Thank God!!! My sister is safe!!

[Steven Lowenthal <lowenthl...>]

I wish to thank those of you who were worried about my safety and welfare and 
sent me IM's and email that I wasn't available to answer until now. Thank God, 
I didn't leave the house yesterday, and my entire family all arrived at their 
homes safely.

I was awakened by a telephone call Tuesday morning after 9AM by Meryle, who was 
hysterical, crying into the telephone, inisisting that I tell her which floor 
of the WTC Tower our sister Barbara, worked on. She shouted "..a plane crashed 
into the World Trade Center building .. " where Barbara works and she was 
unable to reach her either at her desk or on her cell phone and couldn't reach 
our brother-in-law, Paul, who also worked downtown.


Not believing my ears, I turned on the TV which was focused on the burning WTC 
tower. Then it showed a fireball explosion in the middle section of the second 
tower, and now both of them were burning. Still half asleep, my next thought 
was that this was just one of my bad doomsday dreams. I would wake myself up 
and all this would go away. But this time, shaking my head and tossing and 
turning failed to make this nightmare go away.


I realized that this was more than just a nightmare, that this was a family 
crisis that needed to be dealt with. Having been in the WTC buildings many 
times for classes, and having been in my own building at 55 Water Street during 
a fire, I knew that, at best, people would be in jammed up smoky corridors, and 
that, no matter how many fire and emergency exiting drills there may have been, 
nothing could have prepared my sister Barbara for this type of horrific 
disaster.


I tried calling Barbara at her desk - there was a deafening silence, not even a 
telephone company message saying it was out of service or any other kind of 
noise - just no sound at all. I got the same result when trying to contact her 
cell phone. I left voice mail messages on Paul's office and cell phones. After 
a very long 10 minutes he got back to me - my sister had called after making 
her way down to the 13th floor of the burning tower to say that she was OK and 
was waiting for her turn to leave the building through the logjam of people who 
were in the process of exiting, and would contact him again as soon as she 
could. He wanted to keep his lines clear so Barbara could get in touch him.


Breathing a sigh of relief, I went back to watching the events on TV, and to 
get some reassurance that those in the Towers could be safely evacuated. I 
spoke with Meryle again to say that I heard from Paul, and that he heard from 
Barbara after the first plane hit. It was during this conversation that the 
live feed from a Newschannel 4 helicopter showed the complete collapse of one 
of WTC towers, engulfing the entire downtown area in a heavy cloud of smoke and 
debris. Having walked in and through WTC financial area complex many times 
during lunch and rush hour, I realized that there must have been a large mass 
of humanity on the ground trying to escape who were in grave danger. I tried to 
call Barbara again on her cell - still no response. At that point I began 
trembling and crying, as I feared that Barbara might be among those poor 
innocent people who perished in this calamity. The only thing I could do was to 
leave a 2nd set of voice mail messages for Paul to get back to me ASAP. I also 
began to worry that Paul, also downtown at the time, and Meryle and David, who 
worked midtown, might possibly be effected by some harmful ash or chemicals.


Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I heard from Paul again, and that 
Barbara was with him, safe and sound. They were in the process of walking to 
Grand Central Station to hopefully catch a train home. Hearing that they were 
out of danger was my happiest experience in recent if not all-time memory. 

Best Regards and wishing everyone a safe L'shana Tova,

Steven Lowenthal