9-11 Survivor Brian Clark Tells Us The Story Of The Day That Changed His Life Forever

A "loud double boom" is the first thing he remembers. Then flickering of the lights in his office on the 84th floor, then something caught his peripheral vision. He spun around. His view usually looked out over the Hudson River. The river and the sky.
But this time"It was filled with flame," he says. "Two yards from my nose is the window, and it's right against the glass, almost swirling. I can't recall whether there was a flash of heat. But remembers a woman, spinning around from the window in shock and tears, and telling him that people were jumping off the building

___
At about 8:55, Clark remembers a voice over the public address system: "Building Two is secure." meaning his building.
Eight minutes later, at 9:03, he was standing outside his office and talking with a coworker, Bobby Coll. They were 2 feet to a yard (60 to 90 centimeters) apart, he thinks, eye to eye.
In an instant, "the room exploded."
The feeling was of tremendous air compression. Then things so secure no one ever gave them a thought, things like the lights and the floor, came loose. For several harrowing, torqueing seconds, it seemed the building itself might go over. The power went out.

"Everything was full of construction dust," Clark says. "Yellow, chalky, gritty air. As if you gave a demolition crew a week to destroy the floor, but it happened in a second. It was like someone had torn open a cement bag and just waved it in the air."
He remembers terrorism crossing his mind. He also thought something that seems ridiculous to him in hindsight. He remembers cursing and saying, "We've got to come back tomorrow and clean up this mess."
To the outside world, at 9:04, went the AP alert: "Explosion rocks second World Trade Center tower."
TV networks were in the middle of interviewing eyewitnesses to the first explosion when United Flight 175 approached, slipped into the south face of the south tower, and sent a mushrooming fireball out the other side.

In Sarasota, Florida, President George W. Bush was reading to schoolchildren when Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, whispered news of the second crash into his ear. The color appeared to drain from Bush's face.
Inside the south tower, Clark was trying to lead a small, snaking line of people toward a central stairway and down from the 84th floor. Three floors into the trip, they were met by a woman, heading up.
"We've got to go higher," the woman said.
A debate ensued. Up or down. Clark shone his flashlight on whoever was talking. In the middle of the discussion, Clark heard a muffled scream for help coming from the 81st floor. He and a coworker, Ron DiFrancesco, went to investigate.

They squeezed through a crack between drywall and door frame.
"I have this very clear vision of all my coworkers turning around and starting up the stairs," Clark says. "And they all died."
Mid-rescue on the 81st floor, DiFrancesco was overcome by smoke, coughed and sputtered and turned back. Clark continued toward the stranger's voice. It was Stanley Praimnath, an executive with Fuji Bank.
To get to safety, Praimnath had to scale a toppled inside wall. Clark pulled him over on the second try. Clark fell on his back. They introduced themselves and told each other that they would be brothers for life.

Pillaring Lights in Memory Of The Twin Towers

They made it down to the 31st floor and called their wives to report that they were OK, and made it to the ground floor. It was just after 9:30 a.m. To the outside world, it was about to become clear that the disaster, whatever it was, was not limited to two skyscrapers in New York.