Dazed commuters share personal horror stories Some injured in Twin Towers attack ferried to county for medical care

Dazed commuters share personal horror stories
Some injured in Twin Towers attack ferried to county for medical care

By darlene diebold & alison Granito

Staff Writers

The mood along Leonardo Beach in Middletown was one of shock and horror at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

The tiny beach is situated between Earle Naval Weapon Station pier and Atlantic Highlands and offers views of lower Manhattan and the Verrazano Bridge.

On this Tuesday morning, people were standing around looking at a lower Manhattan they had never seen before, one where Wall Street was burning.

"This is worse than Pearl Harbor," commented an elderly gentleman who did not want to be identified.

That was the sentiment all day long from people getting off buses at the Atlantic Highlands Senior Citizens Center in the borough’s harbor area.

According to people exiting the buses, they managed to catch any commuter ferry they could out of the South Street Seaport in lower Manhattan. They didn’t care whether they lived in the Monmouth County area or not. They just wanted to escape.

The ferries carried the terrified commuters to Highlands just east of Atlantic Highlands where they were split up according to their needs.

"Those with minor injuries are being transported to area hospitals and those who were not injured are being shuttled to the Atlantic Highlands harbor," explained Adam Hubeny, a Monmouth County emergency services worker who was coordinating the effort to care for injured people being transported by ferry from Manhattan.

Everyone’s name was dutifully recorded into a computer, so the information could be passed on to loved ones. Some of the people getting off the buses could not speak English and carried pieces of paper with their names written on them.

Many could be seen walking around the harbor in a dazed state, covered with a chalky film. Those covered with heavy residue disappeared into a tent station set up by the Monmouth County HazMat team to be decontaminated.

"We’re just taking precautions. A lot of people inhaled a lot of soot and breathed in a lot of things," said one member of the Atlantic Highlands First Aid Squad, who did not wish to be identified, commenting on the need for decontamination. Emergency services from around the county could be seen at the harbor, with units from as far away as Spring Lake, Aberdeen, Manalapan, Marlboro, Fair Haven and Middletown.

A lot of people exiting the buses were wearing masks.

"There was so much soot on Wall Street that it looked like midnight. Some people looked like they were covered in chalk. Ash and soot were covering people, cars and the city streets. It was everywhere," said Learnadd Clark, Mount Laurel, who sat slumped against a brick wall, his blue suit completely covered in soot, trying to recover from the shock of the entire day. He needed to be decontaminated.

"I took the first ferry that I could get on. I didn’t know where it was landing. I just wanted to get out of Manhattan," said Clark, who works at Broadway Trading, on the corner of Wall Street and Broadway.

Clark was on his way to his office in a taxi when the first of two terrorist planes hit the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center shortly before 9 a.m.

"I asked the driver why the plane was flying so low. As soon as I said that, there was the loudest sound that I ever heard. We saw the crash, and the driver went into a panic and started driving on the sidewalk. The whole city was like bedlam," he said.

Clark had no idea how he was going to get home, but he didn’t care. He was just happy to be safely out of lower Manhattan, a sentiment shared by many people who were walking around dazed and confused.

Co-workers Mark Daniels and David Pe were at work in the Goldman Sachs office on Broadway, only a few blocks from the World Trade Center, when the first plane hit; they made their way out of the building into the streets of lower Manhattan.

"After the first building collapsed, it was just mass confusion. People running everywhere — fire, explosions," added Pe, before trailing off into silence.

"When we saw the first plane hit from the office window, you just knew," said Daniels.

"The ferry was virtually the only way out of the city, so we just got on," said Daniels, who was en route to his home in Metuchen. Pe was bound for Princeton Junction.

According to harbor security and emergency management service workers on the scene in Atlantic Highlands, buses filled with commuters were expected to keep arriving throughout the day as more people fled Manhattan.

"This morning as I was walking out the front door, the first plane hit. I was right next door to the towers when the second plane hit. I almost died; I was covered in shrapnel," explained an obviously thankful Edward San Luis, who has an apartment in Battery Park City as well as a home in Wall and was shaking as he related his experience.

"I went down into the subway for safety, and they were laying bodies of people who were hit by debris there. This is like a bad movie. This is a day that will forever change how people live in America."

San Luis, who is president of Janus Group Inc., Maiden Lane and Broadway, said that he saw people running across the Brooklyn Bridge "just to get away."

As commuters arrived on the ferries, loved ones could be seen wandering the harbor area, some in tears, frantically waiting, hoping and looking for relatives they had not been able to reach.

"It’s amazing seeing so many strangers coming down here," said an upset Denise Syers, who works in Red Bank and was waiting for a cousin who works in one of the Twin Towers to arrive on one of the ferries. "I was so happy to hear his voice," she said.

Syers, who works for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in Red Bank, said that she is very nervous about her coworkers in the World Trade Center.

"We haven’t heard anything, and I am praying that they are all right," she said.

"People [passengers] looked frantic when the first ferry shuttle arrived. They were all wearing masks on their faces," said a nervous Jennifer Langana of Highlands. Langana was anxiously waiting for her father to get off a ferry. "They should have known that this was going to happen. We should have been warned. This is just terrible."