We had to enter a staircase that had, at this point because of the initial 
shh-you know, the initial hit, the shock of this with essentially an 
earthquake, ah, or the, you know has the effects of an earthquake, a lot of 
the water mains had broken, and this staircase had a rush of water that was 
unbelievable. And we literally had to-he didn't want the group to go together 
because building debris was coming down with it.  I mean it was a very-it was 
a very violent-you saw the images of the flood yesterday, it was-the mudslide. 
It's very similar.  Just a very violent kind of, um, yeah, it's gravity just 
taking it down potentially 110 stories. And so he wanted people to go one at a 
time so that if somebody in the back slipped, they didn't take everybody else 
with them. And so, cause it literally kind of went to,  the-it-he was at one 
entrance and then at the other-the, ah, the next, you went down one, I don't 
know if you call that a flight, but you know when you go down a flight, you go 
to a landing, you go to another one?  At the other end was a firefighter who 
then guided you into locker space. Which-so this was a nontraditional way to 
exit the building. It was not an emergency route. It was quite honestly, 
absent a World Trade Center employee, it-no one would have known, with that 
speed, of how to get people out. And so we just decided that, you know, that 
we would go, we were going to go together.  And so they wanted-he also wanted 
people to put things over their mouths because the, it felt like smoke. It 
wasn't really smoke, it was pulverized concrete, but trust me, it has the same 
kind of debilitating effects. And I just, to Kayla, "We'll take care of our 
lungs later. Let's just, you know, hold on to the railing. Hold on to me. 
We're-we're getting you down."  And so we did that. And it was not easy. So 
you know you figure you go from moving many, many people through a stairwell, 
to now you're moving them one at a time. Um, and if I'm correct, if this man 
knew what had happened, he-he, you know, even one more person getting through 
was one more person that could potentially get out. And so we did. We made it 
down this-this stairwell. It was not easy. And, you know, and-and put yourself 
in this frame-frame of mind that all you want to do is get out. And yet 
you-you know, you can't move fast.  Um, one...one thing I had-I hadn't 
mentioned, and I should, ah, September 11th is my father's birthday. And my 
father died in 1984. And my-it was important to me because there are times, 
many times, throughout that morning, I'm like, "Look, my dad's taking care of 
me." And I kept teasing Charlie.  I'm like, "And because you're with me you're 
getting the benefit of that. But my dad's taking care of us." And between him 
and my son, I was going to get out of there.  

	Yeah. At this point it-the-there was very little light. There was no light 
in the stairwell. The light that came-came from, or if it was, it-t
he-the-there just wasn't a lot and then the smoke, which wasn't really smoke, 
but felt like smoke, um, it was difficult to see. It was difficult to breathe.  
And just the rush of water, it was-it was-it was hard. I will say, up until 
that point it wasn't-it wasn't bad.  It really honestly wasn't bad. From that 
point on, I will honestly say it wasn't fun. Yeah, it wasn't.  But we-the, 
when we did finally get down to this landing, the firefighter said, "Just go 
this way." And we're in a space that, we're in water that's well up to our 
calf and is rising.  You could see, there was one emergency light, that 
battery operated light, that was still working, but everything was still very 
clouded, very, you could see wires hanging. I don't know if they're live. So 
I'm saying, "Just watch the wires." And Charlie's argue-he's like "I don't 
think they're live." I'm like, "Well do me a favor, just watch them, just 
don't touch them, ok?  Let's not find out!" So we, um, but as we walked 
further, as I said, there were lockers on my right, and-but as we walked 
further, we got to a point where the-the light from that one emergency light 
didn't do anything.  It-it was pitch black. And you're literally just feeling 
your way a-al-along.

[Interviewer(Craig)]	What floor are you on now?

	I believe three. I believe three, and we, um, we didn't even know we were 
at the end until all of a sudden a guy says, "Alright, I'm going to open the 
door and just keep going."  So we had no idea where we were at this point.  

[Interviewer(Mark)]		This guy was guiding you?

	No. He wasn't guiding. No, this was-they had people stationed. They had 
one at the top of the stairwell that we had to enter, one at the end of it to 
say, don't keep going, and like go this way, and then one that was positioned 
at-at a door at the end of this locker space. And so, you know, we went from 
pitch darkness to light, only it wasn't, it was one of the weirdest sensations 
I've had in my life because it was bright but you couldn't see. And it was-and 
we stopped holding on to one another and at this point the ground was-was dust 
but it was almost-had this, unearthly quality to it. And when I looked up and 
I-Charlie was there but he was just, he was a figure; he had lost like 
his-almost his human shape because of the-the blinding, um, pulverized 
concrete. And I will be very honest with you. At that moment, I actually 
thought, you know, you hear people that that have the near death experiences 
that talk about darkness with light that I said to myself, "Oh we didn't make 
it."  But what was amazing, and-and I will tell you this is something that I 
have told friends of mine who lost people there, for the first time that 
morning I had a wonderful sensation of peace. And I thought, "Oh, ok, it 
wasn't-it wasn't bad when I thought we didn't make it. And, you know, as 
I've-I've said to other people that-that lost someone, that, you know, if they 
had that peace like I had, then God bless them. You know, because when my 
eye-when I realized where I was, it wasn't pretty and it wasn't not, you know, 
then I realized, yeah, we did make it. I just don't know where the heck we are 
and I don't know how we're get-going to get out. And I looked down on 
the-the-the ground and I realized there were no footprints around where we 
were and I said "Charlie this is not the way out. There's, you know, nobody 
went out this way. I don't know where we're going but this is not the way 
out." And we started yelling and when we turned back to go from where we came 
they had let another group of people out. There were, what they were trying to 
do, and I'm surmising this, but I think they were trying to meter leaving the 
door open so as to try to limit how much smoke filled the space. So they would 
gather some people, open the door and let them out.