2003-09-14T10:27:00.000-07:00

Letter From a 9/11 Survivor
Written shortly after 9/11, almost two years ago

Dear All,

Now that I can begin to think clearly again, I would like to take the
time to thank each and every one of you for your concern of my
well-being. It was a very close call, and I am grateful to be alive.

As you probably all know by now, I narrowly escaped from the
World Trade Center attack this past Tuesday, unlike the thousands
who are still trapped beneath the rubble. At 8:48am on Tuesday
morning, I was reading my email like I do every morning. I had just
gotten off the phone with a traffic engineer at the Port Authority
regarding a file that I had transmitted to him on the previous day.

As I was finishing off my usual peanut butter and jelly sandwich,
I heard a loud explosion, which was immediately followed by tremendous
building sways and vibrations.

As I was thrown out of my chair, I immediately thought that this was an
earthquake, but still thinking rationally, I thought that it was
abnormal since there are no earthquakes in NYC, especially of this
magnitude. I remember thinking that the building felt like it was going
to collapse from this initial explosion.

As I picked myself up and ran to the emergency staircase located in the
core of the huge building, I saw through the east facing windows debris
and fireballs falling from the top of the building. The building had
stabilized by the time I reached the stairwell, and evacuation had
commenced quickly but calmly. Not knowing the gravity of what was
happening above us, people had started pouring into the stairwell from
the hallways of the different floors. I saw a coworker from my floor
(72nd), and we held and consoled each other. There were no public
announcements in the stairwell, but the evacuation seemed to be going
smoothly, there were no more explosions as far as we could tell, no
smoke coming up the stairwell, and the building had stopped swaying.

We all felt like we were out of imminent danger. As we started to make
it down the stairwell, people started chatting and gathering their
composures. I heard some people who had been there in '93 telling others
that this was a piece of cake since the stairwell was dark and full of
smoke in '93. Others were joking about how Mr. Silverstein, who had just
recently taken control of the complex, must be fuming at what was
happening. A few moments passed and people began to receive messages
over their pagers that a 767 had accidentally hit our building. There
was no mention of a terrorist attack, and at no time was there any
panic.

Mobile phones were completely out in the core of the building due to its
immenseness and the large distance from the core of the building to the
exterior where signals were usually stronger. There was no smoke at all
in the stairwell, but there was a strange peculiar smell, which I later
remembered it smelling like how it does when one boards an aircraft. I
later found out that this was jet fuel.

Soon we heard shouts from the people above us to keep to the right. I
started seeing blind people, those with difficulty moving, asthmatics
and injured people filing down to our left. People were burned so badly
that I won't go into describing it. People kept filing down orderly and
calmly, but stunned.

Sometime around the 30th or 40th floor, we passed the first
firefighters coming up the stairs. They reassured people that we were
safe and that we would all get out fine. By this point, they were
already absolutely breathless, but still pushing upward, slowly and
unyieldingly, one step at a time. I could only imagine how tired they
were, carrying their axes, hoses and heavy outfits and climbing up all
those stairs. Young men started offering the firemen to carry up their
gear for a few flights, but they all refused. EACH and EVERY ONE of
them. As I relive this moment over and over in my mind, I can't help but
think that these courageous firemen already knew in their minds that
they would not make it out of the building alive and that they didn't
not want to endanger any more civilians and prevent one less person from
making it to safety on the ground.

We continued down the stairwell, slowly and at times completely stalled.
The smell of jet fuel had gotten so unbearable that people began
covering their mouths and noses with anything that they could find -
ties, shirts, and handkerchiefs. Every few floors, emergency crew were
passing out water and sodas from the vending machines that they had
split open from the hallways. I had no idea how much time had passed by
as I didn't have my mobile phone with me.

Around the 20th or 15th floor, the emergency crew began diverting the
people in our stairwell to a different stairwell. They led us out of our
stairwell, across the hallway where I saw exhausted firemen and
emergency crew sitting on the floor trying to catch their breaths. I
began to think why? What's going on? This whole operation looked very
confusing. Nobody was giving us any indication as to what was going on.
The wait in the hallway to get to the other staircase was excruciatingly
long as we had to wait and merge with the people who were coming down
the staircase into which we were filing. Why had they diverted us? As we
started to get down to the lower floors, water started to pour down from
behind us. I figured that a water pipe had burst or that it was water
coming down from the rescue on the higher floors.

