‘It felt like an earthquake.’
By: Jennifer Potash
Rich Giarrusso of Greenview Avenue arrived at the World Trade Center at 8 a.m. on Sept. 11.
After having worked for Merrill Lynch in Plainsboro for several years, the 26-year-old had lined up a job interview at Euro Brokers on the 84th floor of the south tower.
A manager of the firm was showing Mr. Giarrusso around the office when a jetliner slammed into the neighboring north tower at 8:48 a.m.
"I looked out the window and saw all this paper floating in the air and a huge cloud of dust," he said.
Initially, Mr. Giarrusso and Euro Brokers staff thought it was an accident perhaps a helicopter struck the tower and turned the television to CNN, which aired pictures of a large gaping hole in the north tower. The office staff emptied into the hallway and began descending the stairs. Soon the stairwell became very crowded, he said, but most of the people were calm.
When the group reached the 70th floor, Mr. Giarrusso heard an announcement over the public-address system that the south tower was not affected and employees should return to work.
The Euro Brokers employees decided to return to their office and were about to go up the stairs when, shortly after 9 a.m., the south tower was rocked by the impact of another jet.
"It felt like an earthquake," Mr. Giarrusso said.
He and the other employees began to descend the stairs once again a decision that saved their lives.
"Later, I heard there was damage down to the 82nd floor," he said.
A huge crack, about 3 inches wide and three stories in depth, opened up on one of the stairwell walls, he recalled.
Mr. Giarrusso said he considers himself in good physical shape and was able to move quickly down the stairs while the temperature climbed to what he felt was about 90 degrees. But people who were less fit struggled to keep up and bottlenecks occurred, he said.
"Some people panicked and kept yelling for them to hurry up," he said. "But generally people did a good job about keeping everyone calm."
The most frightening aspect of being in the stairwell was a worry that the fire door to each floor might blow out as he passed the landing, Mr. Giarrusso said.
"I turned the corner a little extra faster," he said.
It took about 25 minutes to get to the lobby, where escalators led down to the street level, he said.
"I estimated that was 15 minutes before the building collapsed," he said.
Upon reaching the lobby, Mr. Giarrusso saw the glass doors and windows had been shattered or spider-webbed.
Firefighters carrying badly burned victims pushed past the escaping employees, he said.
Firefighters and police officers yelled for the workers to run toward Broadway, he said. Broadway is one block east of the World Trade Center.
As he ran toward Broadway, a few minutes later, Mr. Giarrusso said he felt a huge blast "like a bomb and it knocked me off my feet."
The impact, at 9:59 a.m., was the collapse of the south tower, the first of the two towers to fall.
He looked back to see a number of people running toward him who were attempting to escape the voluminous dust cloud created by the destruction of the building.
Mr. Giarrusso worked his way up to 34th Street and Park Avenue, where police officers told him all the mass transit routes were shut down and the only way to get to New Jersey was the ferry .
A few blocks later, Mr. Giarrusso called his parents in Syracuse, N.Y. to say he was OK, but he could only reach their answering machine. His parents had gone to church to light candles, after Mr. Giarrusso’s girlfriend called to tell them he was at the World Trade Center.
He approached the Hudson River waterfront but had to sit down for a moment.
"I was so drained with everything that had happened," he said.
After making his way down to the waterfront area, Mr. Giarrusso saw an enormous line for the ferry. It took about two hours for him to get on the vessel. Because Hoboken was evacuated, the ferry was rerouted to Harborside in Jersey City, where Mr. Giarrusso took a bus to the Newark train station.
He arrived back at the Princeton Junction train station by 6 p.m., where people were waiting with posters and pictures of unaccounted loved ones.
"It really has affected so many people and my heart goes out to people affected by this," he said. "It made me think about how if I had got out a few minutes later, I might not have made it out at all."
But the harrowing experience will not stop Mr. Giarrusso from taking a job in New York City.
During a visit to Syracuse for a friend’s wedding last weekend, Mr. Giarrusso said many guests who knew he survived were reluctant to talk to him.
"It was like, ‘What do you say to this person?’ " he said.
His parents and close friends have been very supportive.
Mr. Giarrusso said he has experienced many emotions in the days following the tragedy.
"I am feeling a bit guilty (about surviving)," he said.

