On the morning of September 11, 2001 at 8:46am (exactly 21 years ago to this very minute), I arrived to work as usual and was eating my breakfast in my cubicle. It was a warm sunny day. I, along with other coworkers, heard a large boom and we all ran outside of the building to see what it was.
We saw one of the Twin Towers on fire. We were only a few blocks away from the WTC on William and Fulton Street. I wasn’t hanging around to see anything else. I grabbed my things and tried to make a phone call but couldn’t. There was no service.
I got on the subway to go home. I got as far as I could, but the subway went out of service. I had to get off the train and take a shuttle bus the rest of the way home. On the bus, I was right next to the driver and he had the radio on and I could hear news about the towers.
I got home safely and would be out of work for at least a week or two (can’t remember). The smoke from the fires reached all the way to Brooklyn where I was living at the time and lasted for days.
I was working for a mayoral city agency at the time and we were only given a week or two off, I believe. It wasn’t enough time. When it was time to go back, it was a most solemn time on the train. It wasn’t packed as usual, in fact there was hardly anyone on it. I remember a lady crying and people looking very sad.
When I came out the subway, there was debris, paper, and trash everywhere. The smell was horrible! You never forget that smell. I’m so grateful that I made it through that scary time and had no family or friends that died that day. I feel bad for those that had loved ones in there.
The only pictures of the new Freedom Tower and WTC area I could find were from 2018 when I moved back to NY from Maine and accepted a managerial job at 4 World Trade Center (HRA) on the 31st floor! I only stayed a year. I lived through the trauma every day. I prayed every day that God would protect me and get me out of there and He did!
Ironically enough, a woman named Ellen G. White wrote the following in the 1900s in a book called Testimonies for the Church Volume 9 starting on page 11 (9/11).
“We are living in the time of the end. The fast-fulfilling signs of the times declare that the coming of Christ is near at hand. The days in which we live are solemn and important. The Spirit of God is gradually but surely being withdrawn from the earth. Plagues and judgments are already falling upon the despisers of the grace of God. The calamities by land and sea, the unsettled state of society, the alarms of war, are portentous. They forecast approaching events of the greatest magnitude.
The agencies of evil are combining their forces and consolidating. They are strengthening for the last great crisis. Great changes are soon to take place in our world, and the final movements will be rapid ones.
The condition of things in the world shows that troublous times are right upon us. The daily papers are full of indications of a terrible conflict in the near future. Bold robberies are of frequent occurrence. Strikes are common. Thefts and murders are committed on every hand. Men possessed of demons are taking the lives of men, women, and little children. Men have become infatuated with vice, and every species of evil prevails.
On one occasion, when in New York City, I was in the night season called upon to behold buildings rising story after story toward heaven. These buildings were warranted to be fireproof, and they were erected to glorify their owners and builders. Higher and still higher these buildings rose, and in them the most costly material was used. Those to whom these buildings belonged were not asking themselves: “How can we best glorify God?” The Lord was not in their thoughts.
I thought: “Oh, that those who are thus investing their means could see their course as God sees it! They are piling up magnificent buildings, but how foolish in the sight of the Ruler of the universe is their planning and devising. They are not studying with all the powers of heart and mind how they may glorify God. They have lost sight of this, the first duty of man.”
As these lofty buildings went up, the owners rejoiced with ambitious pride that they had money to use in gratifying self and provoking the envy of their neighbors. Much of the money that they thus invested had been obtained through exaction, through grinding down the poor. They forgot that in heaven an account of every business transaction is kept; every unjust deal, every fraudulent act, is there recorded. The time is coming when in their fraud and insolence men will reach a point that the Lord will not permit them to pass, and they will learn that there is a limit to the forbearance of Jehovah.
The scene that next passed before me was an alarm of fire. Men looked at the lofty and supposedly fire-proof buildings and said: “They are perfectly safe.” But these buildings were consumed as if made of pitch. The fire engines could do nothing to stay the destruction. The firemen were unable to operate the engines” (9T pages 11-13).
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Monique Morales-Mason was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She is married to Maurice Mason and, together, they have three children: Marquis Azziah (18), Micah Ezra (13), and Moriyah Zemira (3). They currently reside in Alabama. Monique is a Seventh-day Adventist Christian who always loved end time events, history, and bible prophecy and tries to find modern applications. Her favorite book besides the bible is The Great Controversy by Ellen G. White. She is currently serving as Religious Liberty Director at the State Line SDA Church. She also works as a Grantwriter for Oakwood University. In her spare time, she loves to travel with her family, go to museums, and spend time in nature, especially at the beach.