StevenWarRan Research: The Bergen Record.

The Bergen Record

Sept. 11, 2001,

A CALL FOR BLOOD DONATIONS
State police urge anyone who wants to donate blood to contact the nearest blood bank. Hospitals also are scheduling donations.

The Blood Center of New Jersey (800) 256-6365.

Blood Center, Community Blood Services, Paramus (201) 444-3900.

St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center, Paterson. Call (973) 754-3535 to schedule a donation.

Hackensack University Medical Center. Call blood donor room at (201) 996-4819.

A CASCADING RIVER OF METAL, DUST, AND GLASS
By ADAM LISBERG, Staff Writer
Date: 09-11-2001, Tuesday
Section: SPECIAL SECTION / NEWS
Edition: All Editions -- Two Star B, Two Star P, One Star B

NEW YORK -- Editor's note: Staff Writer Adam Lisberg was near one of the World Trade Center towers when it collapsed. He escaped injury. Here is his account:

I came down to watch the towers after the crashes and was a block west of them when I started hearing this rumbling. As I came around the corner and looked up, I saw a waterfall of metal and dust and glass --
just a river. You could sort of make out things on the leading edge.

I ran around the corner and was able to go to a building where it ducks under -- the first floor is under a ledge -- and could hear the rumble getting louder and louder. I lay down on the ground and, fortunately, had a hard hat on.

And then everything was black, as if they dropped curtains around me. There was rumbling. After a while, it started to settle, and you could start to make out particular bangs and crackles.

At that point, I really didn't know if I would live or die. I heard a woman screaming "Oh my God! oh my God!"

When the noise of the collapse stopped, my first thought was that I was alive and that nothing had fallen on me. My second thought was that I'd die from breathing the dust. It was so thick it felt like it was building in my throat, so I was fighting to breathe only once in a while.

The light started to clear a little, and everything was a haze around me. The way in front of me was blocked with what looked like a stretcher. I heard a lot of shouting, and didn't know which way to go.

Then someone said the firefighters are here. They had been on the other side of the building, closer to the trade center.

I stepped through a broken window and into a building. When the firefighters took us out of the building, smoke started to clear. There was an Au Bon Pain and we stumbled into it. Everyone took bottles of water and whatever they could off the shelves.

I had dust in my throat. We started clearing dust out of our eyes. Even firefighters and EMTs were crying. It was quieter than you'd imagine.

A VIEW OF HELL ACROSS THE RIVER, -- MANY WATCHED IN AWE AS TRAGEDY UNFOLDED, By JEFFREY PAGE, Staff Writer,
Date: 09-11-2001, Tuesday
Section: SPECIAL SECTION / NEWS
Edition: All Editions -- Two Star B, Two Star P, One Star B

Along the New Jersey Turnpike and at the Vince Lombardi Service Area, people wept. They stood next to their cars and watched the calamity unfold across the Hudson. They kept hands plastered to their cheeks, their mouths open in that shape that denotes tragedy, confusion, treachery.

"Get those people out of there!" Harry Morrison, a trucker from Virginia, yelled in the direction of the World Trade Center. He and others were concerned about the people who might have survived the
attack but not yet escaped. "Get them out!" If supplication is polite, restrained, prayerful, Morrison was worshiping a different god.

Then the smoke clouds enlarged. One tower had collapsed. A few minutes later, the other disappeared, too.

It was beyond comprehension. No one knew the extent of the casualties, but you knew the death toll would be obscene.

It was the start of New York's greatest test, the day you thought about the people you know who work at the World Trade Center and the people you would never know.

Radios were on all over the Vince. The Pentagon had been hit, a plane went down in western Pennsylvania.

Rumors started quickly, and never stopped. Los Angeles, someone said. The White House. The Washington Monument. By noon, these remained just rumors.

"Why would someone bomb the Washington Monument?" a woman asked no one in particular and got no particular answer.

Up and down the turnpike, motorists pulled over to the shoulder. Several cried. Most just stood, disbelieving. No one honked to get them moving. Police cars passed, lights flashing, sirens blaring.

"I saw the second plane hit. I was driving along and looked up," said Ismael Koroma, a truck driver from Steubenville, Ohio. "You can't imagine something like this in your worst thought. Things like this don't happen in America."

The lines at the pay phones lengthened. A woman had to be supported as she waited for a phone. Most people were not getting through. They tried dialing. They tried their credit cards. Some tried their
cellphones. Nothing worked.

"I have to get in touch with my husband," the woman said.

At Bridge Plaza in Fort Lee, Port Authority police officers struggled to relieve the massive congestion caused when the bridge was closed shortly after 9 a.m.

"Given the extent of what has gone on, everyone wants to help out," said Officer Philip Erickson, directing traffic even after his regular shift ended.

Kensho Oda of Edgewater had been on his way to Kennedy Airport to check a shipment of goods he had imported. "It can wait," he said. "It will have to wait."

Meanwhile, fire and emergency equipment from Leonia and Fort Lee were arriving at the bridge, "as a precautionary measure," said one police officer.

