:: The Rational Radical Blog ::

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Eerie World Trade Center Story

His Poems Did Not Stop for Death

In 1993, when terrorists ignited a bomb at the World Trade Center, Mr. McEneaney led more than 60 people down 105 flights of stairs, having them sound off so no one would be lost in the blinding smoke.

For weeks after, he coughed up gray-black mucus, clearing his lungs of the remnants of the bombing. He was never able to clear his mind. He suffered from vertigo - attacks of dizziness and nausea.

He told his family he thought he was destined to die around the turn of the century, which he would note was really in 2001.

His premonitions became stark that year. Just a few days before the attacks, he and his brother hypothesized about potential escape routes from the twin towers, should terrorists strike again. Later, he told his wife he felt ready for death. "I asked him right then not to go back to the trade center," she said. "I didn't know what was happening with him. I knew he was exhausted from the commute. I pleaded."

Also, he was becoming serious about his dream of writing. The McEneaneys were having a studio built onto their home in New Canaan, Conn., for that purpose.

On the morning of Sept. 11, he suffered his first vertigo attack in a year. Again his wife asked him to stay home, but he reassured her and caught the 6 a.m. train.

She learned of the attack on her way to work. In her shock, she believed that if anyone could survive, it would be her husband, that he was so athletic he might have climbed down the outside of the building. But two days passed with no hint of his fate.

On Sept. 13, she walked into their backyard and screamed, "Eamon, where are you?" Just then, a gust of wind came from nowhere, blew her skirt and hair with ferocity, and subsided. "I knew," she said. "My father always told me that when people die, they could communicate through the wind. I went inside and told everyone to stop making calls, that he was gone."

This is Art Bell-level weird, isn't it?

Jack Clark 2:43 PM [+]   
Post #110565621562550804