Today, as we remember the lives we lost and the lives that were forever changed on September 11, 2001, Glossy shares a piece that falls outside of our usual focus: Twenty-five years ago, Summersalt co-founder and CEO Lori Coulter documented her experience at the World Trade Center Marriott that morning, which is shared in full below. Among other impacts, the experience has since changed the way she thinks about uncertainty in areas including business, she shares. Editor’s note: The following article contains graphic descriptions that may be upsetting to some readers.
Six Weeks After 9/11, I Wrote Down Everything I Could Remember By Lori Coulter
Twenty-five years ago, shortly after returning home to St. Louis after September 11, I wrote down my experience in detail, mainly to process it and move forward.
I was 26, attending a conference breakfast and staying at the World Trade Center Marriott when the first plane hit. I escaped the hotel, watched the second plane strike the South Tower from roughly a block away, ran as the building began to collapse and eventually left Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry.
I wrote it all down. Then I set my emotions aside and moved forward.
I intended to edit the account and archive it for my family. But for years, I could not bring myself to read the entire document. It remained largely untouched: immediate, unpolished and raw.
Even 10 years later, I struggled to reconcile my own experience of September 11 with the collective memory it had become. The worst day of my life was replayed on television and preserved in photographs seen around the world. My memories were intensely personal, yet they also belonged to a grieving nation.
What stayed with me most were not only the enormous events, but the small, vivid images: the pendant lights shifting like chimes when the first plane hit, the sound of the second plane as I watched it approach the tower, the ghostliness of the streets, the stinging of my skin after the collapse and the crowd cheering for the first responders arriving on the Staten Island Ferry.
And I remember the humanity in the midst of evil.
A stranger touching my arm and asking if I was OK. A woman looking directly at me and insisting that I not walk back toward the towers. Four young women locking arms with me as we waited for the ferry. And a family on Staten Island opening their home to a complete stranger.
What follows is the account I wrote before I had much distance from what happened. It is not how I remember September 11 25 years later.
It is how I experienced it then.
***
The sound of chimes — no, it’s the thousands of three-inch-diameter cylinder pendant lights swaying back and forth, making an eerie, echo-like sound, as if to foretell the outcome of the morning.
Across the ballroom, tables full of dishes shake.
The electricity flickers, and the pendant lights shift four feet across what I believe to be a track.
Or maybe the building shifts.
BOOM. BOOM.
People in business suits are panicked.
They are running toward the exits.
I am grabbing for my purse, once, now twice, still looking toward an exit, confused.
My table empties.
An earthquake, a bomb, an electrical fire… Got the purse. Now run.
Out of the ballroom into the hotel lobby.
Do I smell smoke?
Confused people continue en masse toward the entrance of the North Tower, only 10 feet from where I stand.
Smoke moves down the elevator shaft and into the lobby.
The crowd moves shoulder to shoulder now, slowly.
There is no trampling.
I do not recognize anyone, seeing only nameless, faceless bodies.
I make my way toward the west side of the hotel and notice a ramp headed toward the front of the building.
I take this route to move away from the crowd, unaware of the actual endpoint. I am the third or fourth person to reach the handicap exit at the far northwest corner of the building, still within view of the interior entrance to 1 World Trade Center.
My initial instinct: flight.
Get away from the building.
But at the direction of the Marriott bellman, I wait for what seems like an eternity.
Nothing in my background has prepared me for what I am seeing.
I have tunnel vision.
I see only as much as my mind can process at once.
Bloody faces, warped steel bars in the streets, mangled cars on the sidewalks. Traffic is stopped, with cars in every direction, all layered with a white, chalk-like material.
The streets are amazingly empty.
No cars are moving or honking.
No people.
Dust.
Lots of dust.
It permeates the air.
A man streaked with blood oozing from his eyes and the top of his head walks toward the Marriott entrance, his hands held in front of his body.
He is disoriented but walking.
I continue to wait in the Marriott as the raining ash and debris begin to slow.
I don’t allow myself to look to the left or the right.
