Dear Brother and Sisters,

Each year when the anniversary of 9/11 comes around, I find myself contemplating the impact
this terrible event had on both me personally and the country as a whole. This weekend, at the Utah
Prepare Convention in Sandy, I had the privilege of hearing Joseph Dittmar Sr. give the Keynote Address
about his experiences surviving the collapse of the World Trade Centers on 9/11. Both his story and the
lessons he learned that day are of great value to the rest of us.

As your friend, neighbor and as one of the Glacial Park Ward Emergency Preparedness
Specialists, I am sharing this story.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM 9/11

Joseph Dittmar, Sr. has worked in the Fire Insurance industry for the past 39 years. On
September 10-11, 2011, he was attending a small conference of insurance industry professionals in the
NYC offices of the AON Corporation. On September 11th, the conference was held in a windowless room
on the 105th Floor of World Trade Center 2 (the "South Tower", WTC2). The meeting began around 8
a.m. and included 53 other people. At 8:45 a.m., the lights in their conference room flickered just a bit.
That was all no loud noise, no other tell-tale sign that a disaster was beginning to unfold the likes of
which our country had never seen. A few minutes later, a custodian interrupted the meeting to say that
there had been an explosion in WTC1, the North Tower and that everyone in WTC2 was supposed to
evacuate.

Joseph and the others were well aware that a much smaller terrorist attack had occurred in
1993, beneath that same building - WTC1. It hadn't harmed very many people, so their inclination was
to stay. However, the custodian urged them to leave, saying, "I can't evacuate until everyone on my
three floors are gone and I WANT TO EVACUATE!"

Upon hearing this, all 54 of them, including Joseph, decided to GO. They entered the stairwell
and started down.

Keep in mind that, up to this point, they had not seen outside the building and did not know
what was going on as they headed down the stairwell.

At the 90th Floor, Joseph noticed that someone had broken the Fire Code by propping open the
stairwell door. Most people on the stairs at that point made the decision to exit onto this floor.

That was where everyone was finally able to have a view of the North Tower. A deep, fiery gash
was on its side from which fell paper, furniture, fiery objects, plane partsand people.

As Joseph was trying to grasp the magnitude of what he was seeing, the building's PA system
suddenly crackled to life. The "event", it said, had been contained to WTC1. So everyone in WTC2 who
was evacuating could go back to their offices.
 [Joseph stopped here in his presentation to counter criticism that WTC2 should never have
stopped the evacuation process. No one knew at this point that the second tower would be hit and it
wasn't safe to exit the building - furniture, metal, and people were falling from the North Tower in close
proximity to Tower 2].

The sight outside the windows on the 90th Floor was so horrendous that Joseph decided to
ignore the PA system and continue down. He was pushed by a deep sense of fear in the pit of his
stomach and a longing for HOME.

This decision would save his life.

As Joseph turned to exit the 90th Floor, a big, tall, burly man whom he knew from the
conference, decided he would go down, too, But he first needed to make a "pit stop" and headed
toward a nearby restroom, a move which would cost him his life.

Joseph headed down the crowded stairway. When he reached the 78th Floor, which housed one
of the Sky Lobbies and some elevators, many people decided to wait there.

[Elevators in the Twin Towers did not go from ground to top that was impossible. The first
elevator only went from the ground to the 78th Floor. From there you had to get out and take another
elevator to the upper floors. On 9/11, many people waited on the 78th Floor to take the express
elevator down to the ground].

Given the option, Joseph didn't feel good about using the elevators that day, so he left many of
his colleagues behind on the 78th Floor and continued to head down the stairs.

When he reached the 74th Floor, the building was suddenly rocked by a terrible concussion. The
stairwell swayed mightily and the steps "undulated like waves in the ocean." The handrail became
detached from the wall and a smell of jet fuel passed through there accompanied by a feeling of intense
heat.

The second plane had hit.

No weeping or wailing answered the shaking of the stairwell. Instead, an intense silence settled
over everyone. Then, after a minute or two, a communal effort began with everyone helping each other
get down the stairs. Against the wall, people began discarding anything that could slow them down
women's high-heeled shoes, briefcases, laptops.

Around the 35th Floor, everyone on their way down began to encounter the fire personnel and
police officers who were making their way up to the impact site. Their eyes told the story.

"These were they who were going up to fight the firemarching into the bowels of Hellwho
knew they were going up and NEVER, ever coming back down."

Once Joseph reached the ground floor lobby, no one was being allowed to leave through the
main doors because of falling debris and jumpers. Instead, everyone was being funneled through the
underground concourse that ran between WTC1 and WTC2. As he made his way along the corridor, he
saw a Starbucks which was inexplicably still open with people lined up to get their coffee. Passing by this
surreal display of normalcy, he made it safely outside and across the street to St. Paul's Catholic Church.
There, he finally turned around, looked up and saw firsthand the nightmarish scene that was being
broadcast to TVs across the nation.

From there, he headed 8 short blocks uptown. There, by the open doors of a store that was
blasting TV coverage of the event, Joseph learned about the terrorist attacks. Then came "the sound
that people who were there that day will never forget" of metal twisting and snapping as Tower 2
began to collapse to the ground.

Everyone began screaming and running for their lives.

Joseph escaped from the cloud of debris which engulfed the city and made it up to Penn Station
where throngs of confused and frightened people were trying their best to get on trains to get out of
town.

As Joseph attempted to hand his roundtrip ticket to an attendant, she exclaimed, "We aren't
taking tickets today, Honey!"

Everyone that day was doing their best to help and support each other.

Joseph made it to Philadelphia and his parents' home, where he later rented a car and drove
double the speed limit to make it home to Chicago in 11 hours.

There are a number of lessons that Joseph learned that day, which we could all learn from and
they are as follows:

1) Don't put off saying "I love you".

You never know when an opportunity to do so may be the last one for you and your loved one.

2) We are not invulnerable as a country.

We must recognize those who want to hurt us and we must pre-act, not react.

3) Don't sweat the small stuff.

In the end, what gets you through is you, your loved ones and The Big Guy upstairs."

4) NEVER, NEVER, NEVER FORGET.

 We owe it to those who lost their lives that day, to not forget what they endured. We owe it to
ourselves and our country to not forget the lessons of that day, especially this one - how an
immense city of diverse people worked together for the common good.

I hope you find this story as meaningful as I did. Please don't let Monday, the 11th, pass without
taking a few moments for contemplation. Life is so precious. I hope we will hold our loved ones a little
closer, help our families be better prepared and always remember that our greatest strength in any given
situation is each other.

Elizabeth Gibson

Mark & Elizabeth Gibson, Glacial Park Ward Emergency Preparedness Specialists, 801-888-3173