By Ryan Steal
Genelle Guzman McMillan had been in New York City for two years after arriving from Trinidad, working as an office temp for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on the 64th floor of Tower 1 at the World Trade Center and “loving it,” she says.
A plane hijacked by Islamic terrorists hit the top floors of her 110-story building, also known as the North Tower, at 8:46 a.m. ET on September 11, 2001. It shook the ground beneath her feet.
Guzman McMillan, 50, and a coworker named Rosa opted to walk the stairway after feeling a second jolt, which they later understood was caused by another hijacked plane hitting the second tower next door.
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The then-30-year-old, who was wearing high heels and had sore feet, came to a halt on the 13th level to remove them. At 10:28 a.m., the skyscraper collapsed.
She recalls how “everything just went boom. Everything was crumbling and was just coming on top of me.”
Guzman McMillan would spend more than a day buried.
“I felt like I was there forever,” she explained. “I just thought I was dreaming. I just figured this has to be a dream. This is not happening. And I didn’t know if anybody was going to find me. I just laid there.”
“I heard everything what was going on. I heard someone cry out for help in a very faint voice. I would hear the trucks and the walkie talkies going off,” Guzman McMillan added.
