Former Member of Parliament Francesco Sorbara stands in front of his Woodbridge home clutching a black backpack covered in soot.
The grey dust that still clings to the material conjures conflicting emotions. On one hand, it reminds him how lucky he was. One the other, it’s a symbol of the cruel fate inflicted on thousands.
The soot is from the carcinogenic storm cloud that covered everything in its path when the World Trade Center’s south tower collapsed after it was struck by a plane commandeered by terrorists on September 11, 2001.
Sorbara, who was living in New York City at the time while working for JPMorgan Chase, stood in horror and watched as it toppled before his eyes. Then he ran for his life.
Twenty-five years later, he’s still shaken by the memories.
“It’s something I’ll never forget,” he said of that ill-fated day. “I don’t think about it all the time of course, but at the same time … it left its mark on many of us in different ways.”
Sorbara says September 11, 2001 started as a “beautiful sunny September day where you wanted to be outside.”
He rode the subway towards the World Trade Center for a training session at a building that was directly across the street from the iconic twin towers.
By the time he emerged from the subway system, both towers had been struck by planes.
“When I exited the subway … there seemed to be a lot of confusion … you could see there was some panic, I remember that.”
“I was watching the firefighters walk down toward the twin towers and all of a sudden, it seemed like maybe after five minutes of standing there … the first (south) tower collapses. I thought we were done, there was no way we would survive that.”
He ran as clouds of debris and soot swept over the area.
“It became dark, very, very dark,” he remembered. “I just threw myself near a big cement flower pot and the screams I heard I still remember from people that were near me, because we all had the same inclination that there was no way we are going to make it.”
Eventually he ran into a burger joint that was offering water “to clear your throat because it was all full of soot.”
He then walked to a nearby church on the lower east side that offered a hose to wash off with, and a change of clothes.
Bewildered by the jarring experience, he started walking back to his apartment on the upper east side — a trek through the frantic and eerie streets of New York City that took him around two hours.
At the time, the full scope of what transpired wasn’t clear. But now, 25 years later, he realizes the magnitude.
“It changed history,” he said of the infamous attacks orchestrated by Osama bin Laden.
“The sounds of the screams when the tower collapsed … I will never forget that.”
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