[Mike P]

It started as just one of those very rare days in NY, cool and so clear you could see for miles, with the promise of it warming into the mid-70s. The kind of day you'd order if you could dictate the weather year-round.

I was doing my usual thing, driving into the City from LI, listening to Imus on the radio. As I neared JFK airport on the Belt Parkway, I saw a plume of smoke in the sky, coming from (as it looked at the time) near Aqueduct race track. My first thought was that one of the horsebarns at the track went up, as those old firetraps often do. Then, Chuck McCord interrupted whatever was going on and reported that a plane had crashed into the WTC and the building was on fire. Early reports mentioned a "small twin-engined" plane. I was thinking, pilot must have had a heart attack or something, how else could he fly into that building on a day like this? Said a prayer for the folks on the plane. Then, they cut away to a locally famous sportscaster, Warner Wolff, who lived a few blocks north of the WTC and could see the buildings. He reported that a "large" plane had flown very low over his building seconds before he heard an explosion and saw the building on fire.

As I neared Brooklyn, I caught glimpses of the north tower burning. As I reached the bridge over Gerritsen Creek, traffic was slowing, as it often does, and it was compounded by folks gawking at the WTC. I saw a plane nearing the skyline. In the next few seconds seconds, thought processes were all over the place--"WTF is that plane doing there---looks like a United 737?? Mike, you're seeing things, it's a news helicopter. Effin' no, it's an effin' airliner, OMFG he's going to crash the other building. HOLY #####!!! (AS A FIREBALL ENGULFS THE ENTIRE TOP OF THE SOUTH TOWER). Christ, this isn't an accident, we're under a terrorist attack---HTF did they get their hands on a United???" Right then and there, I should have got off the highway, turned around and went home. but I proceeded in to work, my office being on Staten Island. The rest of the way, you can see lower Manhattan fairly regularly. The south tower was much more heavily damaged, and burning much more fiercely. I knew right then and there they were never going to save that building, and my only hope was that it wouldn't take down the north tower when it went. I was still thinking they crashed a small twin into the north one and that the FD would save it.

As I approached the Verrazano Bridge, I saw a small, single engine plane and thought, "aw, s###, here we go again, he's going to crash the bridge". But it was just a guy being vectored out of Dodge by ATC. But I realized how exposed my ass was on that bridge, but still crossed it and went to the office. I must have hit 90 crossing the bridge. From the office window, we watched the fires. We saw little black dots falling from the south tower. At first we thought it was just fire debris. Then, the news reports mentioned people jumping to their deaths to escape the fire, and we realized that was what we were seeing. The chief clerk called the office and asked that we send every lawyer who could make it down there, so they could just clear the calendars and get everyone out of the building. I drove down, and the court officers in the lobby are all dressed in flak vests, and one of them is standing with his hand on the butt of his gun. I'm thinking, "Jesus, man, this is Staten Island, relax, even lawyers from other parts of the City can't find this place". The towers went down while we were in court, and that's when I first heard the scope of it all---that the plane that hit the north tower was also a 767, that the planes that were used were hijacked in flight with passengers aboard and not "stolen", that the Pentagon was also hit, that a number of planes were still "unaccounted for", that hundreds of police and firemen were in the south tower when it went down, that there were still firemen in the other tower when it went down, the crash outside of Pittsburgh.

We spent the afternoon watching the huge cloud of smoke that enveloped Manhattan and watching TV, wondering how the three of us who lived on Long Island were going to get home. Our office investigator, who was a retired detective, took us in his car, "tinned" us over the bridge with some official looking passes and a load of Blarney, drove us to his house in Queens and let us borrow his other car to drive home. Which is where I stayed until Friday.

4 years later it's still clear, every step of the way. A day I'll never forget.