Francesco Sorbara, a former Member of Parliament, reflects on his harrowing experience of the September 11 attacks while standing outside his Woodbridge home, gripping a soot-covered black backpack. The remnants of grey dust evoke a mix of emotions; he feels gratitude for his survival while also mourning the fate of thousands who were not as fortunate.
The soot hauntingly symbolizes the toxic cloud of carcinogenic debris that engulfed the area when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed after being struck by a terrorist-hijacked plane on September 11, 2001. At that time, Sorbara was living in New York City, working for JPMorgan Chase, and witnessed the tragic event unfold right before his eyes. The memory of that day still shakes him, even 25 years later.
“It’s something I’ll never forget,” Sorbara shared about the tragic events of that day. “I don’t think about it all the time, of course, but at the same time, it left its mark on many of us in different ways.” He recounts how September 11 started as a beautiful and sunny day, ideal for being outdoors. As he made his way to a training session at a building located directly across from the twin towers, the world around him was about to change forever.
Upon exiting the subway, he immediately sensed the chaos and confusion that had broken out; panic filled the atmosphere as he saw firefighters making their way towards the towers. Just minutes later, Sorbara found himself witnessing the unimaginable horror when the first of the twin towers—the south tower—began to collapse. “I thought we were done; there was no way we would survive that,” he said, recalling the terror that gripped him in that moment.
In a desperate attempt to save himself, Sorbara fled as clouds of debris and soot blanketed the surroundings. “It became dark, very, very dark,” he recalled. He sought refuge behind a large cement flower pot, surrounded by the frantic screams of others who shared the grim belief that they would not make it out alive. After what felt like an eternity, he managed to stumble into a nearby burger joint that was providing water to help clear the soot from people's throats.
Afterward, Sorbara walked to a church on the Lower East Side, which offered a hose for people to wash off the dust and provided a change of clothes. Bewildered and profoundly shaken by the day's events, he undertook the long journey back to his apartment on the Upper East Side—a walk through the eerily deserted streets of New York City that took him around two hours. During this time, the full extent of the tragedy was still unclear to him.
Reflecting on the aftermath, Sorbara acknowledges that the September 11 attacks changed history forever. He remains haunted by the cries he heard as the towers fell and recognizes the profound impact those moments had on the world. “The sounds of the screams when the tower collapsed—I will never forget that,” he stated, an echo of the trauma still vivid in his memory.
