A Day the World Stood Still: Alice's Story

I still remember that morning like it was yesterday. The sky seemed bluer than usual, the air crisper with the promise of fall. New York City was as alive and busy as ever, with the symphony of honking car horns, footsteps echoing against concrete sidewalks, and the steady hum of a city that never slept. Like thousands upon thousands on that fateful day, I weaved through the sea of people who made Manhattan their home in my own daily ritual. I had no idea then that within hours all hell would break loose.

I had taken the subway train to work in Lower Manhattan just like I did every other day. My office was located in one of the towers—Tower 1 actually—or North Tower. It occupied most floors from 91st to 99th on what they called sky lobbies; from there you would take another bank of elevators to reach higher floors if you worked up there—which I didn't thank God!

On that particular morning, I’d stopped by the corner shop to get a coffee and smiled at the vendor as I walked in. He knew what I wanted because it never changed. And although I didn’t know his name, we both came to expect that interaction every day. Small things like that slip through the cracks of your memory when time starts to crumble. That’s how far away from me it all feels now. Like it happened to someone else.

I sat down at my desk by 8:30 AM sharp and began sifting through emails, printing out papers, and gathering Mr. Richardson’s itinerary for the day. No one was there yet—no other staff members and none of our other clients—and though something about the air in our office had felt off-keel that morning, too solemn for an otherwise bustling place where businessmen were always passing each other in hallways with hurried waves or jovial nods over yesterday evening’s game (you could usually hear one taking place behind closed doors), nothing seemed different about this Tuesday either.

Until 8:46 AM.

The first thing I noticed was the jolt — like a tiny earthquake. The building started to list, and for a split second I thought: this is it. Earthquake. Finally happened. An ounce of coffee spilled over the lip of my mug onto my desk as the fluorescent lights flickered overhead; my co-worker in the next cubicle released a paper clip from between her lips and called out, “Hey, is that what I think it is?” Folks on other floors shouted things we couldn’t hear clearly.

And then, the sound.

It was like thunder had split the sky in two, but it wasn’t thunder. It was worse. It was enough to stop my heart and freeze my blood. People clamored to the windows, and I let them. What I saw made no sense.

There was smoke pouring into the floors below us, that much I could see. Black and voluminous, billowing towards the heavens like some macabre phantom. I saw fire licking up one side of the tower, but couldn’t understand it. The North Tower had been hit—by something big. I don’t know why, but my first instinctual thought was that whatever had happened surely wasn’t on purpose. Maybe a small plane lost its way?

The hysteria came next; immediate and claustrophobic. People were yelling and running, racing for the stairwells or picking up their phones to dial loved ones in fear. My cell phone wouldn’t work—all circuits were busy as if my low-rise office floor had turned into a maddening call center.

But it was the terror in everyone’s faces that I remember most. It wasn’t just fear—it was raw, unfiltered terror, the kind that makes you forget everything you thought you knew about the world. I could feel it building inside me too, squeezing my chest like a vise. I had to get out of there.

“Everyone, be calm! Go to the stairs!” Mr. Richardson yelled at us over and over, but no one was calm. People were trampling each other to get to the door first and crushing people who fell on the floor.

I picked up my purse and joined them as we pushed towards the door into the stairwell, heart pounding in my throat.

That’s when I felt it—the heat. It was rising fast, the temperature climbing with every step. I could hear people coughing, struggling to breathe. The smoke was growing thicker, suffocating. I remember gripping the railing so tightly that my knuckles turned white, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. Just keep moving, I told myself. Just keep moving.

Somewhere around the 80th floor, the stairwell just came to a stop. I didn’t know why at the time, but I would later learn that debris from the impact had blocked off the exits below us. People started panicking even more, screaming, crying, begging for help. I was freaking out too. And then I saw this woman—she looked about my age, she was wearing a suit and she was clutching her cellphone to her chest. Her face was pale and streaked with tears, but what struck me most was the way she looked at me. We had this unspoken connection in that moment where we both knew we were terrified and trapped and hoping more than anything for an escape route.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, my voice shaky.

She nodded, but I could see the fear written in her eyes. “I— I need to call my mom,” she stuttered.

I was speechless. What could I say? Images of my own family flashed before me—my parents, my brother—I hadn’t even talked to them this morning. Would I ever talk to them again?

