‘I will never forget’: September 11 survivor reveals the feeling that takes her straight back to the World Trade Centre attack
For Kathy Comerford, September 11, 2001 is far from a distant memory.
It is a day she can still see, hear and feel with startling clarity, 25 years after she narrowly escaped one of the world’s most devastating terrorist attacks.
On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four passenger planes as part of a coordinated attack on the United States.
Two of the aircraft were flown into the World Trade Centre’s Twin Towers in New York, while a third crashed into the Pentagon in Virginia.
The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, came down in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers.
The attacks killed almost 3000 people and sent shockwaves around the world, with both World Trade Centre towers collapsing that morning and the Pentagon being severely damaged.
‘No matter what had happened, we were trained to get out’
Comerford was on the 70th floor of the World Trade Centre’s South Tower when the first plane struck the North Tower, before a second hijacked aircraft slammed into the building she was in.
She had been in a staff meeting when the first impact happened.
“It was all windows, and when the plane hit the North Tower, I was in the South Tower; we thought it was an explosion,” she told Sunrise on Friday.
“We were trained very well to get out of the building, so as soon as we saw the fireballs and all of the debris come flying, no matter what had happened, we were trained to get out.”
Along with her colleagues, Comerford fled into the stairwell and was on the 44th floor when the second plane hit.
“The plane hit us … and it basically bent the building in half, and the floor was rolling and everything was exploding, the chandeliers, the planters, and all the jet fuel went right down the elevator shafts … they were like fireballs,” she said.
‘A feeling I will never forget’
The impact threw Comerford from her shoes and into a marble wall before emergency lighting came on and the building started to “miraculously” right itself.
But it was the movement beneath her in these moments that would stay with her in the 25 years since that fateful day.
“The way to describe the feeling was if you were standing up on a roller coaster as it was going up and down all of the bends and the curves, because that’s what the floor was doing,” she said.
“It was rolling and buckling.”
** FOR USE AS DESIRED, PHOTOS OF THE DECADE ** FILE – In this Sept. 11, 2001 file photo, a jet airliner nears one of the World Trade Center towers in New York. (AP Photo/Carmen Taylor, File)
Two and a half decades later, Comerford said she can still see and feel “every minute”.
“It really gets to me if I’m on a dance floor at a wedding, or if I’m somewhere and people are jumping up and down and it’s [the floor] bouncing, like at a concert or something, it immediately gives a response.”
“I immediately tighten up, because it just sort of transports you back to that moment of that feeling.”
“That’s a feeling I will never, never forget.”
‘I wish more people could remember’
Comerford eventually made it home to her three young children, who are now adults, but 25 years have done little to dull the memories of that day.
“It’s a double-edged sword. It’s something I’ll never forget. I am so thankful every day to still be here,” she said.
“To my family, it’s still fresh.
“But when you travel further away from New York, it’s like people don’t remember anymore.
“And it’s sort of like a distant memory until the week before 9/11 and the specials come back on and things.”
But for Comerford, remembering September 11 means remembering the people who never made it home and the firefighters she watched run towards the burning towers as she fled to safety.
“Those firemen, as I was coming down, they were running up for the people that went to work that day and just were at their desk.”
The experience changed Comerford forever, shaping the way she approaches life to this day.
“I don’t forget to tell people how much I love them, how much they mean to me,” she said. As the world marks 25 years since the attacks, Comerford says she remains grateful simply to be here.
In New York, 2977 lights filled the night sky this week in a drone display recreating the Twin Towers, one light for every person killed in the attacks.
The attacks marked a defining moment in modern history, triggering the US-led “War on Terror” and reshaped global security and foreign policy for decades to come.
They also permanently changed the way the world travels, ushering in a new era of airport security and restrictions that have become part of everyday life.