My tunnel vision permits only direct viewing.
People lying in the streets.
Sounds of pain, screaming, sirens and other unfamiliar noises of fear.
There must have been a bomb.
Finally, I exit the Marriott and cross the street. I am just west of the corner of Liberty Street and West Street when I look back over my shoulder at the burning building. It is clear that the top quarter of 1 World Trade Center is on fire.
It is a raging fire, but I tell myself that the people in the bottom three-quarters of the building will make it out. Smoke billows in an ever-widening triangle toward the tip of Manhattan.
Two women in Marriott housekeeping uniforms are huddled together; a third is on her knees with her body folded in two and her face to the ground, hysterical.
They are trying to calm her down.
She doesn’t. … She must know something is very wrong.
I start to get sick.
Good thing I took only one small bite of my lukewarm cheese blintz at breakfast.
The knot in my stomach grows stronger. I gag.
Twice.
A well-dressed man walks toward me.
I see only his body and the vague outline of his face.
He touches my shoulder.
“Are you OK?”
I don’t respond.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
I look at his face.
Still seeing mostly an outline, I zero in on his soft eyes as I come back to the world.
“Yes, I’m OK.
I AM OK.”
I continue west toward the Hudson River, my back to the water and my face toward the building.
Someone in the crowd says, “It was a plane — I reached my wife on my cell phone.”
I relax.
I tell myself it was an accident.
An inexperienced pilot ran into the tower.
It was no bomb.
I expect that the building will empty, and we will watch firefighters extinguish the fire, but it will be over, soon.
Wrong.
There is a marina with large yachts and sailboats located just to my north. I wonder what slip fees are and who can afford to keep a boat in Manhattan.
I look again toward the building, watching debris rain from the tower.
Someone yells, “It’s a body.”
The crowd moans as the body descends.
Then I hear, “Another one,” as a human being jumps, plummeting to death.
And then more.
The tunnel vision is back.
I cannot see anything but a small portion of the building, specifically a 10-floor section of glowing red.
Above the sounds of the crowd, I hear a loud engine rumbling, as if accelerating.
And from the crowd, “Oh my God, there’s a second one.”
About that time, a white United 767 with blue block lettering appears from the southeast above the skyline, flying north toward the towers. I tell myself to remember the plane and its path for investigative purposes — as if the whole world were not watching.
The plane seems to accelerate, and the sound intensifies as it flies directly into the Liberty Street side of 2 World Trade Center opposite the first tower. It banks right before entering the southeast corner of the second tower.
Bull’s-eye.
From one block away, I feel heat.
I’m not sure if it is from the explosion or from my increased heart rate. There was never any question that the plane would hit the building.
One enormous explosion, about 20 stories high and maybe the width of the tower, and the plane disappeared as if swallowed by the skyscraper.
Glass, debris and bodies rain down onto the streets below.
Gagging, I tell myself, “Don’t think about all the people, the poor people in the building. Get yourself out of here.”
The sound and smell will stay with me, maybe forever.
This was no accident. Manhattan is under attack.
I head south along the Hudson River in what I later learn is Battery Park City. There are a couple of people in the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd that I recognize from the conference.
Yesterday, I walked through the marina and along the river, this same route. It was lovely: green trees, people on cell phones enjoying a fresh, September day on the river.
Roller bladers, joggers, business people reading the paper, couples in love.
Life has changed.
Deep down, I sense it has changed forever.
In the confusion, I begin to doubt my decision to go south. I remind myself that Manhattan is an island and that I am as far west as I can go and that it cannot be far until I reach the southern tip.
I stop and take one step northward.
A woman about my age in a beautifully tailored business suit looks me directly in the eyes and demands, “Don’t go that way.” I pause, admiring her blonde hair held back from her face with a headband, and she gets emphatic, “DON’T GO THAT WAY.”
So, I don’t.
I’ve lost sight of anyone I recognize from the conference, and I again join the stream of people heading south. As I approach the “corner” of the island, I recognize a group of six people.