Suddenly, there was movement again. The crowd had started to file slowly downwards and we walked one step at a time until we reached the stairs. My stomach was smashed against the others in front of me to the point that I couldn’t move but I didn’t care – we were moving.

It was slow but at least it was progress. I looked to my left and saw a woman next to me – her eyes were closed her jaw clenched tight with concentration. I took her hand tightly and hoped she would take mine back, squeeze it even just a little bit if she could hear me, if she knew what had been happening.

I thought of nothing else but placing one foot in front of the other. I don’t know who it was pulling their legs up first or whether they were tired of being crushed first and stirred so that others sensed movement again when we’d all stopped hoping.

We edged down floor by floor and minute by minute and for 20 minutes past five on a Tuesday in September, only one thing mattered. I have no idea whose hand I held as we lumbered downward. I didn’t ask. Stairs – white or beige rug over concrete underfoot.

Somewhere around the 40th floor, the woman stumbled. I caught her arm, helping her regain her balance. She gave me a grateful, tearful smile, and for a moment, something inside me shifted. Despite the terror, despite the chaos, there was still kindness, still humanity. It was a small moment, but it gave me strength.

And then, the second impact.

At 9:03 AM, the South Tower was hit. The building shook violently as if the very foundation of the world was crumbling beneath us. I fell against the wall, the woman beside me collapsing into my arms. The sound was deafening—an explosion so loud that it drowned out everything else.

I don’t know how long we stood there, clinging to each other, but eventually, the shaking stopped. My legs were trembling, my heart racing. People were shouting, and pushing again, but I could barely hear them over the ringing in my ears.

"We have to keep going," I said to her, though I wasn't sure if it was meant for her or myself. We kept moving, slower now. Our limbs were growing heavier with each step.

When we finally made it down to the lower floors I watched as dust filled the air and sunlight became a murky haze along every wall of glass, as though twilight had descended on the world around us. There other emergency workers here as well pulling people out of the building and pointing them in a direction away from the site and I think they knew what we did too.

This was far from over.

I stepped out into the chaos, the woman still by my side. The street was filled with debris, paper raining down like confetti from the heavens. People were running, screaming, covered in soot and ash. I felt like I had stepped into a nightmare—one that I couldn’t wake up from.

We didn’t stop running until we were blocks away, far enough to see both towers from a distance. I turned, my breath catching in my throat as I watched the flames engulf the buildings. I don’t know how long we stood there, watching in stunned silence, but then, at 9:59 AM., the South Tower collapsed.

It was like watching a giant, really, just toppling over. It fell in on itself, slow and inevitable. The ground shook beneath me as one massive cloud of smoke and debris exploded out the side facing us, heading our way fast to engulf everything it would reach along the route.

People screamed and ran past in every direction around me but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t take my eyes off the annihilation.

And then at 10:28 AM Eastern Time, the North Tower (the one that had stood an hour ago with me still inside it) fell.

The grief hit me like a tidal wave. All those lives were gone in an instant. All those dreams, hopes, and futures wiped away in the space of less than a heartbeat. I sank to my knees as the reality of it struck me with full force, threatening to drag my soul beneath the waves along with that colossal liner.

The woman beside me dropped to her knees too and gave voice to our shared despair, sobbing brokenly as she clung to her child.

For a long while we knelt there together on the pier amidst the wreckage, just myself and another lost soul brought together by unimaginable tragedy – two strangers huddling on Solidarity Hill in silent grief for all that had been lost this day.

We had no need for words or explanations. We had no real inkling of what had transpired within sight of our little island nation over this last hour or so… but we both understood implicitly at that moment just how much had been taken from us.

In the days and weeks that followed, America would learn a lot about the evil that had come to visit us. The world would see us for who we sometimes can be when we are at our best.

But on that Tuesday morning, kneeling in the dirt of the wreckage, I made a promise to myself. I made a promise to not let these people keep defining us each day as we went forward, but instead, let our better angels loose and bring this country back together stronger than ever.

Because if they thought the attacks would change who we were or what we stood for—they really didn’t know us at all.

I never saw that woman again. I never learned her name. But I think about her a lot. Because for every darkest moment of that day, she was my reminder that even in the worst times, humanity is still there.

And so I kept moving forward – one step, and then another, relinquishing my grip on the memory of that day. The sorrow and the terror; the love — it’s all part of who I am now, part of who we are.

But that September morning 15 years ago was not just a day of sorrow.

It changed. Forever.