Among the thousands of heart-wrenching accounts, here are a few.
‘I can’t get it out of my mind’
Helen Shannon, the wife of former Princeton Borough Administrator Tom Shannon who lives on Wilkinson Way in Princeton Township, was a witness to Tuesday’s calamity at the World Trade Center.
While at work in the federal building on Broadway, six blocks from the twin towers, Ms. Shannon said out of nowhere "someone started screaming. We looked and were watching as the first plane hit the tower.
"My first instinct was to call home," she said, but she instead ran down to the floor below hers to be with co-workers. "I pulled my boss out of his office and said, ‘Come look at this.’
"As we were standing there, the plane went into the second tower. Initially, we all thought the first plane was just one with a problem but after the second, we knew something was terribly wrong. We thought this building would be the next to go, because we get threats all the time.
"We all went for the stairs. Once we got out of the building, we started walking toward Penn Station. We got as far as Union Square Park, I think it’s called, before we turned around and that’s when I saw the first of the two towers collapse.
"The top of the thing with the antenna was on the ground. It was horrifying. I can’t get it out of my mind. Whenever I go to sleep, I see the plane going into the building. I wasn’t even one who was really there, but I feel horrible."
Ms. Shannon expressed anxiety about going back into the city.
"I don’t feel particularly safe or want to go back, but it is my job so I probably will," she said.
"I can’t even fathom seeing where the World Trade Center once existed. It is going to be horrible."
Gwen Runkle
Dead father ‘where he wanted to be’
WEST WINDSOR The terrorist attack at the World Trade Center has deeply affected one township family.
Bill Feehan of Clarksville Road was left without a father and his three children without a grandfather after William Feehan, 71, the first deputy fire commissioner of New York City, was killed during the collapse of the south tower of the World Trade Center.
"My father was the second-highest-ranking official in the fire department. At the time of his death, he was in charge of the ground command center. He was directing all the firefighting and rescue operations when he got caught in the collapse of the first tower," Mr. Feehan said.
"My grandfather was a fireman and my brother is also a fireman, so we have a strong tradition in my family. My father was really past the time when he could have retired, but he was exactly where he wanted to be when he died. He was doing what he wanted to do. It was the essence of who he was to be there."
Mr. Feehan’s fireman brother, John, was also at the World Trade Center, but survived, he said.
William Feehan served the New York City Fire Department for 41 years. He lived in Flushing, Queens.
"We’re terribly grieving about losing him, but I was at the site (of the World Trade Center) yesterday and you can’t help feel for all the firefighters who lost fathers, brothers or sons and think of all the workers and people who were on the flights. We are one of many families dealing with all this," Mr. Feehan said.
In addition to his son, Bill, William Feehan is survived by his son, John, of College Point, Queens; daughters Elizabeth Feehan of Brooklyn and Tara Davan of Belle Harbor, Queens; and six grandchildren, including Siobhan, a freshman at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South; Kelsey, an eighth-grader at Thomas R. Grover Middle School; and William, in kindergarten at Maurice Hawk School.
William Feehan’s wife, Betty, died five years ago, Bill Feehan said.
Gwen Runkle
‘Screaming and crying everywhere’
WEST WINDSOR Township resident Jeff Cohen was working 50 to 80 feet away from the north tower of the World Trade Center when the hijacked jet crashed into it Tuesday.
On Wednesday, in accordance with the prediction of his wife, Cassandra, he was home safe and sound.
"The whole experience there was absolutely horrific, with people screaming and crying everywhere," he said.
Mr. Cohen, an attorney for the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, worked at 6 World Trade Center, also known as the Customs House, an eight-story building next to 1 World Trade Center, one of the two 110-story towers.
At the Princeton Junction train station Tuesday morning, just hours after the terrorist attacks, his wife was just home from Manhattan herself.
"My husband was in the basement of the World Trade Center when the last bomb went off there in 1993. He continues to work there and I think that he feels safe working there," she said at the time.
Earlier Tuesday, Ms. Cohen had received a phone message from her husband but did not know the severity of the accident until talking to the media.
"He probably got there after this happened," she said. "I’m sure he got out."
Mr. Cohen spoke Wednesday with The Packet.
"When the first plane crashed, we got a report that a small, twin-engine plane had crashed into the World Trade Center," he said. "I sent some e-mails to Washington and made a few phone calls to people, and really didn’t think that much about it.
"Then I felt the second crash. Everything shook and things fell off of people’s desks. Then we started to smell smoke, and I thought it was time to get out of there. When I got outside, the whole tops of the buildings were on fire and there were literally pieces of burning metal falling from the sky. I hugged the side of the tower, ran to Church Street, and then walked all the way up to Penn Station."
Mr. Cohen said he was the last person from his office to leave the building and that everyone was accounted for from the ATF. He said 6 World Trade Center is destroyed and offices will have to be relocated, as will the other federal offices next door at 7 World Trade Center, which housed offices of the Secret Service. He said he will be working out of a Philadelphia office.
For her part, Ms. Cohen said Wednesday that she was still shocked and breaking out in bouts of crying.
"I woke up this morning hoping this was all a bad dream," she said. "It’s unfathomable that this could have happened."
George Frey
‘People’s mouths were hanging open’
PLAINSBORO Lillie Reid, a township resident who works for the state office of New Jersey Protection and Advocacy in Trenton, was at Newark International Airport on Tuesday morning.
"I looked to the window of the terminal and saw a large puff of black smoke and fire from the second tower. I just stood there and could see it burning. Some people were leaning on the wall for support and others were sliding down crying.
"Many people were trying to call on their cellphones and many people were standing in line (at pay phones)."
"We didn’t know exactly what was happening. We didn’t know about the Pentagon or that one of the planes was from Newark. All we could see were the towers. It was a weird, odd feeling. We had no control.
"When we were watching the towers, people’s mouths were hanging open. It felt like it was unreal. You couldn’t wrap your brain around what was happening. There wasn’t a lot of talking. Everybody was just thinking."
She said she did not see the towers collapse because the airport was quickly evacuated.
"I was sitting down and officials at the airport came through yelling, ‘Everybody out, everybody out.’ I wasn’t afraid it was more unnerving, because we were not sure what was happening," she said.
"When the building was evacuated, the first thing that I thought of was that there was a bomb somewhere, but thank God they were just taking precautions."
After waiting outside the terminal for several hours, watching police in full gear and the bomb squad patrol the perimeter of the building, buses and taxis eventually took people from the airport.
Ms. Reid said she arrived at the Newark train station after 4 p.m. and from there said she was able to catch a train to Princeton Junction.
"I got home around 5 p.m.," she said. "All day I had on my mind, ‘Let me get home.’ "
From the train station, she said, she took a taxi to her home in Plainsboro, where she was enthusiastically greeted by her husband and 19-year-old son.
"When my husband and son told me how their lives would be so different if something were to have happened to me, that’s when I cried the most. Going through something like this lets you know how much you are loved," she said.
Gwen Runkle