The group is talking, but I feel as though any words will exhaust me, so I stand against the railing meant to keep tourists from falling in the river. I wonder if the iron railing could protect me from falling debris should another plane hit.
Doubtful.
A new person joins the group and keeps repeating, “Who would do this? Why? I don’t understand.”
I want to tell him, no one does, but I don’t have the energy to speak.
One member of the group finally gets a call through to her office. She asks her assistant to call several family members, then relays our names and the names and phone numbers of our loved ones.
“Lori calling Kelly.
Have him call my family.”
I would have her call my parents’ home, but I am afraid of their state of mind.
Plus, I know Kelly, my fiancé, will be at his office.
I am consciously trying to keep my position next to the river and next to the railing, as if the railing could help if a 767 were to hit us. I discuss the situation with Joan, a woman I recognize from the conference and have worked with in the past. “At least we can swim if we need to.”
She agrees and considers aloud, “Do you think I should take off my shoes?” I answer, “Yes. If you go in the water, lose everything that you don’t need.”
All the while we are watching, thick black smoke is erupting from the buildings.
I notice a young mother pushing her nine-month-old baby in a stroller as if it were just any other Tuesday afternoon in September.
She is amazingly calm.
I question out loud, “You don’t think the buildings will come down, do you?”
Joan raises her eyes.
I keep hoping that one of the dozens of medium-sized boats in the harbor will stop to evacuate us. I wave a couple of times and think to myself that the poor boat would sink from all the desperate people trying to leave Manhattan all at once.
After a few minutes, the group decides to head to the East Side office of one of the conference speakers. I have no better alternative. I am reluctant to move away from the safety of the water and the railing, but it seems to me there is safety in numbers.
We head east.
A stranger holds up a cell phone and screams, “They’ve hit the Pentagon! My wife says they’ve hit the Pentagon!”
His tie is undone and shirt tail untucked. I realize this could be the beginning of World War III.
About this time, I hear a large rumble.
The steady stream of black smoke turns into an explosion and clouds of thick gray smoke, like a volcano erupting.
I watch the building begin to come down, about a third of the way, before I turn and run.
Panic.
People running.
I place one foot on the fencing around Battery Park.
Adrenaline carries me over to the other side in one step.
It’s a good thing because if I hesitated, I would have been trampled by the thousands of people fleeing toward the water and away from the cloud of black soot and debris enveloping the tip of Manhattan.
I never look back.
An officer is standing on a picnic table yelling, “Everyone to the water!!!
Everyone to the water!!!”
I make my way toward the tip of Manhattan and the water.
I’m stuck.
There’s nowhere to go.
People are everywhere and running toward me.
I look up and see a large, orange double-decker boat in the distance. All I can think of is that those people are being saved — they are evacuating to safety.
The boat disappears as the rolling cloud of smoke envelops us.
I cannot see.
I cannot breathe.
I take my jacket off and tie it around my nose and mouth.
My face feels like it is on fire, like I’ve applied a lotion to which I am allergic.
My eyes are irritated.
I wipe them with the sleeves from my jacket, careful not to smudge the smoke from my hands into my eyes. I notice ash falling in the air like light snow flurries.
Without hesitation, I climb the railing above the water and follow four young men along the outside of a Coast Guard facility fence.
There is a two-inch ledge just wide enough for the balls of my feet, four feet above the Hudson River.
I could kick my shoes into the water.
No, save them. You’ll need your shoes AND your purse.
I am about the fifth person to reach a narrow pier. Someone ahead of me throws temporary fencing over the barbed wire, creating a makeshift ladder over the 10-foot fence.
The young men in front of me go over quickly.
I’m next.
Within seconds, I am over the fence and running toward the Coast Guard building.
No doors are open.
I approach an officer.
“Can we get in the building?”
“Oh no. NO.”
I notice someone lifting another section of fencing so people can crawl underneath.
I follow.
At least I’m not trapped.
Thousands of people are moving toward a covered concrete building that appears to be a ferry terminal and my only option.
