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Isabelle Coelho-Marques was working at the Consulate General of Portugal in New York that morning of September 11. Luís Mendes is an architect and, that same day, he was called to lead the debris removal crews from the twin towers that two planes taken by terrorists linked to al-Queda destroyed in just under two hours of suffocation.
“When I woke up it was the perfect day.” Isabelle Coelho-Marques never forgot what she saw and lived in the early hours of September 11, 2001 in the city that never sleeps.
The daughter of Portuguese parents, Portuguese-American living in the United States since 1993, she arrived in Manhattan and, as usual, took a traditional bright yellow taxi to the Consulate General of Portugal, where she was working at the time, next to Rockfeller Center. What seemed like a normal day quickly turned into one of the most memorable moments of her life.
“The taxi driver started saying that a plane crashed into one of the towers [do World Trade Centre]. English was not enough to understand and I thought: you must have noticed the wrong news ”.
But when I got to work, the confirmation came. A plane had crashed into one of the towers of one of the most emblematic buildings in the city, about 8.8 kilometers from where it was.
“Soon after, they started talking about a second plane crashing. Then we all realized that this was going to be an attack. On the building’s loudspeakers they started calling for the building to be evacuated, to leave, not to use the elevators and going out by stairs. “describes Isabelle, who wandered the square streets of New York while the police circulated with megaphones asking people to go to the banks of the rivers and leave the center of the city.
“We started walking, heading towards the West Side Highway, where the towers were. There were a lot of people and people were going slow. I remember at one point I heard that one of the towers had fallen, even before it reached the water, where it could have visibility, ”recalled Isabelle, who had her ex-husband also working in the city and near the World Trade Center.
“He managed to talk to me, he told me to go to the West Side Highway. When I got there there was smoke and a building had already collapsed. I think that’s when I had a real idea of what was happening. Everything stopped, no there were comments, there was no hysteria, people looked, in shock, and cried when they saw that. Meanwhile I saw the second tower fall “, Isabelle recalls with emotion.
The attempt to leave the city after the attack was a real challenge for the Portuguese-American, who was in transit for eight hours.
The shock reflected in the faces and the difficulties of the teams to reach the ground are still some of the most present memories. “I will never forget for the rest of my life the normal cars that leave the city and the road, until they get home. Ambulances, fire engines … Just when we were having trouble getting out of town, they had trouble getting out of town. go in. There was congestion on both sides. But on our side we were fleeing and on the other side they were going to meet to help. “
On September 11, 2001, while Isabelle was trying to leave the city, Luís Mendes, a Portuguese architect, was called in to help. She led the teams to remove the remains of the Twin Towers and participated in the project to rebuild the entire area surrounding Ground Zero, where the towers were located.
Luís was in the office when he received the call that would take him to the center of the attack with an emergency team. “A police car came to pick me up and when I got to Manhattan I saw a scene, I thought it was in a movie. I was in a surreal situation, I couldn’t believe it. On 1st Avenue I just saw waves of people running, it was totally brutal. I hope I never see something like that again. “
In the following days, Isabelle, with Ambassador Cruz de Almeida, had the mission of assisting Portuguese citizens in the search for relatives who were victims of the attacks.
“A line was opened in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for people who wanted to know about relatives with whom they had not had contact in 10, 20 years. We received many requests for the location and identification of Portuguese citizens who died in the attack. It was a quite difficult and long work. ”He admits Five Portuguese died in the Twin Towers.
19 years later, Isabelle believes that the attack is still present in the memory of New Yorkers.
“There is a noise over the buildings, an airplane or a helicopter and people immediately have a tendency to look. September 11 was indeed a milestone for all New Yorkers. There were many people who chose to go out, look for work outside the city. I’m still in love with the city, “she admits.
“Sometimes I still have a hard time identifying what happened. I am scared every time I go through the tunnels to access the city. I only feel good when I go out. It’s not because I’m scared of anything, it’s because any day I can be a goal again. “
For Luís, participation in the project was fundamental in his career, but although he felt the weight of responsibility, he quickly devoted himself to other jobs “too complex for the city to be” protected “, not only laboratories, hospitals, but also a technology better and more effective for attacks that may occur. “
The Portuguese was vice president of the 9/11 Memorial and a key player in the project to rebuild and transform the space that holds the stories of the first attack of the century. The attacks left their mark, but Luís prefers to look to the future. “September 11 passed little by little. You can’t always be thinking about that. Everyone remembers it, but the city has returned to normal ”.
Photos: Carlo Allegri / Reuters, Kai Pfaffenbach / Reuters, Mike Segar, Peter Morgan / Reuters, Ray Stubblebine / Reuters
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