I was home and actually woke early that morning, a rarity when I'm home. It was a gorgeous NY morning, still summer, I was thinking of biking to the beach. Flipping channels I caught the 1st tower in flames, hearing the confused accounts of the newsmen. Many didn't seem to want to believe it was a jet airliner but if you know those buildings, their size, then you'd know that nothing else could've caused that much damage. Maybe like many, I knew this wasn't an accident even before the second plane came on screen while I was talking to my father. We had both worked across the street of the WTC at One Liberty until recently. Maybe every cynical NYer expected the terrorism to come someday after the 93 attack, after the tunnel and bridge bombing plot was discovered out in Brooklyn. Funny, but I don't remember what we said after that but I know I hung up and started calling others. Friends, family everyone I knew who worked in the city and I couldn't get a hold of anyone except those outside of the city. Tears and sudden rememberances of who else might be in harm's way, including two firms I used to deal with actually located in the towers. My friend, a NYC motorcycle cop, my old co-workers still across the street. I was even thinking of the guys who used to park my car at the WTC lot and the one by the tiny Greek church near West St. And the firehouse that was right up the street as I walked to my building. And then the towers collapsed and I never expected that. Maybe the upper burning portions threatening those on the street but not the whole structures. But the pictures I think that got me the most, the images you don't often see replayed, were those of the clouds of debris and dust that engulfed lower Manhattan as if from some bizarre sci-fi movie -- were there more buildings falling like dominos in that cloud??? And what was in that cloud? That night, ninety miles away from NYC, we could see the glow and the pillar of smoke, and we could smell it. Sirens from emergency vehicles were going the whole day. Highways were closed as were portions of the LIRR. A friend had to walk from midtown to Brooklyn, catch a ride from a stranger who took her to a running train station and she got home almost 10 hours after setting out from work. But she got home. And even though there weren't supposed to be any aircraft in the air, we kept hearing helecopters flying overhead, probably police and Coast Guard, and fighter jets from the Air Reserve base out east.