My overwhelming instinct is flight.
There is a young man with shoulder-length wavy hair dressed in a red numbered mesh football jersey and jeans. He keeps yelling with both arms in the air, palms up, “I’m 17 years old. Be calm, people. I’M 17 YEARS OLD. Do not push and trample when the ferry arrives.”
The air is pungent from the smoke.
My skin feels like it is on fire.
Horrified, I think to myself that I am breathing the dust of cremated bodies.
I notice four young women, probably about 22 or 23, who are talking to each other. They tell me that they were working on the 56th floor of the World Trade Center.
I don’t catch which tower.
None of us fully comprehends what has happened.
I turn to the women, “When the ferry arrives, the crowd is going to push and pull, and there is a chance we will get trampled or, worse, be pulled into the water.
Stand back several feet from the water.
And let’s lock arms when the ferry gets here.”
It seems we are waiting for 20-30 minutes, and eventually the 17-year-old’s voice fades into the background as he continues trying to calm thousands of adults.
Finally, the crowd becomes restless, and I realize the boat is docking, but not where we were expecting. The women lock arms, and I join the right side of the human chain.
I’m unable to see the boat, but I realize the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd has stopped moving. Then I hear sirens as several ambulances, fire trucks and additional rescue vehicles exit the ferry, followed by individual firefighters and rescue workers on foot.
The crowd cheers as it would for its heroes in a parade or its favorite team after a gut-wrenching victory, not knowing that many of the heroes we are cheering for will not return.
The women and I remain linked, and it is amazing how orderly the boat fills.
When we make it onto the ferry, we head toward the tip of the boat, and I start looking for a life preserver to put on. The group follows me into a glassed-in area of the boat.
I look under several benches and hand each woman, including myself, an orange Coast Guard life vest. I start to hold it in my hands, but I think to myself that if the boat goes down, thousands of people would fight me for it.
I put the neck strap over my head and strap it tightly around my rib cage. The women stay inside as I head toward the front deck of the boat.
I don’t want to get caught in the middle of the crowd if the boat goes down.
I’m not afraid to jump if I have to.
I am partially aware of the people around me, but not fully.
I see only bodies from the neck down.
After several minutes, the ferry leaves Manhattan.
The smoke seems to clear as we head toward Staten Island — however, there is still a haze in the air and a thick stream of black smoke to our southeast. I notice a small cabin cruiser headed into the path of the ferry, and I brace myself to jump if necessary.
False alarm.
The man to my right is visibly tense.
Everyone is afraid.
Very afraid.
Very helpless.
I start to feel relieved because I believe Manhattan is under attack and, by leaving the island, I am headed toward safety. But I also believe that a boat full of people is a prime target for someone looking to kill several thousand people.
The air clears, and I am able to see the Statue of Liberty in the distance. My first thought is that it, too, would be a prime target, and I imagine an airplane like the one I saw earlier cutting the statue in two.
My next thought is of my ancestors and the millions of immigrants who sailed to New York City for a better life. I think they must have looked at the Statue of Liberty as I do now — as a symbol of freedom, safety, and everything good about America.
My journey is only across the river, but I feel as though I have seen more terror and fear in the last three hours than anyone should see in a lifetime.
Like the immigrants before me, the journey isn’t over.
The man next to me asks where I live.
I tell him my story.
“I’m from Missouri but am in New York for business. I was at the World Trade Center Marriott at a conference when the first plane hit, and soon thereafter, I watched the plane hit the second tower. Then, as the first building came down, I ran toward the water to escape the debris and smoke.”
He offers to take me to his home and help me make arrangements.
He assures me that his wife and daughter are home and that his daughter will pick him up outside the ferry terminal.
Something tells me it’s OK to trust him.
Having no better alternative, I agree.
We approach the dock when the ferry swings right and the people on the second level sway to the right and back again as the right side of the large boat slams into the docking guides. The crowd screams at a low pitch and then louder as we slam the other side.
The man calms my nerves. “That happens every time. That’s how they dock these things.”
