Facing Ground Zero: A Dateline Special

I heard a loud noise, and I heard a woman scream, 9/11 as you've never seen it. What was it? I sounded like a missile. It was like an explosion. Last floor everywhere. Seven survivors, and the moments they can never forget. I had my hand out, and I caught it. It was filled with sand. The entire time with a gun. The thick smoke, it just engulfed me. I saw a woman somehow her clothes had been burned on to her bite. Oh my god! Oh my god! You all right? You all right? You go back? I'll go back to you. You guys going back? Yes. It was like looking into the gates of hell. Our cameras found them on 9/11. This is a terrorist attack between Jesus and America. Tonight, they take us back to that day. That was so confused. You could see Hershey's bombers walking out of the cloud. They had to know that the comrades had been caught in that. Why me? What did I survive? I was haunted. You'll never leave my mind. Facing Ground Zero. Good evening from Ground Zero on this 25th anniversary of 9/11. I'm Lester Holt. The scale event was incomprehensible. The deadliest terrorist attack in history with nearly 3,000 people killed. And yet for those who lived through it, the day unfolded right here as a series of harrowing moments and split-second, often self-sacrificing decisions. Tonight, in footage, we uncovered in our NBC News archive, some never-before-seen, and some difficult to watch. You'll meet ordinary people holding into chaos by chance. To work with others by choice in a fight for survival. It is Tuesday the 11th day of September. Let's find out about that election day forecast. Actually, he's looking pretty good, no excuse. In 2001, I was a cameraman at WNBC. Mostly clear sky. That day, I found myself on an assignment in Lower Manhattan. I had a polling place on a small assignment, a normal assignment, because it was a voting day. So I went back to the car to pack up and heard a loud noise. And I heard a woman scream. I turned to where she was looking, and I saw a hole in the North Tower. A slit. I thought it was a helicopter that had smashed into the building. We didn't have cell phones back then. We had radios. So I called the station. And I said, "You know, there's a hole in the building." And he said, "Shoot it." It was a great morning, to be honest with you. We were standing in front of my desk, as always. We used to banter a lot. I remember Vivi Lee. She said, "Good morning, Mujewa." And I said, "Wait a minute." Suddenly, this morning, you said, "Good morning. You are being nice." And I said, "Why?" And then she said, "Don't start with me." "You know, it's too early in the morning. I'm not going to do that with you." And then. And when I heard that, I was like kind of stunned. And I felt myself sway. I'm on the 82nd floor. You don't sway on the 82nd floor. But my coworkers came and screaming, saying, "Fire, fire, the elevator is on fire." I know, if I'm going to cover this thing, that the zone is likely going to be frozen by the police. And I need to get in there and get as much as I can. I put on a battery belt. I put the camera on and I started rolling. And as I went down rolling, I saw people in distress. I saw a woman get into a car with somebody and just bury her face in her hand. She was in tears. I saw people consoling each other. Then I saw a guy, he was trying to explain to me. Do you see how that happened? What had happened? No. I heard, you know what I heard? He was very detailed. He was intense. I heard before that happened. What was it? It sounded like a missile. It sounded like a plane. Like a. Do you understand the sound before it hits something? And it just like. And then it impact. And then it was like an explosion. I decided that I had to walk down nearer to where the grocery swinders were staging to help injured people. As I walked down, Simon started coming. Fire trucks, police cars, park department police. All hands on deck type thing. I saw a woman somehow. Her clothes had been burnt onto her body and melting. And I don't know if that happened on the street or where in the building that had happened, but she was been tended to. I was honestly trying to figure out what to be afraid of. Something going to come off the building. And all on me. I was afraid. There was fear, you know. There was fear. I went back to my desk. Gathered my belongings. And I said, "Well, it's all right. We gotta go." He said, "Okay, let's go." And we went down the first jail case we came to. He said that. "Stay a case. There was water." You know, water was just flowing. I presume it was some fire sprinkler that went off. There was this sense of urgency. But panic, no. The lights were still on. And people were still walking down. You know, commonly down the stairs. Like it was a fire job. There was nothing to alert me to say that. Something horrible happened. I worked for the Port Authority Police Department of New York and New Jersey. I was a commanding officer of the Western Zone, which included the World Trade Center. My task was to set up an instant command center in a live building one in North Tower, coordinating with the various responding Port Authority police units, FDNY units, and the NYPD. We had units going up into the towers to start the evacuation process and to gather information. We got reports from the fire department that it was an inferno. They had units up there battling it where they couldn't get a hold of it. The fire department, first responders, and the police, they were on it. And that was reassuring. There was a guy behind me. And I turned to him with a camera rolling in. I asked him, "What did you see? What did you see?" I ran out to the window and I looked out and I see smoke. The next thing I saw, the bottom elevator, the glass just flamed, exploded out the front of the World Trade Center. Glass flew everywhere. And the second