Sallyport - The Magazine of Rice University - Winter 2002

September 11 - Out of the Maelstrom
yell “Everybody dive!” Forney dove for a cubbyhole, curled up, closed his
eyes, and prayed to God that he wouldn’t die. Two World Trade Center, the
second building hit by a plane, was collapsing, only minutes after Forney
had left the lobby.
“The blast was like a hurricane,” says Forney. “For the second time in an
hour, I thought I was going to die. I figured something from above might
fall down and severe me in two.”
When Forney opened his eyes, he couldn’t see through the darkness. He
closed his eyes and opened them and still couldn’t see a thing. He called
out for Juliette and Rob. She responded, but Rob had to clear his throat
before he could utter a sound.
They saw a glimmer of light. It was a fireman with a floodlight. They
formed a human chain and followed the firefighter for about 80 yards to a
broken escalator that led them back up one level to the street.
The world was falling apart.
“Outside was a war zone,” Forney says. “It was a monochromatic
landscape. It was like lint. Everything meshed into one color, gray. You
could make out trees, but they were gray. You could make out the grounds,
but they were covered with several inches of soot. The air was full of dust
and ash.”
As they crossed a street, a photographer yelled, “Look for bodies under the
cars!” Forney took a quick glance at the cars but could not see anything.
The three continued trampling through the wreckage, and about three
blocks from the point they exited the tunnels, a storeowner invited them
into his place to rest. Juliette had lost her purse and wanted to return to
retrieve it, but Rob and Forney convinced her otherwise. “I told her she
should be happy to be alive,” Forney says. The two men each gave her $10,
kissed her on the forehead, and proceeded home.
After walking for about 10 minutes, Forney heard a “horrifying gasp” from
people on the sidewalks. He turned around and saw One World Trade
Center, his building, go down, floor by floor. “It was surreal, unbelievable,”
he says.
Forney continued walking and found a corner store with a pay phone. He
called his father’s office in Houston, and his father in turn called Bill’s
wife, Tobey ’93, who was in London for business. Tobey is chief operating
officer and general counsel of TransactTools, a financial software company.
When Tobey heard the news of the terrorist attack, she says, she tried to
remain hopeful that her husband was alive.
“I told myself a lot of lies to make myself believe that he was okay,” she
explains. “It’s amazing what your mind can do. I became a zombie, and I
don’t remember what I did between the time of the attack and the time I got
the message. When I got the message, I collapsed and made a scene at the
hotel. But everyone was happy for me.”
Now, months after the September attack, Forney says he is not suffering too
terribly from posttraumatic stress disorder. He says that he doesn’t suffer
from nightmares, and he can sleep at night. But the memories of the tragedy
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