So, I guess my two personal stories.
About 2 years ago I was having beers with this guy who worked at Morgan Stanley in Dallas. We were bullshitting about companies flying us all over the country for training ans wasting money on the trips... which took a turn for the worse.
He had been flown to Morgan Stanley's headquarters for training in two world trade center in September 2001. He was waiting in one of the skylounges with 5 other trainees on 9/11 on the 70th floor when 1WTC was struck. The security guard for Morgan Stanley got every one of their employees together on the skydeck and told them they were evacuating down the stairs. Building management was on the intercom telling everyone it was an accident and to remain calm where they were in building 2. Their security guard told them to ignore it and keep going and to only look at the person in front of you's head.
When the second plane hit their tower all he could hear was explosions and smell jetfuel. Then they heard an elevator next to the stairwell falling and they could hear the people on the elevator screaming as the plane had severed the cables when it crashed into the building. He had to carry a woman who had not followed directions and looked to her left, there was part of the planes landing gear an a severed torso sitting in a gaping hole next tothe stairwell.
They all got out, the security guard told them all to get to safety and then he went back in the building with the other Morgan Stanley security personnel to help evacuate others. He was seen on the 20th floor heading up by other people evacuating but died when the building collapsed. Because of him, only 6 of Morgan Stanleys 2700 people who worked in 2WTC died that day, which is amazing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla#Actions_on_9.2F11
I googled the story to make sure it wasn't BS after I got home from the bar that night, and the guys name was Rick Rescorla. The guy was a bad ass and a hero who saved a lot of peoples lives that day.
The guy I met still can't fly on planes because the smell of jet fuel makes him ill. For 3-4 days he couldn't get a call to connect to his wife back in Dallas, but could call the Morgan Stanley office in Dallas.. so one of my current coworkers (how I met the guy) had to route calls between him and his wife using their phone system as it was the only way he could contact home at the time.
Talk about one debbie downer of an evening at the bar, but I wouldn't have otherwise have heard of the security guards story, and I'm glad I did because it's people like him who give you faith in humanity and think that we might be alright even though we have assholes who would kill innocent people. A glimmer of hope in a shitty situation.
My other story is much shorter:
About a month ago I was in NJ interviewing for a job in finance. Halfway through the interview the guy mentioned they used to work in lower manhattan but moved the office about 10 years earlier.
Me being a dumb ass asked him why they moved from Manhattan.
He looked at me and just said "because the world trade center fell on top of our building."
I felt like a complete ass