By 10 a.m., new traffic patterns had been established and cars began filtering through the crowded streets toward other thoroughfares, heading back to New Jersey communities.

In those cars, every radio was on, music stations having been replaced by the network accounts of the disaster.

Ali Karim of West New York was headed for his clothing store in upper Manhattan when the disaster struck. "I cannot believe something like this," he said, waiting to maneuver his car into a return lane. "It
makes me want to cry."

In Bergen and Passaic counties, schools were inundated with calls from anxious parents. Many took their kids out.

The Jewish Community Center of the Palisades in Tenafly closed, sending its preschool and nursery children home.

"We've been inundated from calls from parents," said Ora Cohen Rosenfeld, principal of the Solomon Schechter Day School of North Jersey in Oakland. "Some are calling to say they work in the city but they're OK. Others are calling to find out what security measures we're taking. It's just horrible."

Waheed Khalid, president of Dar-Ul-Islah Mosque in Teaneck, said, "I'm on the way to the mosque right now. We will be praying for the families. I hope that people don't jump to conclusions, blaming one
group or another before the facts are out. And I hope that this doesn't result in backlashing against our community."

The Rev. Thomas Pinnell of South Presbyterian Church in Bergenfield said he had received e-mails from parishioners in lower Manhattan asking him to call their families and assure them that they were all right. The
e-mails were necessary because many cellphones in New York City quit working or faced jammed circuits.

In Allendale, Calvary Lutheran Church said it would host an ecumenical prayer service tonight. The Rev. Bruce Basset called each school in town to say that the township's clergy would be available if
counseling were needed in the schools.

The closing of the George Washington Bridge left many frightened commuters stranded on Route 80 east.

Joanne Scillia of Rockaway sat in traffic for at least three hours trying to get to her job with a home-care company in Fort Lee. She was nervous because she was unable to telephone her friend who works in the
World Trade Center.

"I'm hoping she decided to take off today. I'm in shock. I'm in tears. This is surreal. I have to get to work, I have to see," she said.

The local roads heading east toward the bridge were backed up for miles. In Fort Lee, police put up barricades for eastbound traffic and forced cars to turn -- north or south, anywhere but east. Signs on
barricades read "Go home, bridge closed."

"I can't believe what this world is coming to, I just want to cry," said Mary Kisch of Nutley, a telecommunications worker based in New Rochelle, N.Y. She was stranded on Route 80 for three hours. "I'm a nervous wreck. I can't wait to get home."

"I hope we do something about this," said Karin McNaboe of Rahway, who glimpsed the smoke from her car on the turnpike as she tried to get to work in Fort Lee. "We just can't tolerate this terrorism."

Staff Writers Charles Austin, Ruth Padawer, and Deena Yellin contributed to this article.

Illustrations/Photos: 5 ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOS 1 - After planes crashed into the upper floors of the World Trade Center in Manhattan minutes apart today, one of the Twin Towers collapses, top, in this image made from television. 2 - Above, both 110-story towers are on fire. 3 - In the middle photo at right,
pedestrians in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue react as they look toward the towers. 4 - In bottom photo at right, people flee from the collapse of one of the towers. 5 - In the top photo at right, another view of one of the towers collapsing.

Flames and smoke pouring from a wall of the Pentagon, far right, after a plane crashed at a heliocopter pad this morning a short time after two hijacked airliners crashed into New York's World Trade Center.

Flames and smoke pouring from a wall of the Pentagon, far right, after a plane crashed at a heliocopter pad this morning a short time after two hijacked airliners crashed into New York's World Trade Center. At right, a Secret Service agent on alert outside the White House in the wake of the air attacks.

Horrified onlookers running up a Manhattan street this morning as a tower of the World Trade Center collapsed behind them. Both towers fell after being struck by hijacked airliners a short time apart.

A cloud of smoke and debris, above, spewing out as a tower of the World Trade Center collapses. The other tower, seen in the foreground, also was struck and collapsed a short time later. At left, smoke rising from the lower Manhattan skyline as seen from West Paterson.

Illustrations/Photos: 4 ASSOCIATED PRESS COLOR PHOTOS 1 - Flames and smoke pouring
from a wall of the Pentagon, far right, after a plane crashed at a heliocopter pad this morning a short time after two hijacked airliners crashed into New York's World Trade Center. 2 - At right, a Secret Service agent on alert outside the White House in the wake of the air attacks. 3 - Horrified onlookers running up a Manhattan street this morning as a tower of the World Trade Center collapsed behind them. Both towers fell after being struck by hijacked airliners a short time apart. 4 - A cloud of smoke and debris, above, spewing out as a tower of the World Trade Center collapses. The other tower, seen in the foreground, also was struck and collapsed a short time later. 5 - COLOR PHOTO - RICH GIGLI / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER - At left, smoke rising from the lower Manhattan skyline as seen from West Paterson.

September 12, 2001

StevenWarRan Research

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The Bergen Record.

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