Dear Family and Friends,

Some of you already know I am OK, that I got home uninjured today. It has been a horrific day.

I wasn't feeling well this morning, so I turned off the alarm and slept an extra hour. Normally, I would be at my desk by 8AM on the 17th floor of One World Trade Center (the North Tower). I exited the No. 2 subway at Chambers Street (and West Broadway), at about 8:40 AM, just three short blocks from the North Tower. It was a gorgeous day. I stepped into my favorite deli for fresh, sliced mango and cantaloupe, as I do every weekday morning. I was waiting to pay when I heard a strange sound -- a high pitched, whirring sound -- like an airplane -- which I dismissed as a stupid idea. Then BAAAAAAMMMMMM -- a horrible sound, louder than any traffic accident—instant thought-- a bomb-- and all the buildings shook, my bones shook-- I ran out of the store -- everybody is looking up -- I look up and the top 20 floors of my building are engulfed in flames. A guy next to me says he saw a plane fly into the building, but you couldn't see any plane, just flames. We are watching in horror. The flames and smoke get worse. We are rooted to the street. We cannot believe it. Then, people begin leaping from the building. The building is a 1/4 mile high -- it takes an incredibly long time for these bodies to reach the bottom -- the people are alive while falling-- and flailing against the air. We are screaming, and crying. It is horrible. It then occurs to me, I am in danger. The fire is not diminishing. It is getting worse. Debris is falling on us. I need to get further away.

I leave this crowd and head three blocks further east until I reach City Hall Park. There is the constant sound of fire engines, ambulances, police cars. I sit down and try to compose myself. I turn on the radio of my cassette player. The news confirms it was an airplane. Still, all of us in this new crowd, don't know yet whether it is an accident or a terrorist attack. Maybe a plane lost control. It is about 9AM now. Suddenly, BAAAAMMMM again!!! I run 10 feet to get a view -- people are yelling -- a plane. A plane ran into the OTHER building!!! I look up -- from the middle of the South Tower to the top (2 WTC), flames and black smoke are pouring from the building. The entire top half of the building is engulfed in flames. Everybody around me is screaming and crying. I am screaming and crying. We know hundreds, if not thousands of people, have got to have died.

It is hard to pull myself away (it feels callous even -- as if you don't care), but now I am worried that the buildings may explode, as buildings sometimes do in serious fires. I may still be too close. I walk a few more blocks east to Pace University, near the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. Thick white ashes are falling very thickly about us. The air smells awful – the smell of an electric fire but an uglier smell as well -- I can't identify it. Sirens are screaming. I run inside the University to find a bathroom and a phone. All this time (nearly an hour), I had been trying to call [my husband] Joel, but I couldn't get my cell phone to work. I get on a line for a public phone and manage to reach Joel, who is at work in Queens. We agree I should walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and walk to the Long Island Railroad station in Brooklyn where he will meet me. (Subways, trains and buses in Manhattan were not running. All bridges were closed to traffic.)

While I am on the phone, inside Pace University, people begin screaming and running, even outside, I can see through the windows, that everybody is running away from the WTC. I yell to Joel that everybody is running and I am going to run too. I hang up and join the students running through the building, out the back fire exits. We turn north and keep running. -- I don't even know why I am running yet. -- But day is turning to night. The white "confetti" is falling thicker and thicker. I can't breathe without sucking in clumps of this stuff. I pause to grab a bandanna out of my backpack (I carry this bandanna to keep my suit clean while I read the paper on the train). I cover my nose and mouth and continue running. I glance behind me – black smoke is pouring up the street, but I am just enough ahead, to still be able to see and breathe. People are yelling -- the South Tower has collapsed.

Nobody is running over anybody. People were running, but in a careful way. I am impressed with people's care. No one is trampled. I reach the Brooklyn Bridge. People had been crossing it, but now the police have closed it off. The wind is blowing east. Debris and thick, black smoke is enveloping the bridge, so it was just as well they had closed it.

I walk north to the Manhattan Bridge. The Police have closed this too. (Now the second building has collapsed, but I only know it from the news. Lower Manhattan is blanketed in black smoke.) I walk north to Canal Street. I have a customer there, so I walk west to Broadway ( a long walk, probably a mile). It is hot and sunny. But when I get there, the building is closed. I finally reach Joel by cell phone again. We decide I should walk over the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn. First I have to get there. A long walk east again (more than a mile now). Finally I reach the bridge -- along with thousands of others. I think it is 1PM. Fortunately, I had purchased two large bottles of water along the way, because there were no other opportunities -- stores were closed. I was very hot and dehydrated. On my way to the bridge, people are huddled around cars with the radio blaring, trying to learn the latest news. There are long lines at public phones. There are people walking TOWARD the disaster to "see" it. Meanwhile, police are urging people northward, first north of Canal, later north of Houston.

I head across the bridge. It is a long, hot walk. People are tired. They can't do it. They are sitting down, breathing with difficulty. I pass a lot of people. Without the water, I probably would have had heat exhaustion. Finally, I reached the other side and Joel is waiting for me. What a relief!!! My face is beet red from the heat and exertion of hours of walking.

Driving home is really weird. We are on the Northern State Parkway heading east -- on a nearly empty road. It is as if all the people had evaporated. I feel like we are in a Stephen King novel. Then, on the westbound side, there is a police barricade. All traffic is stopped and backed up for about 6 miles. It appears they are checking every car.

When we drive down our street, several neighbors and their children run out to greet me. They know I work at the World Trade Center and everyone has been anxiously waiting. Total relief. I get lots of hugs.

After getting home, I reach some of my coworkers by phone. We haven't accounted for everyone yet. We had 20 floors, scattered from the 17th up to the 31st floor, about 4,000 employees. I speak to my boss, who was on the 17th floor. Those who were at their desks on the 17th floor were knocked off their seats when the plane hit. Instantly the sprinkler system went on. They were all drenched. The doors on the 17th floor to stairwells that go down wouldn't open. They went up to the 24th floor, to access a different stairwell to go down. Water was everywhere, pouring down the stairwells. After she got on the street, my boss eventually walked north to 59th street (about 8 miles) and walked across the bridge to Queens, where her husband met her.

One of my goals this week was to start cleaning up my desk -- do some serious filing. Well, won't have to do that! I hope I even have a job. But what does it matter -- I am alive. I cannot believe I am so fortunate to be unhurt. So many are dead. So many are injured for life. It is just beyond belief.