The crowd is understandably edgy.
We stack the life preservers on the outside wall of the boat and walk through an aisle of uniformed officers and Coast Guard workers, clearly shocked at the sight of the ash-covered passengers. I am so covered in ash that even my socks feel stiff like paper. I don’t look back at Manhattan until we are outside of the building.
I ask a police officer the best route off the island.
He tells me that all bridges are shut down.
“Are there any hotels?”
He suggests the Staten Island Hotel on the opposite side of the island. I look across the harbor to Manhattan and think of all the people buried underneath the building.
I am unable to pick out the former location of the Trade Center. I only see a huge cloud of thick black smoke covering the tip of the island.
I follow John, the man on the ferry, out of the ferry terminal and up a steep hill leading toward the center of Staten Island.
My throat is killing me from all the smoke and ash.
We walk for several blocks.
I am tracing the path in my mind, and I begin to get anxious about where this stranger is taking me.
I hunt in my purse for keys.
Unfortunately, I believe they are in my suitcase or maybe at home somewhere.
Instead, I take the cap off an ink pen.
I make a fist around the pen and hold it as if it could somehow protect me.
We probably walk about twenty blocks before John stops to make a call at a pay phone.
I wonder if I am walking into some sort of trap.
We make a right turn into a residential area. Pointing to a brown Citation, he tells me, “There is Catherine. My daughter is going to pick us up.”
My fears are allayed.
Catherine is the cutest, sweetest 19-year-old I have ever met. She puts me at ease with her Staten Island accent and her warm smile.
I no longer fear some psychopath is conspiring to kidnap me.
We go to their home.
The house is crowded and lived-in — teenagers, dishes on the kitchen counter, the clutter of everyday family life.
There are several teenagers in the house, only two of whom are actually their children.
John’s wife, Ann, is a dream.
She offers me tea.
I accept.
I start making phone calls — first to Kelly, my fiancé.
Only now do I get emotional.
I guess I relax just enough to allow myself to cry.
After I tell Kelly what has happened, he suggests a conference call to my office.
I am not ready to talk to anyone but him.
I eventually am conferenced in with my office and my boss, Chris, who had also escaped the Trade Center. I ask about two coworkers, especially Susan, who had just started with us and was spending her first days with our firm at the conference in New York. I think back to the day before, when she had been hesitant to take a cab by herself.
I then call my mother.
She is frantic.
I am trying to be brave.
I don’t want to upset her anymore.
I tell her about the events of the day, that I was at the Trade Center. She breaks, “You were there? You were in the Trade Center?”
Ann drives me to the Staten Island Hotel where I attempt to get a hotel room.
I’m 81st on the wait list.
I ask the desk agent how much money it would take to get a room.
“Is $2,000 enough?”
“Ma’am, please calm down. You are welcome to get a glass of iced tea and stay in our lobby.” I return to the car and head back to John and Ann’s home, grateful to have somewhere to go.
I eventually learn the rest of my coworkers are safe and are meeting at a client’s home in a New Jersey suburb.
I watch CNN numbly as we learn of the deaths of firefighters and rescue workers.
I take two bites of mashed potatoes and cannot eat anything else.
I take a shower.
My face is still burning and tight.
I cannot wash off the feeling.
I rinse my face over and over again.
My hair is thick from the smoke.
I cannot put my fingers through it.
Catherine has given me her clean sweatpants and a T-shirt to wear.
At bedtime, John and Ann argue. I think it is about me.
I’m on the couch in the first-floor living room.
The family sleeps upstairs.
I hear every movement, every sigh.
I am exhausted, and I fall asleep briefly.
I put the same ink pen from earlier under my pillow in case I need to protect myself.
I’m not sure from what.
I hear jets flying above Staten Island.
They have to be Air Force fighters.
No one else is flying.
I have the sense that something else is going to happen. I turn on CNN several times in the night to find out about any subsequent attacks.
Staten Island seems like a logical target.