At this moment for the first time since the initial explosion, a sense
of panic began to grip me. Only floor 7, then 6. A few more to go, and I
would be free. I couldn't wait. It didn't matter that the water was
ankle deep. I was a few floors from the ground. Floor 5,,,,4,,,,then all
of a sudden, a loud boom, and the building began to shake unbearably
again. People started falling down the stairwell as smoke started to
rise from the bottom. The emergency lights flickered and then went out.
The building was still shaking, and I could hear the steel buckling.
Rescuers below us shouted for us to go back up the stairs. At this
moment, I was choking and shaking tremendously. I managed to climb back
up to the 6th or 7th floor and opened the door to that floor. The water
had already risen to my ankles, and the floor was completely dark. A
fireman led us with his flashlights to another staircase by the voices
of another fireman who was guiding him through the darkness. We finally
made it across that floor to the other stairwell where we were greeted
by the other fireman and told to hold. The look on that fireman's face
said it all. He said something under his lips to our fireman indicating
the severity of the situation. With the image of the firemen
communicating to each other and hindsight, I believe that the fireman
had whispered to the other one that Building Two had collapsed.

After a few minutes of huddling by the stairwell on the 6th floor, we
were given the green light to run for our lives. I made it down six
flights with a few other people and came out onto the mezzanine level of
our building. I don't know what I was expecting to see when I got out of
the stairwell, but I was not ready for this apocalyptic scene. It was
completely covered in white dust and smoke. My initial reaction was that
I couldn't believe that one plane, albeit a 767, 80 floors above our
head caused all this damage on the ground floor - inside. I covered my
head and ran towards the huge opening in the north side of the building
through which we were being evacuated. As I approached this threshold,
the firemen yelled to us to get over to the wall of the building
quickly. Debris was still raining from all sides of the building.

We could see the other firefighters who were outside standing underneath
the cantilevered parts of the black immigration building (4 and/or 5
WTC). At their cue, we ran from our building to the outside world and
back underneath the immigration building. I was completely disoriented,
coughing, and looking at the strange new landscape at the WTC plaza -
burning trees, wreckage, fireballs and dust, nothing short of a nuclear
winter. I climbed over huge pieces of steel wreckage and made my way
through to the sky bridge leading to 7 WTC (which would be the third
building to collapse).

From there, I descended the escalators down to the street level onto
Vesey Street and trotted to safety onto Church Street. I immediately
looked back and saw the charred remains of the upper floors of my
building. Smoke filled the sky, and I began to have this eerie feeling
that WTC 2 was not there. I couldn't be sure because of all the smoke
that was billowing from my building blowing eastward. As I was trying to
find WTC 2, I saw the unthinkable happen in front of my eyes. WTC 1
began to disintegrate from where it was burning. I turned around and
ran.

I later learned that another 767 had hit WTC 2 around the floors where I
sit in my building. I later learned that WTC 2 had collapsed when we
were still inside my building on the fourth floor when it began to shake
for a second time.

I later learned that I had been spared from the sight of people falling
from the higher floors. I am grateful to be alive and uninjured and to
be able to share this life-changing experience with you. And, I am so
grateful for the courage of the firemen and policemen who gave up their
lives to help us down the burning tower.

Sincerely, Cary Sheih

=====================

Comment:

In contemplating the lessons presented by the first attack upon
our soil in almost two hundred years, we should expect that Americans
would be more secure now with the lessons of two years ago.

Despite the fact that lax immigration policies were a
contributing factor in the WTC tragedy, borders are still unsecured
and routinely violated, visa violations and other "lawful" programs
are taken advantage of and the massive entry by foreigners
continues.

Some politicians call for amnesties outright or disguised as guest
worker programs which would defy the rule of law, encourage millions of
others to migrate and would be an insult to those who wait their turn
legally. State and local policies hinder attempts at national security.

Those who perished on 9/11 are not the only victims of US failing to
secure borders and limit and control immigration policies. Millions of
Americans are also affected, if less dramatically so.
View Families for a Secure America website
This organization was started by WTC victim family members who
lost loved ones in the WTC terrorist attacks.

Limited, controlled and allocated immigration has the potential to be
beneficial and to achieve all or most of the positives that open border
advocates erroneously attribute to the mass invasion we presently have.
Millions of Mexicans and other nationalities are sneaking across our borders illegally or other
similar arrogant violations are not what Emma Lazarus had in mind and
cannot be justified with present security and societal needs.

It is difficult not to arrive at the conclusion that the 9/11 disaster
could have been avoided had government policies together with those who
advocate open borders and/or excessive immigration not failed US.

------------------------

See also the recent article by Michelle Malkin:
view "Spitting On Their Graves"

==========================

PLEASE NOTE:

U.S.C. -- TITLE 8, Sec. 1103 (Powers and Duties of the U.S. Attorney
General): (1) The Attorney General shall be charged with the
administration and enforcement of this chapter and all other laws
relating to the immigration and naturalization of aliens... (5) He
shall have the power and duty to control and guard the boundaries and
borders of the United States against the illegal entry of aliens and
shall, in his discretion, appoint for that purpose such number of
employees of the Service as to him shall appear necessary and proper.

2003-09-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

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