plane came in and hit. And I turned and I got the fireball. And the explosion. That was. That was terrifying. And it was then that everybody knew. Absolutely knew. This was not an accident. When I responded to the World Trade Center in 2001, our primary goal was to see if anybody made it to the roof. It was also to advise headquarters of the situation so that we could get the resources up there that we needed. I would carry a camera all the time. It took a couple of shots real quick. The streams of smoke coming from the building were from people using furniture. Whatever they could get to try and break those windows, people that were trying to get air or get out. While we were up there, we had no idea a second plane was in route. Nothing came over the police radio. Nothing came over the FAA radio. And then it hit. Another one just hit. A very large plane just flew directly over my building and there's been another collision. The fireball was you. That plane punched right through the building. And we knew there's no way that two planes could have hit two separate towers on the same day. It could not be a coincidence. We could feel that the impact in here was an explosion up there. At that point we knew It was the terroristic event that it wasn't by accident, but plain hit. We knew that we had to evacuate these people, the fire was out of control. I moved our command center over to building number five. We had port authority police, fight a property, New York City police units, EMTs were looking to help this exodus of people coming down through the towers. I'm not going to say stampede, but they were running out of the building at that point. I've covered riots before, had my van shot at. But this was as near to war coverage as I'd ever come. And that's when the level I think of panic went up. I'm across the street from the Marriott man. People started talking about how can I get out of here. A second airplane, a 727 just ran into the building. Where do I go? Do I go home? Hello, Joe? Yo, I'm going to get out of the city now. I ain't staying here. Look at the second building. We were counting down 37th floor, 35th floor, the building shook, but we didn't know what it was. I'm just going. I want to step out of time and those water on the stairs are kind of slipped. I was done. I was tired. I couldn't step no more. And I thought, "Muzra, I was too tired to go." See, grab my hand and it's just nothing. We're gonna go. This staircase was packed. I would look up and I would see something like a spiral. Feel with people going as far as your eyes can see. Why were we going downstairs? Fire fighters were going up. Well, occasionally I was part one of them in the back. I said, you know, you guys are doing a heroic job. They just seemed very somber. The expression, the faces really haunted me for a long time. That was haunting me. So, yeah. The aircraft was fully loaded with fuel. That fuel went throughout that whole floor and totally engulfed the building from one end to the other. I didn't realize until I got the pictures back that there was actually a guy on the outside of the building. If I would have realized that, I would have called in the larger helicopter to try and do something. But I didn't realize it at the time. I had the camera kind of cradled in my arms shooting up. You could see debris and papers all in from the building. In the midst of that debris, you saw an object that moved faster. It didn't flutter in the air. And then another moved faster and passed on the debris. Somebody said, those are people. And when they landed, the sound was, you know, it's not something that you forget. It was just loud bangs, we didn't know what it was. I was able to look up and actually witness people jumping out of the building. It was traumatic. It was traumatic and it'll just never leave my mind. There was a woman near me. And she was crying and screaming at the same time. You know, why don't they do something? Why don't they put something underneath them to try to catch them? One of the officers said, just go inside. I thought about their families on the other side. How they would try to manage that. Some people would think it was suicide and there was no way that was suicide. Somebody was trying to save themselves from an inferno. There was no way to help those people. There was no answer for that. Both towers had been hit. I called into the station and they told me there's a live truck down there. Meet them. Walter would be there. Walter Perez was one of the morning reporters at WNBC. I'm ready when you are. And we started this live chat. He was recapping what had happened, what he knew. Okay, two blocks away from where the whole thing happened. And this entire area has been cordoned off and people that have been working in nearby buildings have been told to evacuate. That's what this mass exodus is to my left hand side. Since the fire was getting very large, the Port Authority commanders decided to send North airport officers to help in the evacuation. We train in aircraft fires, whether it be an engine fire or God forbid a crash. One of them actually going two blocks away from the well-trained. I parked in front of a building that was probably 40 stories tall. I figured the vehicle would be protected. It was like raining papers. Full sheets of paper were raining down constantly from the towers. They were still standing and burning very, very rapidly. We were told you guys from the North airport, you're the next group to go in as soon as we get air breathing equipment. We were going to be dispatched into the North Tower. We were putting on our aircraft bunker gear, which is a silver suit that protects us from very hot fires. It was sort of like going to war, but in New York City. I worked for the Fire Department of New York. I was an EMT. I was a rookie. I was nine months on the job. That