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Marylander Survives World
Trade Center Attacks, Views Days Differently Now
By
Kim Harris
Series: Tragedies' Footprints TIMONIUM, Md. - "I couldn’t help but think it was just not my day to die," Steve Peck says simply. Peck made it out of the north tower of the World Trade Center alive Sept. 11, through a combination of luck and speed. “This is not one of those six degrees of separation events. This is a one degree of separation event,” says the Timonium resident, who works as a vice president for a Minneapolis-based computer software firm. “You cherish every day differently."About 5,000 people are still missing and 422 are confirmed dead in New York, after two commercial jets carrying 157 people were steered into the center's twin towers. Unlike other survivors of the terrorist attacks, Peck says he has not been “struggling with the 'why wasn’t it me or not me?' Or 'why I was even there in the first place?' " There have been no bad dreams. Peck believes he survived for a reason. "Being in that building and getting out unscathed is ultimately a gift that I must do something with to contribute to the greater good," he says. "I have two little kids, so I know there is a lot of parenting I have to do." Peck says that while it may sound strange to say, and while he wishes the tragedy never happened, “being in the World Trade Center, and getting out safely, has been a blessing to us.”
Peck arrived in New York the day before the plane crashes. On Sept. 11, after spending the night at the Marriott Hotel next to the towers, he reported to the north tower at about 8:15 a.m. with eight of his Adaytum coworkers for a meeting with the New York and New Jersey Port Authority. On the way up to the meeting, Peck recalls a colleague in his group questioning whether the meeting was on the 90th, 63rd or 30th floor. When they checked their itinerary, they discovered the meeting was on the 63rd floor. “Everybody remembers that. Had the meeting been on the 90th floor [above where the American Airlines jet struck the building], it would have turned out completely differently,” Peck says. But the meeting never got underway. Peck, the first scheduled speaker, recalls that shortly after he put some brochures on the table, “all of a sudden the building just shook." It was about 8:45 a.m. Peck grabbed the chair next to him and locked eyes with one of his partners in the room. “We both just thought the building was going to fall,” he says. After 10 seconds , the building stopped shaking. Thinking a bomb had gone off, everyone in the conference room made a mad dash for the door, as tiles and dust dropped from the ceiling. “It was two quick rights out of the conference room, and I was in that stairwell in about 20 seconds,” Peck says.The group got quickly down to the 37th floor before the route out of the building slowed. “It was a straight line of people. At that moment, everyone had a chance to gather their thoughts," he says. What he was thinking , he says, was, "just run, run, run!"Peck recalls seeing firefighters, police officers and plainclothes security people going up , as they made their way down. "Those are the faces I remember the most,” he says.While he was waiting in the stairwell, Peck tried phoning his wife, Tricia, to let her know he was safe. He didn't reach her, but left a message on their answering machine telling her that there had been an explosion in the building, but he was getting out. It would take him about 35 minutes to get from the 37th floor out of the building. He says it “seemed like it took forever.” When he finally made it out side, police were ushering the crowd away from the scene, but “thousands of people were just standing in shock.”Peck and another colleague headed away from the building. Both stopped at a phone booth to call home. As he was waiting to make his call, Peck says he saw a woman standing nearby whose face "had sheer terror on it." The woman was looking at the towers. When Peck turned to see what she was looking at, “You could see this tower of smoke flying up Broadway. It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before.” The south tower, struck by a United Airlines jet shortly after 9 a.m., was collapsing. Running north away from the smoke and the dust, Peck hailed a cab that took him to a small train station in Harlem. With the help of a man on the train, Peck managed to get to a Hertz office and rent a car for about $300.Home, At Last
Six hours later, Peck pulled into his driveway in Timonium. “It was almost nine hours from when the plane hit. I was able to hug my wife and [three] kids. It was pretty amazing,” he says. Peck took a picture of himself, his wife, and his two youngest children, before they were tucked into bed. He and his wife "still get choked up about when we think about the conversation she might have had to have explaining to 3-year-old Morgan why her daddy wasn't coming home," Peck says. "We both know how close that really was." "We are both very much aware of how different things could have been," agrees Tricia Peck, 38. "We are ... just trying to make the most of the time that we have." Steve Peck says he doesn't want to live paralyzed with fear. "I will be getting on a plane either the next week or the week after next," he says. "I am ready to go." He also plans to return to New York soon, for business. "I will take the train as I did [for] Sept. 11 and plan to allow time to visit ground zero,” he says. Meanwhile, his home life has been undergoing changes. Peck says he and his wife of more than seven years are much closer and “work very hard to stay on the same side" when dealing with daily issues. “She and I have real conversations, beyond the how-was-your-day kind of talks. We hug each other tighter every day,” he says. As for his children, Peck says while the two youngest--Noah, 17 months, and Morgan, 3--are too young to tell the difference, “dad hugs them tighter than ever now.”
Peck says his eldest son, Steve, 14, has done a pretty good job communicating "that he was glad dad was still around." Peck says he thinks more now about the small stuff. "I value each moment spent with the people I care for. Whether it's an early morning with the kids, a date with my wife, a round of golf with my buds, or just 15 minutes over coffee with a long-lost friend ... I make sure I take in the moment fully." On Sept. 19, Peck turned 41. "That was a day I would have worked," he says. Instead he left a message on his work voice mail saying he would be gone all day. That day, the only call he returned was to the eight other coworkers who had been in the World Trade Center with him Sept. 11. "It was a chance not to cry, because we are all guys, but to commiserate and laugh a little, fill in the gaps. "The bond is very strong between all of us."
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