Dennis Kopik '69 recounts how he helped lead co-workers out of Tower One on the morning of Sept. 11.

Kopik, who works as a senior buyer for the New York Port Authority, was doing paperwork at his desk on the 63rd floor of Tower One when he felt the building shake violently about 8:50 a.m. He quickly gathered his five co-workers and led them down the stairs to safety.

Kopik had survived the 1993 Trade Center bombing and said he knew there was no time to waste.

"All of a sudden, the building started to shake. I had been through the 1993 bombing, but this one was different. This one was more of a vibration. I looked out my window, and I saw debris falling in flames. We knew something had run into the building."

It took Kopik and his colleagues about an hour to reach the bottom of the Trade Center. "We reacted quickly when the explosion hit. We didn’t linger. The only thing that goes through your mind is getting out of the building. You don’t think of anything else."

Kopik's full account will be featured in the fall issue of the Magazine of Elon.