In the morning, I wake at about 5:30 a.m., but I stay on the couch pretending to sleep. About 7:30 a.m., I start making phone calls. Around 9:00 a.m., Vinny, the driver who has been trying to reach me all night, picks me up during the brief period when the bridges to Staten Island are actually open.
I wake Catherine, as I promised I would, and she locks the door behind me as I leave the safety of her home.
Vinny drives off Staten Island into New Jersey and toward Pennsylvania.
The smoke still billows from Manhattan.
I try not to look.
My parents, brother and Kelly are waiting for me at a roadside motel just east of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I’ve never been so glad to see them in my life.
I hug them all.
I’m amazingly composed.
I hadn’t thought about what I was wearing or how I looked until my brother and Kelly pointed out my light blue, faded 25th Anniversary Snug Harbor Little League T-shirt.
I wore No. 7, my lucky number.
The shirt is old and faded, with holes near the hem, dirt and paint marks — the kind of shirt you keep because it has become too comfortable to throw away.
I shower, and we head west on the interstate.
For about two weeks, I was in shock, almost numb to the event.
After four weeks, I was deeply sad.
After six weeks, I am confused.
I have replayed the events of September 11 in my mind over and over again.
I was no hero.
I had almost no control over what was happening.
And yet, my instinct to survive took over completely.
I have never been so logical, so quick, or so willful.
But why me?
Why was I there?
Why did I survive when so many did not?
Damn the terrorists for hating us so much.
I sense that the charmed, comfortable life I have known is forever changed.
I am numb toward the terrorists.
I wish I could find hatred and anger.
I feel only sadness.
Sadness for the people who died.
For the people who will die.
For the loss of the security and innocence we took for granted.
For the hatred that could cause something like this.
For the profound loss that has touched so many people.
I hope I can find my way back to the life I am meant to live.
I may be my own greatest enemy.
And I am haunted by the sound of the pendant lights shifting like chimes and by the smoke still trailing from Manhattan, both warnings of what was still to come.
***
The night before the attacks, I happened to meet a good friend, Kip, who was later the best man in our wedding, for dinner at Windows on the World, near the top of 1 World Trade Center. We had no way of knowing what the next morning would bring, much less the rest of our lives.
Twenty-five years later, life has been extraordinarily good to me.
I married the love of my life. I became the mother of two amazing boys. I followed my passion and co-founded Summersalt from an idea, with no playbook and no certainty that it would work. I have been fortunate to live the quintessential American dream.
On September 11, I could not have imagined the life I would go on to build or what Summersalt would eventually become. But I do believe that day changed the way I think about uncertainty.
Entrepreneurship asks you to move forward before you have every answer. You make decisions with incomplete information. Sometimes the plan works. Sometimes it does not. Sometimes you have to start over.
Surviving September 11 made me less afraid of failure and more willing to believe that, like so many New Yorkers and Americans, you can rebuild when you have to.
The lesson I have carried most directly into entrepreneurship, though, is not about risk. It is about people and how they show up when things are hard.
For a long time after September 11, I continued to ask the same questions I asked at the close of my story.
Why was I there?
Why did I survive when so many did not?
I still do not have an answer.
I remember the terror, but I also remember the humanity in the midst of it: the stranger who stopped to ask if I was OK; the woman who warned me not to walk back toward the towers; the young women who linked arms with me at the ferry; the 17-year-old trying to keep thousands of frightened adults calm; and John and Ann, who opened their home to someone they had never met.
I wrote to John and Ann afterward that their kindness and generosity would remain with me for the rest of my life. I told them that while thousands of displaced people spent that night in relief stations, hotel lobbies or on the street, their family had given me a place where my own family knew I was safe. I called them heroes.
I still believe that.
Ten years after September 11, I wrote that perhaps surviving had given me a responsibility to live my life with purpose. I did not know exactly what that meant. I still may never know why I was spared.
But I remain determined to show up when things are hard.
And when I return to these pages, I can still hear the eerie sound of the pendant lights shifting like chimes and see the smoke trailing from Manhattan.
Today, neither feels very far away.
