9/11 Stories: Beth Chunn

Beth Chunn lived in Neptune, New Jersey but worked for Morgan Stanley on the 64th floor of The World Trade Center in the South Tower. Her train commute was a 5 hour/day ordeal. She remembers texting her boss on the way in, saying, “Is this what it’s all about? Commuting 5 hours a day?!” Beth says it’s strange what she remembers from that day. She recalls looking out her office window at work and thinking to herself, “Those are ‘Simpsons’ clouds.” Getting ready for a meeting, she heard a loud boom. From the conference room, it looked like ticker-tape parade confetti pouring out of the North Tower. She saw a roll of toilet paper unfolding as it fell. Someone in her office who had survived the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 instinctively knew it was another terror attack and yelled “Get the hell out of here! Get the hell out! “ Everyone from her office stayed calm, and almost casually walked down the stairs. When they got to the 20th floor, the building rocked. No one knew it but their building had just been hit by the second hijacked plane. Chunn and her colleagues made their way safely uptown before their building collapsed. Beth’s pregnant sister also worked for Morgan Stanley at The World Trade Center, 8 floors above Beth’s office, but luckily was in Canada with her husband that day, celebrating their anniversary. Beth says that had her sister been at work that day, she would have never left the area without her. Her sisters’ anniversary vacation probably saved Beth Chunn’s life.


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