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Coming through the door at work, our receptionist and I exchanged glances. She rides the same subway I do.

People were pretty frantic, and then someone said, "One of the towers fell over," to someone on her cell phone.

This can't be right, I thought. This woman must be cracking up. There's no way such a tower would be falling over. Then I checked my voicemail: My friends and relatives had been leaving messages already for me, concerned.

I knew something was serious.

A team from the company I work for in Chicago headed to NYC for a meeting at our World Trade Center offices today.

We just heard that that team and a missing VP are OK.

Prayers answered; our offices worldwide have been dismissed to be with family and friends.

I got an email from a coworker in NYC who I was to have had a conference call that said "I am trying to get out of the city..."

Now everyone in the office was springing into action. Here in midtown, on the 33rd floor of a relatively anonymous office building, reports spread like wildfire.

Another person repeated the story: A tower had fallen. I still did not believe that story.

I tried to return calls to friends and relatives, but the lines were down. It was sinking in: Something really was happening. Am I safe in our office building?

My friend here at work made arrangements for some of us to stay at the Waldorf. Everything was closing: bridges, subways, tunnels, highways, trains. Manhattan is being locked down.

I started to believe now that a World Trade Center tower was down.

And I could see the smoke outside our office window. Not too far from us, very heavy, dark gray smoke, an ugly color I will not forget.

People were scrambling to leave. Was the building safe? People were concerned about their kids. I tried to log onto FR, and briefly looked at the sidebar threads... FR was slow, but the headlines in the sidebar threads were serious.