Sisters man remembers 9-11 attacks

A date which will live in infamy. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used those words to describe the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Roosevelt could have repeated his words nearly 60 years later when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, in New York City, on September 11, 2001.

Sisters resident Joshua Booth was there, working at the 360 Furman Building, directly across the bay from the Twin Towers.

"In 2001 the entire 360 Furman Building was a warehouse, 2 million square feet of warehousing," Booth said.

He was working on the eighth floor when the North Tower was hit.

"There was a lot of commotion," Booth said. "The building was all windows. We were in Brooklyn, right on the waterfront. We saw smoke and fire blowing out of the tower."

This was not the first attack on the Towers since they had been built. Terrorists bombed the basement of the North Tower in 1993, hoping to destroy the complex. Now, in 2001, the North Tower was the first to be hit.

"The smoke is way too dark," Booth told a co-worker. "That's a terrorist attack."

Booth recalled that "It was the type of black you see when you burn diesel."

Booth and his co-workers hadn't seen the first plane hit the tower, but knew what they were looking at.

"Three to four floors of that building were in flames," he said. "You knew everyone was dead on those floors."

A second plane hit the South Tower 17 minutes later.

Time stood still for Booth and his co-workers. The North Tower, it was later reported, collapsed 102 minutes after being hit, and the South Tower 56 minutes after impact. They were moments frozen in time.

"We all ran to the top of the roof. It looked like white doves at first floating across the bay toward us, then leaves. It was office paper. I'll never forget the smell. I picked up pieces of paper, they smelled like jet fuel."

Clouds of dust and debris covered the Furman Building.

"We shut all the windows after the first building collapsed," he said. "We couldn't see even 100 feet. It came down like an accordion. Floor by floor, from the top, one floor collapsed into the floors below."

American Airlines Flight 11 and United Flight 175 had both taken off from Boston.

"The planes had just taken off," Booth commented. "They were full of jet fuel. The heat (from all that fuel) melted the girders steel structure. I know from rock climbing that every three feet you fall, your weight triples. One third of that building imploded on the floors beneath it, then big chunks fell."

Booth and his co-workers watched in horror, powerless.

"We saw black specks falling and realized they were people jumping out of the windows. Smoke was coming out of two thirds of the building. I'm sure there wasn't a single person who could get out."

The World Trade Center Towers were constructed from 1966 to 1973. Each had 110 floors. They were the world's tallest buildings at the time.

Booth recalled living in New York during the aftermath:

"The dust smelled like concrete, jet fuel and burning flesh. It was the most rank smell and it stuck around for months. I didn't go to Manhattan for four months because the fumes were so bad. Even after waiting that long, I still coughed for a few days after."

Booth mourned those on the planes that struck the Towers who didn't fight back.

"All the people who died and how and why they died makes you think that you have to take action," he said. "If you choose to do nothing, you're only helping the terrorists."

Booth is the son of Delores (DeeDee) and Greg Booth, also of Sisters.

Booth left New York in 2003, moved to Seattle, and just returned to Sisters in May 2009. He has been working as a stonemason, but is getting ready to attend COCC to get an Associate Degree in Criminal Justice/Law Enforcement.