"It Was Like Watching Television"

"For the next few minutes, the attitude was, 'Let's get the hell out of here,' " Plumer relates. "We were on the 51st floor, and it was one long elevator ride down."

Plumer eventually made it back to his hotel, where he used e-mail to establish contact with the world outside New York, as telephone and cell phone communications were unavailable. He watched the day's tragic events continue to unfold on television.