The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

The last survivor pulled from the rubble of the collapsed WTC towers, Genelle Guzzman worked on the 64th floor of the North Tower for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. On 9/11, she was working at her desk when Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the WTC. Remembering earthquakes in her country of origin, Trinidad, Guzzman initially thought that an earthquake had hit Manhattan but learned from colleagues that a plane had hit the building. After some initial hesitation, she and her colleagues began to descend via Stairwell B along with Pasquale Buzzelli, a fellow survivor. At 10:28 am, the North Tower collapsed around Guzzman. She recalls, “The building, the walls just opened up” (466).

Incredibly, cocooned within a section of stairs that didn’t completely collapse, Guzzman was buried in rubble but survived. After a few hours, Guzzman heard noises of rescuers above, but her calls for help were not initially heard. Finally, after she’d been buried in the rubble for 27 hours, rescuers calling around the destroyed wreckage of Stairwell B (knowing that a few other survivors were recently found there, including Guzzman’s colleague, Buzzelli) heard Guzzman’s calls, unearthed her, and carried her from the wreckage. Guzzman credits God, to whom she prayed throughout the hours she was buried, for saving her life. Guzzman became a symbol of hope for many rescue workers at the pile; however, tragically, no further survivors were found.

The 43rd president of the US, George W. Bush was serving his first term when the terrorist attacks occurred on 9/11. Having been in office only since January of that year, the nature of Bush’s presidency changed irrevocably after the attacks. Graff’s book documents the steps taken to ensure the president’s safety on 9/11; he was shuttled on Air Force One from Florida to Barksdale Air Force Base, then to Offutt Air Force Base, and finally to Washington, DC, once all planes in the air were officially grounded. On the evening of 9/11, Bush addressed the nation to declare America’s resilience in the wake of the attacks and vowed to find those responsible:

I’ve directed the full resources for our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them (712-13).

Bush declared a global war on terror, beginning with the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan (and parts of Pakistan) by the US and its allies, which aimed to overthrow the Taliban, find and destroy al-Qaeda, and capture and kill Osama bin Laden. This war concluded in 2021. The war on terror also encompassed an invasion of Iraq between 2003 and 2011, which aimed to depose the Ba’athist government of Sadaam Hussein, which was accused of harboring weapons of mass destruction. In addition, Bush established the Department of Homeland Security in response to the attacks and signed the Patriot Act, which armed law enforcement with additional tools to identify potential terrorist targets (“9/11: The Steel of American Resolve.” National Archives, 2024).