Page 14 - MidWeek - Sep 1 2021

14 MIDWEEK SEPTEMBER 1, 2021
On the anniversary of the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center, Hawai‘i resident Paul “Pablo” Sanchez reflects on that fateful morning when he
and his co-workers escaped death.
T he morning of Sept. 11, 2001, seemed like any other day for Paul “Pablo” Sanchez. He had just grabbed an egg
and my orange juice.”
Sanchez sprinted down the
sandwich and some orange juice for breakfast when he hopped aboard an elevator bound for the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center’s Tower 2 — an ascent that normally took him about 10 minutes to complete.
stairs to the 78th floor express ele-
vator, where he met up with two of his co-workers, Peter Webster and Diane Murray. Together, the trio quickly descend- ed the stairs, as the corridors grew suffocat- ingly crowded with occupants who were just as desperate to get out of the building.
A relatively new recruit for the insurance company Aon Corp., Sanchez arrived eager to get back to his normal duties after he and his cubicle mates had been stuck in an insur- ance class the day before.
“We found the next staircase on the 44th floor and we started going down that one, and now the stairs are crowded with lots of peo- ple, debris, clothes, coffee cups. It’s seeming a little bit more serious now (as) people are crying,” explains Sanchez, who estimated there were roughly 600 workers on the 92nd floor alone.
Less than 24 hours later, they were all back in the office making a fuss about how boring the previous day’s session had been.
And then it happened. In an instant, theirs and everyone else’s world changed.
“Finally, we made it down to maybe the 42nd or 40th floor, and all of a sudden I feel the building shake, like I felt it rumble. None of us really know what it is,” he recalls, “but it turns out, that’s when we were hit by the (second) airplane.”
As Sanchez recalls, “We’re all there talking and complaining and commiserat- ing, and all of a sudden the sky turns black, like it ... rained so hard. Then the next few seconds, the entire sky seemed to be night, and I guess that’s when the plane hit the other building, because you could feel the radiant heat from whatever exploded ... I didn’t see (the first tower) get hit, but I did see the sky change colors ... It was quite intense, and so I immediately ran for the stairs. I didn’t go to the elevators.”
3,000 people and injuries to thousands more. In thinking back on the events of that morning, Sanchez explains that after he and his co-workers were finally able to reach the World Trade Center lobby, emergency per- sonnel were already on hand barking orders
lives in Brooklyn, and I said, ‘Please call my entire family and let them know that I’m out now.’ My cellphone didn’t seem to work after that at all,” he recalls.
As for his breakfast: “I left my sandwich
building is I picked up my cellphone and it actually worked. I called my best friend who
SEE PAGE 19
Twenty years after the deadliest attack on U.S. soil, Sanchez, a resident of the Big Is- land, still can’t shake the memories of that fateful day when two commercial airplanes hijacked by terrorists flew into the center’s twin towers in New York City.
for everyone to get out of the area.
They also shouted at people to not use their cellphones, but Sanchez chose to disregard
Since Murray had damaged her cumber- some high heels while descending the Tower 2 stairs, the trio decided to stop in at a store to grab her flat shoes.
The catastrophe caused the structures to collapse and resulted in the deaths of nearly
the advice.
“The first thing I did when I got out of the
Soon after, as the co-workers walked to the Manhattan courthouse, they felt a rumbling sensation ripping through the neighborhood as debris began raining down everywhere.