day Ronnie Coyne was my partner. Ronnie was funny. He just never wanted to like leave the job, and he just loved it so much. He said, okay, this batch is going to send us down to the well-trained center. We were actually really close. We were only like a few hundred feet away. I want to start the interviews and then pan up. Walter was on the air live. He actually interviewed a couple of people. To my right, we have two witnesses, and Marna, you work across the street. Tell me exactly what you saw on the street. I saw there's maybe about 30 or 40 people covered with bandages and blood. It looks like a lot of them were either on the floor of one of the exchanges. There's actually, oh my god. We're not sure exactly what happened, but it was another explosion on the far side of one of the buildings from where we're standing. I remember something that felt like a deep rumble and roar. When I showed that was another explosion or if that was advanced to breathe. But I don't think it ever occurred to us that it was the building coming down. We were almost at the lobby. When suddenly we had a large boom. And our buildings started shaking. I thought the building I was in was falling. So this discussion went like shh. And it looked like the people was tumbleweeds. Like they was flying past the door because of the pressure of what was going on. At one point, it goes to a dark. We cannot see each other. I had my hand out and I caught it. Inside me, I was praying. God, please save me from this. And I heard definitely. And I remember just praying. Please, Lord, don't let it hurt me. I remember saying that really loud. So you can hear me. I like to describe it as a thousand freight trains coming down. It was like a roar in the dust. The dust. Everything was dusty and you couldn't see. To be honest, I was like a deer in the headlights and we were breathing that in. I wish I had put my jacket over my face so I could breathe, but it was too late. I could hear little pieces of cement hitting my jacket. I knew that I had to get some fresh air. At this point, as you can tell, there's absolute pandemonium in this area because of what had just happened. Exactly what I can't confirm. We were trying to make sense of it. I'm sorry, but knowing you, I'm scared to f*ck this. I'm also trying to make sense of it. We were trying to impose reason on these scenes and it was breaking all the rules. There was a massive plume of smoke coming in our direction. The police are telling us to move immediately. Okay, we're being told to shut off. We're getting back in contact as quickly as possible. They were just thick black smoke, so we really couldn't see too far ahead of us. And we just saw people coming out of the smoke, just kind of walking towards us. We were like, come to our ambulance, let's clean you up, you know, you need an oxygen. And just more and more people just started coming out of the dust. So we were just loading people into the back of our ambulance just to get them out of that thick smoke, so that they could breathe, you know. It was still dark, it was still windy until after a while, it started coming down. I heard the voice. "Is anybody alive?" I said, "Yes, I can hear you." And then the voice said, "Okay, look for my flashlight." So I was heading toward him. I was holding deafness hand, so we were going, we were going. The ceiling of the lobby had collapsed. So we were picking our steps in order to just get to the way we were able to go outside. Myself and deafening were probably the last person that came out. We came out on a cyclical sound, very, very, very, very scary to me. Another firefighter, he took us to the ambulance and he gave us water. I couldn't get the water to my mouth, I would start going like this. I definitely didn't help my hand, he helped me training on my mouth and then I drank so. If you mean this after that, I stabilize the lobby. When I first came out, I was so tired, I didn't lean on his wall, I was exhausted. I didn't know my energy. The first thing I did was I found a fire truck that had a little bit of trickle water coming out of it and I washed my face. Peter Cune was my partner. We worked together for 20 years, so friend and colleague, we stayed together the whole time and we just started to get our breath. We ran into reporters that wanted to know what happened. Where were you guys when it happened? At our command post, the port authority command post. We went on desi and west street. The whole, about a 20 story section just came coming back into the street. Into the street. I was amazed that I was able to speak because my lungs were filled with that smoke. We weren't quite sure exactly what happened and they asked us, was anyone injured? I lost a life up there. How bad? I got here 20 minutes ago from the work airport, I really don't have any count. But there were a lot of people up there, around the clock in the morning. Everyone's at work around the clock. The towers were filled with people. We were going to head back down there and see what we could do to help the walking wounded or whatever we could do. I know it's a strong building and the outside walls are holding up that building but I wouldn't put a test that thing coming down. I'll go back down here. You guys going back? Yes. It's our job. Dangerous. Dad, it is. You worry about that other tower? Personally, I am. But you're going back anyway. I got fellow offices that might be trapped. I'm trying to be a hero. But I think if you were in this position, you'd do the same thing. Good luck. I would only hope that you would. Good luck. Good shot. I'm walking away. We couldn't just stay back and not do something. It was a two or three block walk and looking at the north tower from my vantage point was like looking into the gates of hell. The wind was feeding the fire right into that hole at an impact point. It was