By Greg Chandler
Zeeland Record
The skies over New York City were sunny, with no clouds in the sky, the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Chad Creevy was on the 61st floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center as part of a three-week training program with the investment firm Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. He was 22 years old, a recent Michigan State University graduate, married and the father of a one-year-old daughter.
Creevy had just finished attending a presentation as part of his training when he and his colleagues took a break to grab a coffee. Shortly thereafter, he looked out the window, and noticed something was wrong.
“We started noticing particles, like soot from campfire ash, trickling by our window,” Creevy said. “It was right in front of our view. I thought, this is weird – we’re this high up in the city, there shouldn’t be anything flying by our windows.
“Then there was a strong scent of jet fuel that started to permeate the building. In high school, I worked at Tulip City (now West Michigan Regional) Airport. It’s a very kerosene-y, almost diesel-y type smell. This was bizarre – we’re seeing particles fly by, we’re smelling a smell that’s unusual.”
Creevy saw several managers of the training session huddling up – and then he heard the words “start an emergency evacuation.”
Creevy needed no further reminder.
“I grabbed my briefcase and went for the elevators. First elevator I saw, go down,” he said.
While in the elevator, others with Creevy said that a plane had hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. When Creevy heard the word “plane,” he initially thought it was a single-engine Cessna, not a passenger jet.
Creevy did not realize the elevator he boarded did not go straight to the bottom. It came out to another office on the 43rd floor – and it was there he began to see more fully the horror that was unfolding.
“We walked all the way to the back of the office. My face is kind of pressed up against this floor-to-ceiling window and I’m staring up, and it turned out to be an exit hole where the plane had come all the way through,” he said. “It was a big black rim – smoke, fire around the edges – people were falling or jumping … It felt so surreal.”
“I asked the office person ‘what’s the fastest way out?’ He said, ‘you’ve gotta go back in that elevator you just came in. You gotta go up a floor to the 44th. (There’s) an express elevator that takes you all the way to the bottom,’” Creevy added.
Creevy went back up to the 44th floor to grab the express elevator. And as he waited for that elevator – a second plane crashed into the South Tower.
“Lights go out, smoke, panic. I say a prayer, because the building started to rock and I was like, ‘here we go, this is it, it’s goin’ over,’” he said.
“It’s hard to express in words, but a feeling of comfort that I had never felt before and have never felt since – the presence of God – just completely engulfed my being. Almost like a big hug. It was the most calming feeling I’ve ever felt, in that moment where it was the most panicky, the most terror-filled moment I should have been feeling,” he added.
Zeeland Record
The skies over New York City were sunny, with no clouds in the sky, the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Chad Creevy was on the 61st floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center as part of a three-week training program with the investment firm Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. He was 22 years old, a recent Michigan State University graduate, married and the father of a one-year-old daughter.
Creevy had just finished attending a presentation as part of his training when he and his colleagues took a break to grab a coffee. Shortly thereafter, he looked out the window, and noticed something was wrong.
“We started noticing particles, like soot from campfire ash, trickling by our window,” Creevy said. “It was right in front of our view. I thought, this is weird – we’re this high up in the city, there shouldn’t be anything flying by our windows.
“Then there was a strong scent of jet fuel that started to permeate the building. In high school, I worked at Tulip City (now West Michigan Regional) Airport. It’s a very kerosene-y, almost diesel-y type smell. This was bizarre – we’re seeing particles fly by, we’re smelling a smell that’s unusual.”
Creevy saw several managers of the training session huddling up – and then he heard the words “start an emergency evacuation.”
Creevy needed no further reminder.
“I grabbed my briefcase and went for the elevators. First elevator I saw, go down,” he said.
While in the elevator, others with Creevy said that a plane had hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. When Creevy heard the word “plane,” he initially thought it was a single-engine Cessna, not a passenger jet.
Creevy did not realize the elevator he boarded did not go straight to the bottom. It came out to another office on the 43rd floor – and it was there he began to see more fully the horror that was unfolding.
“We walked all the way to the back of the office. My face is kind of pressed up against this floor-to-ceiling window and I’m staring up, and it turned out to be an exit hole where the plane had come all the way through,” he said. “It was a big black rim – smoke, fire around the edges – people were falling or jumping … It felt so surreal.”
“I asked the office person ‘what’s the fastest way out?’ He said, ‘you’ve gotta go back in that elevator you just came in. You gotta go up a floor to the 44th. (There’s) an express elevator that takes you all the way to the bottom,’” Creevy added.
Creevy went back up to the 44th floor to grab the express elevator. And as he waited for that elevator – a second plane crashed into the South Tower.
“Lights go out, smoke, panic. I say a prayer, because the building started to rock and I was like, ‘here we go, this is it, it’s goin’ over,’” he said.
“It’s hard to express in words, but a feeling of comfort that I had never felt before and have never felt since – the presence of God – just completely engulfed my being. Almost like a big hug. It was the most calming feeling I’ve ever felt, in that moment where it was the most panicky, the most terror-filled moment I should have been feeling,” he added.
Zeeland Board of Education member Chad Creevy speaks to students at Zeeland West High School last fall about his experience on Sept. 11, 2001.
Photo courtesy Zeeland Public Schools
Photo courtesy Zeeland Public Schools
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