Days before 9/11, Carmen was in New York City for a business trip.  Though she’d been to New York City before, she’d never visited the World Trade Center until then.  This is how she describes what she saw:

“Once inside the World Trade Center, I was amazed and overwhelmed by its monolithic structure. It felt like I was outdoors, because there were windows everywhere in the building.  The décor was all glass, and silver beams, and cream-colored walls.  Walking deeper inside, I saw where the elevators were located and which ones led to the top of the Towers.  I thought that I must take an elevator ride up to the top before I returned to Texas.  This was my first time inside the World Trade Center, and it was huge and magnificent, both inside and out.  But looking at all the glass windows it had, I sure would have hated to be the window-washer.”

Standing right outside the WTC she said:

“I looked up to see if I could see the tip of the Twin Towers. Tipping my head so far back almost made me fall over backward. The Towers were so tall that my neck ached from holding my head back so far. But they were magnificent to see!

I could just barely see the tip of the Tower before I lost my balance.”

A few days later…

“Like the other mornings, the sun was already shining brightly.  The sky was clear.  It looked as though it was going to be another beautiful day in New York.  It was Tuesday, September 11, 2001.”

She was at work by 7:30 a.m., just several blocks from the World Trade Center.  She even took a shortcut through Tower One to get to her office.  She was engrossed in a conversation when suddenly:

“I felt a strong jolt under my feet.  The jolt was so forceful that it literally lifted me off my seat.

“Just then, Nicholas, an employee from Tim’s section, came running over to our side of the building and screamed hysterically, ‘Mother of God!  One of the Twin Towers is on fire!’

“I turned my head to see him standing in front of a large picture window, looking up into the sky.  ‘What? I asked.

“’One of the Twin Towers is on fire and smoking badly!’ he cried out.

“Shocked, I leaped from my seat and ran the ten feet that separated me from where Nicholas was standing.  The view I had of the Twin Towers was magnificent and clear. It was as if I could reach out and touch them.  Clearly, Tower One was on fire.  Some flames were flickering, but mostly, I saw smoke, different colors, but mostly thick and jet black, that formed giant swirls of clouds.  Smoke was coming out from two sides of one of the Twin Towers, but the backside of the tower wasn’t visible to me.”

After hearing it was a plane that crashed into the tower, she thought this just wasn’t possible.  She said:

“I couldn’t take my eyes off the burning tower.  From what Nicholas had said, the plane had crashed near the top of the World Trade Center.  I could see that there were a number of floors above the crash site that appeared to be undisturbed.  Even the floors below the crash site looked to be in tact.  The longer I stood there and stared at this unbelievable sight, the more convinced I was that this really hadn’t happened.

“This is make-believe.  This isn’t real.  This isn’t happening,’ I mumbled.”

She couldn’t believe the contrast in the two towers.  One was on fire; one was so calm and serene.  She looked back at Tower One, only to see people leaping to their deaths.  She writes:

“I saw reams of paper and large office equipment free-falling from the windows.  The beautiful, clear blue sky was turning ash-black.  The streets were filling with the litter as if confetti had been thrown for a parade. It was then that I saw something strange:  a fluttering, like wings flapping in the air.  It was free falling, same as the desk, computers, and other large objects I’d seen falling out of the windows.  These large objects were falling hard and fast to the ground.  It hadn’t crossed my mind that they were crashing to the ground.  Then I saw it again, and again.  That same fluttering that was falling from the sky.  I thought ‘Is this what a ticker-tape parade looks like?”

She turned to look back at Tower Two.  She was soon to be shocked by what she would see. She writes:

“I turned to look back at Tower Two again.  It was very quiet-looking, regal, and unaffected.  Then BOOM!  Before my very eyes I saw Tower Two explode!  The sound was equal to the one I’d heard earlier.  It penetrated my entire being.  My whole body shook and trembled from the BOOM!  The tower exploded into a stratospheric brilliant orange, red, and gold fireball, bright as the sun itself, forceful and blinding and accompanied by additional BOOMs with the same intensity.  I jumped out of my skin again and stumbled back as if I were going to be hit with the debris from seven blocks away.”