A survivor’s story

A
survivor’s story
Alumnus recalls his escape from terrorist attacks at
WTC
…………………………………………………………………

BY DAVID MEDINA
Special to the Rice News

Bill Forney ’96
can’t get the nightmarish images out of his head. They
remind him of a catastrophic movie in which a war-torn landscape
is littered with soot, debris and dangling wires, and clouds
of smoke choke the atmosphere. But what was happening was
real, and before the morning was gone, Forney would twice
elude death as he descended from the towering inferno of
the World Trade Center.

Two months after
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Forney continues to mentally
replay his escape. “I am always going through the scenarios
and how we got down,” Forney said. “I go through
the whole thing every day, all day long. It is always going
through my mind.”

On Sept. 11,
Forney was at work at 8:15 a.m. on the 85th floor of One
World Trade Center. An employee of SMW Trading Co., he had
just begun preparing reports for another day of trading
at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

At 8:43 a.m.
Forney was sitting in the center of the office with his
back to the windows. He was stretching and sighing after
having completed his reports when suddenly a “horrific”
explosion rumbled through the building. The air pressure
dropped, and a high-pitched noise pierced the office. A
“ghostly” column of air shot through the room,
whipped up papers and slammed doors shut.

Then the building
started to yaw. The structure moved back and forth about
10 times, throwing Forney to the floor. “It scared
me to the point that I thought I was going to die,”
he recalled. “I remember looking up and asking myself,
‘When are the floors above us coming down?’”

When the swaying
stopped, a silence ensued. The workers began speculating
that it was a bomb, but Forney’s boss spoke up and
said he had seen a commercial jet crash into the building
just two stories above them.

The 17 employees
of SMW stood in shock. They didn’t know what to do,
and many wanted to remain in the building. But Forney and
his friend Rob decided it was time to leave, and the rest
followed. Forney took his trading jacket and a bottle of
water in case of fires and smoke. As he was leaving, he
went to look for a missing co-worker named Marvin. Deciding
to look for Marvin in the restroom, Forney entered a dark
hallway where he saw three smoldering fire and debris. Marvin
was nowhere in sight, which led Forney to believe that he
had left the building before the attack.

Forney returned
to his office and joined his co-workers as they walked down
the stairwell. Several stories below, Forney and Rob each
picked up a fire extinguisher and lugged them along as they
kept up a slow, steady pace. On the 72nd floor, the stairwell
came to a halt, and they had to go into a hall to get to
another exit. The hallway had fires in the wall, wires hanging
from the ceiling and debris on the floor. Forney covered
his face and tried not to look. “I thought all it would
take is one little spark and it would blow up in my face,”
Forney said.

When they reached
the 50th floor, they heard someone yell, “Move to the
right.” A man with a bloody face and bandage on his
head walked by, followed by a woman who was hyperventilating.

“Everyone
was calm, orderly and supportive,” Forney noted. “No
one took advantage of the path they cleared. We felt there
was no immediate danger. We didn’t know the severity
of the situation.”

By the 49th
floor, Forney was sweating profusely. He unbuttoned his
shirt and left the fire extinguisher behind. He repeatedly
tried to use his cellular phone, but to no avail.

A few floors
further down, Forney began to see firefighters heading up
the stairs, and at the 30th floor, the firefighters had
set up camp to tend to the injured.

At the 20th
floor, Forney and Rob saw a middle-aged woman named Juliette
who was out of breath and struggling with the stairs. The
two offered to help her. Rob, carrying her purse, led the
way while Forney escorted her from behind. They proceeded
at a snail’s pace, letting others who were moving more
quickly pass by them.

After about
an hour of maneuvering the stairwells, Forney and his group
reached the lobby, but the unnerving sight of the outside
world brought no reassurance. “On the ground you saw
black, some metal objects, but a lot of stuff was smoldering,”
Forney said. “I remember seeing a leg, but I didn’t
see the body.”

Firefighters
led the group to the escalators and down into the underground
system of the World Trade Center. The normally active tunnels
were abandoned, and the automatic sprinklers had created
deep puddles of water. An eerie sense of danger permeated
the place, Forney recalled.

They continued
walking slowly toward the street level. Suddenly, Forney
heard a rumbling and thought it was water rushing through
the tunnel. “It grew louder, and I realized it was
people running and screaming and yelling, ‘Everybody
run!’ When the underground went black, Forney took
some steps, and heard someone else yell, “Everybody
dive!” Forney found a cubbyhole and curled up, closed
his eyes and prayed to God that he wouldn’t die. Two
World Trade Center, the second building hit by a plane,
was collapsing, only minutes after Forney had left the lobby.

“The blast
was like a hurricane,” Forney said. “For the second
time in an hour, I thought I was going to die.”

When Forney
first opened his eyes, he couldn’t see through the
darkness. He, Rob and Juliette saw a glimmer of light. It
was a fireman with a floodlight. They formed a human chain
and followed the firefighter for about 80 yards to a broken
escalator that deposited them onto the street. Outside,
the world was falling apart.

“Outside
was a war zone,” Forney said. “It was a monochromatic
landscape. It was like lint. Everything meshed into one
color: gray. You could make out trees, but they were gray.
You could make out the grounds, but they were covered with
several inches of soot. The air was full of dust and ash.”

The three continued
trampling through the wreckage, and about three blocks from
the point they exited the tunnels, a store owner invited
them into his place to rest. Juliette had lost her purse
and wanted to return to retrieve it, but Rob and Forney
convinced her otherwise.

“I told
her she should be happy to be alive,” Forney remembered.
The two men each gave her $10, kissed her on the forehead
and proceeded home. After walking for about 10 minutes,
Forney heard a “horrifying gasp” from people on
the sidewalks. He turned around and saw One World Trade
Center, his building, go down, floor by floor. “It
was surreal, unbelievable,” he said.

Forney found
a corner store with a pay phone and called his father’s
office in Houston, who in turn called Forney’s wife,
Tobey, who was in London for business.

When Tobey Forney
’93 heard the news of the terrorist attack, she said
she tried to remain hopeful that her husband was alive.

“I told
myself a lot of lies to make myself believe that he was
okay,” she explained. “It’s amazing what
your mind can do. When I got the message, I collapsed and
made a scene at the hotel. But everyone was happy for me.”

Now, months
after the September attacks, Forney said he is not suffering
from post-traumatic stress disorder. He doesn’t suffer
from nightmares, and he can sleep at night. But the memories
of the tragedy refuse to leave him. His senses, he said,
are more heightened, and loud noises startle him. The burning
smell also brings back the horror.

“When I
get out of the subway and I smell the burned buildings,
my blood pressure goes up,” he admitted. “My heart
starts to beat faster. I have a little anxiety.”

But not enough
to make him want to leave New York. Forney is intent on
learning how to trade securities on the floor, and New York
is one of the few cities that offers that opportunity. His
wife is equally determined to stay.

“We want
to get back to as normal as possible,” Tobey Forney
said. “This is a great city, and we want to be here
as long as we can.”

— David
Medina is senior editor of the Sallyport and the minority
community affairs director.