Thunder Dog Read Free

our massive tape backup system; it was about 6 feet tall and weighed over 1,300 pounds. Through a door to the left was my office, also used for product demonstration, file storage, and housing our computer server. To the right was a conference room with an eleven-foot table, and further right was an office where the sales reps had desks.
    Just five seconds after we arrived, so did the breakfast deliveryman. I helped him unpack and organize the hot plates, pastries, bagels, coffee, and ham and cheese croissants in the conference room. He left quickly, on to his next delivery.
    A few minutes later, David Frank, a Quantum colleague, arrived, along with six people from Ingram Micro, a company we did business with. He had helped organize the day’s seminars and would be attending the meeting. David was a tall, quiet, thoughtful man from our California headquarters.
    Roselle and I welcomed them all, then I went back to work setting up the conference room and testing out the presentation on my laptop. Roselle snuggled into her favorite spot under my desk. This was her usual office hangout when not performing her self-assigned duty as greeter.
    A little after eight, one of the Ingram people left to return to the lobby to meet and direct others as they arrived. This left five guests in the conference room. David and I worked in my office on a spreadsheet list of attendees, making a few additions and corrections as we confirmed names. We were preparing to print out a final list on Quantum stationery to fax downstairs to the WTC security people when I realized I was out of stationery.
    I carefully slid my feet out from under Roselle’s sleepy head. Then, just as I stand up and turn to the supply cabinet to get some more letterhead, I hear a tremendous boom! It is 8:46 a.m. The building shudders violently, then starts to groan and slowly tip to the southwest. In slow motion, the tower leans over something like twenty feet.
    I grew up in earthquake country near the San Andreas Fault in Southern California, so my first instinct is to go and stand in the doorway, but I know this is no earthquake. Roselle stays put under my desk while David clutches it for support. Ceiling tiles fall to the floor. We are both confused. “What could that have been?” David and I ask.
    Was it an explosion? Something hitting the building? What could make it tilt that way ?
    Could it be an attack? No, it doesn’t make sense to put a bomb that high up. It must be some kind of a gas explosion .
    As we talk, the building continues tilting. Disaster seems imminent. Another few seconds and I fear the building will fall over and we will plummet to the street. God, don’t let this building tip over , I pray silently.
    Tearfully, David and I say good-bye. I’m pretty sure I’m going to die.
    Then slowly, miraculously, the tilting stops and the building begins to right itself. The whole episode lasts about a minute. Just then, Roselle decides to wake up from her nap. She emerges from under my desk and quietly looks around. I can’t even imagine what she is thinking, but I emerge from the doorway and grab her leash to make sure we won’t be separated. I have no idea what just happened, but I’m grateful to be alive.
    David looks out the window behind my desk and shouts, “Oh, my God!” The windows above us have blown out, and there is smoke and fire and millions of pieces of burning paper falling through the air. I hear debris brushing past the windows.

    What we didn’t know until much later is that American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 leaving Boston for Los Angeles, had been hijacked. Five men affiliated with Al-Qaeda, a Muslim terrorist organization spearheaded by Osama bin Laden, had broken into the cockpit and taken over the plane. The hijacker-pilot, a thirty-three-year-old Egyptian man named Mohammed Atta, flew the commercial jet into our building at the speed of 500 miles an hour, cutting through floors 93 to 99. Loaded with ninety-two people and