horrific. Take the hole. Listen off. We got it out. I know we got any way to do right. Look it out. We can do it. It's the office I care about. They were doing that duty. Back off. We got the ropes and down. Particularly the offices and the firefighters up into towers. They knew what the danger was. You could hear it in their voices. The urgency. They were working hard to get the people down to stairwells. Some people stayed on scene to help some disabled people. We heard that over the radio. They would start mentioning names. This office went upstairs because he thought he could get up higher in a different stairwell. Nobody said, you know, I'm out of here. It is too dangerous. They all stayed at their posts. I knew a lot of them over the course of my 27-year career. I did recognize their voices. And also I knew that they were up there. We were still just treating people that were just coming to us. And Ronnie, my partner, said, I'm going to go and see if I could find anybody else in the towers. So stay here. I was kind of nervous. I was like, you're leaving me. But, yeah, he says, I'll be back. I'm just going to go see if I can find anybody else. You're just kind of like an autopilot. Just so much is going on. You just, you don't really think. After some time at pass, I was heading down towards the tower to see if I could find him. And everybody just started running the other way. They were saying the second tower was coming down. The second tower was coming down. I couldn't go any further because the thick smoke, it just engulfed me. After the first tower had fallen, and we finally got out, I decided to go back in to see if I could find some more survivors. I saw an arm sticking out of the rubble. It was a bloody arm. And it was fired on it. Also, so there was a raging fire. Myself, I'm a firefighter. And I believe in FBI agent, we were able to dig them out and carry in quite a ways back to that building. Across the street, there was a firefighter who yelled to us, watch out, the next building is coming down. All the telephone lines are jammed up as people are trying to communicate. We were couple blocks away on the air live. They're trying to move the media to a safe area so we can do proper reporting, let everybody know exactly what's going on. For now, back to you. And we began to collapse. The debris and the dust, everything started cascading north. Just a moment ago, the entire top of the building collapsed. One guy, he was immensely frustrated, he was a firefighter. He was axed down, threw his helmet down, and you can see how frustrated they were. You can see the plume of smoke is coming in our direction. Let's get out of here, Ralph. We're going to leave because of smoke is coming right at us. As the debris was coming towards us, I took behind the truck with the camera still live, and I held my shot as the debris came up the street. I wanted to stay alive as long as I could. I had to box up my emotions and document this, rather than standing on the street and screaming. It was almost right on top of it. I pretty much got a sequence of the north tower going down. It was devastating for the people on the ground because the plumes of smoke and dust that were going through the streets. The firemen said, "Run, run." And his fellow of smoke was behind him. The dust, the wind, the whole thing caught up with us. Suddenly, it was very dark again. And I remember us running, and then somehow our hands broke loose. And I remember seeing this fellow we smoke coming at me, and I remember praying. We were caught out in the open, myself, the firefighters, and then this unconscious man, who he just extracted. I was never so scared of my life. I mean, I thought I was dead. Of course, your first instinct at that point in time is to save yourself. I was at the World Trade Center Police desk when the first tower collapsed. Tell me what happened to him. We were carrying an injured person out, myself, and about four firemen. And unfortunately, that's when the building collapsed. Describe what happened at the moment of impact. It's just brain-building, okay? I happened to dive underneath the ESU vehicle. I was buried alive at 15 minutes until I scrambled out. How did you get out when you heard of the truck? To be 15, 20 minutes, and digging out, OK? I'm not sure what happened to the other people or the other firemen who were with me. We were back in there trying to bring people out. We knew the second one was about to come down, but we were lifting one person in. When it came down, we all just ran for our lives. The firefighters, the civilian that we extracted from building number four, the FBI agent, I never found out what happened to them. I was scared because I was new. And plus, I don't know where my partner is. You know, so I'm thinking something bad happened to him. And I'm thinking, how do I get around? What do I do? Where do I go? You got a lot of people, you know, tugging at you. Help me. Help me. Somebody said, come help this firefight. He has a broken leg. And then when I went to go to my ambulance to get it, it was gone. And I actually ran into Roger, a power medic that I knew. We linked up because he had lost his partner as well, and I had lost my partner. And he said, hey, you know, I have an ambulance. Let's just work together and see what we can do. So we just kind of drove up as close to, you know, the Twin Towers as we could. And somehow we ended up in, like, the rubble of it all. We had supplies, and whoever, you know, needed help, mostly firefighters, you know, looking for survivors, if they needed any help, they would just come to our ambulance. You could see firefighters and first responders walking out of the cloud covered in the powder and the debris. They had to know that their comrades had been caught in that. And they didn't have any kind of a recourse. There was nothing