The woman I dated before I met my wife worked in the 2nd tower. After the plane hit the 1st tower, security broadcast a message over the loud speakers to everyone in the 2nd tower that there was no danger to the 2nd tower. Remain calm and stay where you are. She thought better and decided to leave the building, she worked on the 90 something floor. The towers had both express and local elevators. To get to the ground floor you had to take the local to the 86th floor and then the express to the ground floor. She gathered her staff and they made their way to the 86th floor when the plane hit the 2nd tower. Flying debris - ceilings, marble walls and equipment flew all over and killed all but 3 of them. One was unable to move and was left there as the remaining two, seriously injured, made their way to the stairwell. It was pitch black but they felt their way slowly down. Down and down and down into the darkness. As they passed the 43rd floor, the other express/local floor, a fireman found them and put them on an express elevator to the ground floor. She was taken away by ambulance and watched the 2nd tower fall as they drove away. Most of her company perished in the tower, including the fireman who rescued them.

A couple of days later I went to visit her in a hospital in Manhattan. It was eerily silent, no traffic, no people on the street. The first thing I noticed was that on every street corner, and anyplace people stopped for a moment, there were homemade posters. Posters of missing people put up by desperate family members looking for their loved ones, "Have You Seen ... " along with a picture and a phone#. Later I was told that the same thing happened after World War II in Europe. Women whose husbands never returned, traveled from town to town with a picture asking for information, maybe he was still in a hospital somewhere. She was in pretty good spirits, but still stunned from the events. I asked her about her experience in the stairway: Why was the stairwell empty, weren't there a lot of people trying to make it out? She replied: No, no one survived from any of the floors above us. She had a lot of broken bones, but survived with some permanent damage. She hasn't been back to Manhattan since.