The BOOM of the impact must have been deafening. Yim, my cousin's wife, ran out of the World Trade Center lobby and into the courtyard. The shock waves shook the entire building and debris fell to the earth.

She looked up and glass fell into her face. Several shards cut her cornea. She covered her face and ran from the building.

Startled by the sound, my friend Amanda looked out her office window. Her coworkers crowded to see what had happened. They could see black smoke pouring from a gash in one of the towers.

Someone gasped. Alongside the debris that was falling, were bodies. Live people. Amanda looked up and saw tiny figures climb out the windows and leap to their deaths. She watched them fall to hundreds of feet to the pavement below.

Down the street, my friend Laura climbed out of the subway station. The subway riders all felt the tremor but didn't know what had happened. As she emerged from the underground, she saw the smoking wound.

Believing that it was just a single accident, she and dozens of office workers filed into the other tower, ready for a day's work.

After arriving to her office, she received an announcement to evacuate. She walked out the door and saw a few hardy souls refusing to leave. They returned to their offices as she left the building.

As soon as she was clear of the buildings, she looked back up again. Both Amanda and Laura watched on, silent, as the second plane struck.

More debris and bodies fell. Amanda probably turned away at this point. Laura and hundreds of other people were fleeing the site, making their way uptown or over the Brooklyn bridge.

Some people lingered to watch. My cousin Kenny was among them. He stood at the police barricades, gazing numb up at the disaster.

A former coworker of mine, Jason, pointed his camera at the World Trade Center from his office blocks away and tried to capture as much of the incident as he could. He couldn't hear the first building begin to crumble, but he could see the antenna wobble back and forth.

Kenny could see it too. And he could hear it. Then it happened. The thunderous BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM of each floor collapsing.

The crowd turned around and scrambled down the street. The first tower of the World Trade Center was falling. Pursuing the crowd was a black cloud of dust. Down the blocks of Lower Manhattan they blindly ran. Some didn't stop until passing Houston.

Others slowed down and gaped in disbelief. Where one of the World Trade Centers once stood was now open sky.

My family and friends were all cleared out of the vicinity soon after the second World Trade Center tower collapsed. I didn't find this out until days later, when I was finally able to get through by phone and hear their voices again.

The only person I talked to in New York after the disaster was my father, who called me before the phone lines died to tell me what happened.

. . .

Do you know anyone who saw the World Trade Center fall?