that they could do. All we could do is to observe. When I captured what I thought it could, and I wanted to take stuff back to the building, and realized that my friend, my colleague, was on the 104th floor. A man named Bill Steckman. Back then, he would capture my signal. The voice was so nurturing. And he was so kind. Well, he didn't make it. He didn't make it. No. Well, what about his smoke? You could see anything. I was in a mess. What a smoke. Any message to your family? Some them okay. They got him okay, Mom. I'm okay. First time I felt safe is when I sat on the side with the reporters. My name is Moira Onyborg. I did not know that the tower had collapsed. I developed my mind. You know, I was thinking we go back to the office. It's a second floor. I and Daphne will have quite the story to take the other workers. You need to get out of the line. What happened? Why have played at the building? Why have played with hijacked men? Excuse me? I'll be understanding that play might have been hijacked. This didn't happen by chance. Did you set terrorists hijacked the plane and to the building? No, I couldn't even fan them. No, no. I was so confused that I just could not digest that on that beautiful day. That's something that awful happened. I'm telling you what the truth is, what's being broadcast right now, because you can have the courage you're in the building. This is a terrorist attack. Jesus. In America? I don't know what to say. They come out to find out a terrorist, because I can't even be angry. It's senseless. And people die senseless. You mean, Tommy, his building fell down senselessly? I don't know. All I know is that I just want to come to work to do my job. I was spared. To this very day, I asked myself, how come I never looked back? Just see what was going on behind me. I never looked back. All that time, I was only for hours, and I never looked back. Thank God we are alive. That we got out of it. And my heart goes to the people who were still in the building when it came down. It would take a long time for me to accept that the tower was down. The building was a village. It was a community in its own right to just say, down, come on. After we were at the rubble for a few hours, we just kind of sat outside in the street just to decompress a little. And it was at this time that I found Ronnie. I gave him the biggest hug. I think it's been like four or five hours since I last saw him running into the towers. He talked to my partner. He was the one that ran into the classroom. I couldn't believe that he was alive. But somehow he made it out and found us. Then the three of us started triaging out of the back of the ambulance together. You know, only Ronnie can tell his story. For sure, he's not with us anymore. He had pneumonia many times after that day. Yeah, I think that's what he finally succumbed to. If I was there earlier, I might have been inside the building myself. Our commanders made a decision. They didn't want to send anyone back to the site because they knew that they lost too many men already. Officers ran into those buildings to help. And they had no idea the buildings were going to collapse. No one did. We drove back into Newark Airport and we couldn't believe what happened. Why me? Why did I survive? And these other men that had young families? Why did they have to perish? They were friends, they were colleagues, 130 families lost 37 officers that day. My command, we had 19 officers respond. At the end of the day, six of us were alive. It was an incredible heavy hit. For years, I had survived this guilt. All those people, why me? I remember my sister saying to me, you know, I stepped to her and I rolled back around. They did the name calling. She said, you know, I could have been down here saying your name. She said, but I'm so blessed that I'm not. When you are, he was determined to live. He pulled me down 35 stairs. He would not let go. And I called him a hero, you know, he asked about it and all that. You are. As far as dying, I was not ready to contemplate that. 9/11 was the most impactful thing that happened in my life. Probably it will be as strong as I live. The totality of the whole thing never sunk in until later on. I can't believe the 25 years have gone by. The World Trade Center today, it's in a spot that's a sacred place. It's also a tribute to our country that we rebuild something to take the place of the World Trade Center. It's no way around. It's trauma. I mean, I've allowed myself to cry, it bugs me, and move forward. I'm not bleeding. But I've been imprinted with this horrible scene. And it still impacts me. In those moments, as horrific as they were, we, as people were unified, we were open to helping each other. I hope we can learn those lessons without having something as horrific as that. When I look back on that day, I think of widows, I think of husbands, I think of children, I think a parent's, all the funials I've been to since that day and how those families were affected by that. And I remember the office's faces. It was a beautiful day. We were just going about our normal everyday life like anyone else is doing today and it happened. After 9/11 you heard a lot, never forget and that's why I'm here today. I'll never forget the faces and the people who put their lives worth that day. Here in New York City, 2,753 people perished on 9/11. We also remember the 184 who died at the Pentagon and the 40 passengers aboard United Flight 93 who forced their plane down in Pennsylvania, as well as the many who have died since from 9/11 related illnesses. For those who watched from afar, memories of all those victims were surely linger. So with resiliency and bravery, we witnessed that day, a testament to the best of us in the worst of times. That's all for tonight. I'm Lester Hope. Thank you for joining us. For all of us at NBC News, good night.