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Photographer recalls 9/11 sights, sounds
(by Joan Demirjian - September 09, 2011)
Photographer recalls 9/11 sights, sounds
By JOAN DEMIRJIAN
Sept. 11, 2001, left a profound impact on Amy Sancetta, an Associated Press photographer who lives in Moreland Hills.
Now, as the 10th anniversary of the attacks approaches, she has vivid memories of the day that shook the nation and the world.
Ms. Sancetta was in New York, covering the U.S. Open tennis competition for two weeks before the 9/11 terrorist attack happened. After the tournament was completed, she decided to take a day off to enjoy the city, she said. She was staying in the area of 52nd Street and Broadway Avenue.
"My editor called me and said they thought a small plane crashed at the Trade Center," she said. They didn't know it then, but it was right after the first plane struck one of the twin towers, according to Ms. Sancetta, a former Bainbridge resident and Orange High School graduate.
"I grabbed what equipment I had and caught a cab," she said. "I asked the driver to stop and I got out and took photos. I wasn't sure what was happening."
When they reached a police perimeter line, she said, she paid the cab driver and started walking. She shot a big chunk of twisted metal in the street that might have been part of a plane, she said.
It had been a beautiful day, Ms. Sancetta recalled. The sky was crystal clear. But the smoke and fire could be seen 100 stories up on both towers, neither of which had collapsed yet, she said.
She looked for people to photograph when the south tower cracked and collapsed, falling in on itself, she said. "As it collapsed, people were running away, toward me," Ms. Sancetta said.
"I remember the sound when the building was collapsing and people screaming and fleeing," she said.
"The billowing clouds were huge," Ms. Sancetta said. After taking a long series of photos on her camera, she looked up and saw the debris cloud coming near, she said. "I turned and ran."
She ended up in an open parking garage and took refuge in the basement as the cloud filled the garage. "You could hardly breathe. I didn't know what was going on and why the tower had collapsed," she said.
"There was a woman crying, and I hugged her. She had gotten out of one of the towers," she said. Later, Ms. Sancetta was able to get a message to the woman's son to tell him she had survived the disaster.
When Ms. Sancetta went back out to the street, everything was quiet, and it was like breathing sawdust, she said. "The sky was full of office paper as high as you could see."
As she was photographing people in the streets, covered with debris, the sound of the north tower collapsing was heard.
"I didn't know what was happening at that time," she said. She was able to call home first, and then the Associated Press office at Rockefeller Center in the city. "Those were the only two calls I got out for the next 11 days. Cell towers were down," she said.
Her office asked her to bring in her photos. "I didn't know where I was," she said.
She started walking and made it to the office about five miles away. On her way, she saw thousands of people walking to get away from the area.
Ms. Sancetta turned in her photos and then went back for more. The next day she borrowed a bike from a friend to get around better.
"I stayed in New York for 11 more days," she said. Her photos went out all over the world.
Richard Drew, also an AP photographer and colleague, had been at a fashion show taking photos. He took photos of people jumping from the windows of the towers, Ms. Sancetta said.
After returning to Ohio, just seeing tall buildings in Cleveland brought images of the twin towers falling over, she said. "It was still in my mind."
She went back to New York to cover the Yankees in the World Series. "That turned out to be a healing experience," she said. "I was able to shoot something good, happy and joyful. Who would have thought shooting a Yankees game would be a healing experience?"
She also went back to cover the subsequent U.S. Open competitions.
She plans to reunite this week with friends Chuck Troyer and Claudia Counts, who live in the Broadway area of New York.
The night before the attack on the Trade Center, they had gone out to a pizza restaurant. "It was pouring rain after dinner, and we ran back home, laughing all the way. We had a wonderful time. Then all that innocence was gone the next day," she said.
"Whenever I go to New York, in the 10 years since then, we go to the same pizza place in remembrance of that innocent time before 9/11," Ms. Sancetta said.
She will be relieved when the anniversary of 9/11 is over, she said. "I really don't want to go through it. You don't forget something like that. I want to put it back in a safe place in my mind."
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