internet company laid her off, explaining that they might be able to hire her back in January. So on Tuesday morning Beth Carey was in a bathing suit and shorts, preparing to go to the roof of her building for some sun when the tragedy occurred.

“She felt the building shake,” Ms McDade reported. “She had to evacuate immediately. She got on a train in her bathing suit.”

Like Beth Carey, some of the E.Speed staff regularly reported to work at 8 am, but others started at 9 am. None of those who arrived at 8 am survived, Ms McDade said.

“It’s a miracle that (Beth) is alive.” 

Beth Carey’s brother, who works across the street, also was unharmed, as was a cousin who wound up walking 23 miles home to Queens, getting sunburned and blistered, but happy to be alive.

“His father, my brother-in-law, works at the Port Authority, on the 61st floor (of the World Trade Center) but he came to work late that day, so he wasn’t there yet when it happened – he was just getting off the subway,” Ms McDade said. “He is an environmental engineer so he went to the scene anyway. A lot of people on his floor were killed. He’s lucky – he also survived the 1993 blast.”

Fred Moran said his daughter, Emily, a recent graduate of Newtown High School, is now a freshman at Pace University. He said stepped off the off the subway on the way to a morning class and into chaos and devastation.

“She saw the collapse of the tower,” Mr Moran said. “When she got off the subway, they told her to run. It wasn’t until she reached the center of the Brooklyn Bridge that she was able to get through on her cell phone to us and tell us that she was okay.”

  Mr Moran said that he and his wife were “nervous wrecks wondering what was happening to her. My wife couldn’t even watch the television.”