I found the story on the old place. The poster was Geek 999
"I was asked to relate my experience on 9/11, so here it is:
7:58 am United Flight 175, a Boeing 767, leaves Boston for Los Angeles
7:59 am American Flight 11, a Boeing 767, leaves Boston for Los Angeles
8:01 am United Flight 93, a Boeing 757, leaves Newark for San Francisco
8:10 am American Flight 77, a Boeing 757, leaves Dulles for Los Angeles
Approximately 8:45 am American Flight 11, hits One World Trade Center, aka North Tower.
I was sitting at my desk on the 63rd floor of Tower Two when I heard what sounded like an explosion in the distance. It was actually the first plane hitting Tower One, but I did not know what it was. I looked out the window and the air was full of debris, mostly paper, but also some ceiling tiles and some of the debris was on fire. I knew something was seriously wrong, but I did not know what. I spent less than 60 seconds putting my computer in my bag and was moving. I took a quick look around for the few people that I work with, but saw none of them. Three of us were actually on the floor, but none of us saw each other in the process of evacuating. I headed for the elevators hoping to get down before they were cut off. The elevators on 63 took you to the 44th floor. I got that far by elevator, but was directed to the emergency stairs to get the rest of the way down.
Approximately 8:50 am
Some of the people who were directing us at that level probably did not get out. I remember one fellow who worked in the cafeteria, and must have been a fire warden, directing me to the fire stairs on 44. At the time I did not know if he made it out alive. Morgan Stanley lost 13 people out of 2700, but those were mostly security people and fire wardens. I didn't know this fellow's name, so there was no easy way to find out if he was alive or among those killed. I began walking down the fire stairs. I learned about six months later that all of the cafeteria workers survived.
Approximately 9:03 am
Walking down the stairs people were not panicked, but were moving briskly. When I reached the fourteenth floor, the building shook as though there was an earthquake. That was the plane hitting Tower Two. According to the news afterward, this was 18 minutes after the first plane had hit Tower One, but I still had no idea what was causing the explosions. As soon as the shaking subsided everyone resumed moving and I remember one woman removing her heels at that point. I descended to the lobby level. There more people were directing us as we came out of the stairwell, but they were directing us away from the nearest exit, which happened to be the south side where the second plane had entered the building. I suspect there was too much falling debris to go out that side.
As I went through the mall, I saw three firemen who were heading in the direction of Tower Two. They were all very large fit young men carrying a lot of equipment slung over their shoulders. The route the crowd was following through the mall was rather circuitous. There were no directions being given in the mall.
Approximately, 9:13 am
We wound up exiting on the east side of the complex, under Five World Trade Center. There was some debris falling there too, so I hustled across the street and continued walking toward Broadway. When I got far enough away to look back at the Towers, both were on fire high up. Tower One (aka north tower) was on fire higher than Tower Two (aka south tower). I could see that a number of columns were broken on both towers. It looked like Tower Two was on fire at approximately the level of my office, but later news accounts placed the fire higher. I knew that there was no returning to work that day. The fires would need to be put out and the whole building checked before anyone would be allowed to reenter. I kept moving to Broadway and then turned north. My goal was to get out of New York before the exits across the Hudson were closed. I thought my best bet was the 32nd Street PATH. I tried to use the subway at one point, but found it had been shut down.
I walked quite a distance. I think it was about a mile. I tried using the cell phone but got busy signals. I heard one person say they had seen people jumping from one of the towers. This struck me as extremely far-fetched though I later learned it had been true. I had seen nothing of the sort. I had not seen anyone hurt in any way. A few people had been a bit winded from the walking and there was enough debris falling around that someone must have been hit with falling debris, but I did not see it.
I heard from someone that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I thought of a small plane and this made no sense to me because there was no way a small plane could set both Towers on fire. I have also flown down the Hudson in a small plane and could not imagine a pilot so out of it as to ram one of the Towers on a beautiful clear day. I passed a newsstand that was open and bought a bottle of water.
Approximately 9:30 am
I finally got far enough away from the crowds to catch a cab. A well-dressed black woman piled in beside me and asked if she could share the ride as far as I was going and then continue north with the cab. I agreed and the cab driver started driving and turned on the radio. This was the only direct news I received. To this day I don’t know who the woman was or whether she made it to where she was going
Approximately 10:00am
I got to the PATH and got on a train headed for Journal Square, which is not where I wanted to be, but it was on the other side of the river. Once underway, the train stopped for what seemed to be a very long time, though no announcements were made. The train did not make any of the intermediate stops where I would ordinarily have changed trains for Hoboken such as the Pavonia Newport station. The train went directly to Journal Square and then went out of service, stranding me at Journal Square. I believe it was the last train out of NY before the PATH tunnels were closed. I talked to a lot of people on the train and heard that Tower Two had collapsed.
Approximately 10:15 am Two World Trade Center collapses. I believe it was at this point the PATH tunnel flooded at the World Trade Center end. I did not know that the PATH tunnel was now flooded from the World Trade Center to Exchange Place. Weeks later I would learn that engineers trying to assess the damage would go from Exchange Place to the World Trade Center site via rafts through the PATH tunnel.
Approximately 11:00 am I arrive at Journal Square
When we got to Journal Square, there did not appear to be any way to get back to the stops at Exchange Place or Pavonia Ave where I could catch the PATH to Hoboken. A fellow I had met on the train and I decided to look for a cab to Hoboken, could not find one, so we started walking. We were walking toward Exchange Place but started to run into people who were coming from Exchange Place. We learned that the entire Jersey waterfront had been closed. We changed direction to walk all the way to Hoboken. On the way we caught glimpses of the NY skyline and there was a large impenetrable cloud where the World Trade Center had been. With all the smoke you could not actually tell it was gone. I made occasional attempts to use the cell phone, but still no luck. By this time the Verizon switching complex near the World Trade Center had been damaged, taking out 400,000 phone circuits, but I did not know this. Also, I heard later that ten cell towers that had been on top of the WTC had been destroyed. Essentially a record number of calls were being made at the same time massive amounts of communications capacity was going up in smoke.
