Thu, Sep 13, 2001 page24

• World Business: `Oh my God ... don't look. Don't look'

  TERROR A reporter for Bloomberg news service provides a first-person account of the horror and fear that swept through the streets of the world's prime financial district

  • By Michael McKee / BLOOMBERG
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    • 
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  BLOOMBERG, New York

  I was in a taxi, heading down Manhattan's West Side Highway for a conference at the World Trade Center when the first airliner flew over us and crashed into the North Tower. It was 8:50am.

  

  A man covers his mouth as he walks through debris after the collapse of one of the World Trade Center Towers, Tuesday in New York.

  PHOTO: AFP

  Traffic came to an immediate halt. I jumped from the cab, climbed the fence and ran three blocks to the trade center as it began falling apart. I interviewed witnesses, including two financial industry workers riding their bikes to work.

  "It was like a mirage," said Mark Lewis, a systems analyst at Citigroup Inc's Salomon Smith Barney unit. "I looked up and saw [the plane] melting into the building."

  Just then we heard a tremendous noise, looked up and saw another large passenger plane slam into the South Tower, 50 or 60 stories up. Glass and debris rained down as we ran into a nearby building.

  Police and emergency workers were everywhere. Workers streamed from nearby buildings and were directed away from the area. Many stopped to stare at the huge towers, the upper floors engulfed in flames, while other people were trying to get away. Twisted pieces of metal and broken glass were everywhere.

  Shoes and clothing, perhaps from the airplane luggage, lay scattered in the streets.

  And then the screams started. People trapped on the upper floors of the trade center began jumping or falling -- 80, 90, 100 stories to certain death. "Oh my God," a policeman standing next to me shouted. He grabbed my arm. "Don't look. Don't look," he said.

  We were close enough to hear the sickening thud as the bodies hit the ground.

  A tall, thin Hispanic man grabbed me. He was shaking in shock and terror. An unemployed laborer, he was in the plaza between the two towers when the first plane hit, he said, and was scared and ran out. Then he started to cry.

  Cellular phones weren't working because all circuits were busy. I found a pay phone and called the newsroom. I was on hold to go on television when I heard a third, huge explosion.

  Debris and smoke headed straight for me and I joined police and emergency workers who had been standing around and began racing for safety. The concussion from the explosion knocked me to the ground.

  I jumped up and began running again, trying desperately to stay ahead of the huge cloud of debris and smoke, but the Hudson River blocked our escape. I dove behind a police van as glass and shards of metal fell.

  And then came the clouds of thick black smoke mixed with minuscule pieces of ash -- similar to volcanic ash -- filled the air. We couldn't breathe, we couldn't see. I put my coat over my face, gasping for breath. Out of the gloom I heard someone yell "head south." Grasping the riverside railing, dozens of people staggered, crawled, and walked through the smoke, with no idea where they were or where they were going, other than away. When the smoke began to lift, I found I was in Battery Park and ran into a group of economists, all from outside New York City, from the conference we were supposed to attend at the World Trade Center.

  I led them up the East Side highway, where thousands like us were fleeing what we could no longer see. Except for the sounds of sirens, it was completely silent.

  You couldn't see anything, looking down the narrow streets of the Wall Street area. The smoke and ash were so thick the buildings disappeared into a haze.

  The highway looked like a refugee evacuation. Silent, in shock, people trudged north, enveloped in clouds of smoke. Someone shouted that the World Trade Center collapsed. A woman standing on the highway handed me a dust mask. Another stopped me and said, "you're bleeding." I hadn't noticed gashes on my hand and arm.

  She poured water on the wounds and dried them.

  A policeman urged people to keep walking. The Brooklyn Bridge was open for pedestrians, he said, suggesting the stream of tourists and financial district workers get out of Manhattan.

  A news van drove slowly by with a cameraman I knew. He picked me up and drove north, past the stunned and silent people, back to our newsroom in midtown Manhattan.

  I thought of the policeman who had warned me to leave the area shortly before the third explosion when the World Trade Center collapsed. He insisted I go. I told him I was a reporter.

  Give me a break, I pleaded.

  "There are no breaks for anyone today," he said.
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