ULA ILNYTZKY
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- Joel Kopel saw it all from the shop he manages. He saw both planes hit the World Trade Center, and he frantically ran to his daughter's school through debris-filled streets, praying she was alive.
His daughter was safe but traumatized.
Nine days later, Kopel returned to assess the damage in his looted jewelry store a block from the Trade Center. Tangible reminders of that awful day were all around him: 6 inches of ash, cement, drywall and other debris lay thick on the store's floor and display cabinets. Insurance adjusters will have to make an assessment before the reminders can be erased.
Most of the inventory from the 117-year-old William Barthman jewelry store had been placed in a safe on the day of the attack. A handful of items were stolen sometime over the weekend. But that was a small concern compared to what Kopel lived through on Sept. 11.
Just before the first plane struck, he heard it roaring overhead. Then came a noise that reminded him of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
He looked outside and saw ``millions and millions of pieces of paper were floating down. It was almost like a parade.''
Instead, the unimaginable had occurred.
``Everyone on Broadway was looking up at the building on fire,'' he said. Still, the enormity of what had happened didn't penetrated until 15 minutes later when the second plane hit.
``We had the radio on, and we knew something was terribly wrong,'' he said. ``I yelled, `Let's get the heck out of here!''' Sometime during the chaos they managed to put most of the jewelry in a safe.
Frantic, Kopel and his wife, Renee ran through ankle-deep debris toward Intermediate School 89, two blocks behind the Trade Center.
They reached the school just before 10 a.m. and found their 13-year-old daughter, Jackie.
``Jackie comes over and says, `Our window faces the World Trade Center. All the kids saw the planes hit the building, and then we saw people holding hands and jumping down.'''
The lights blinked in the school cafeteria ``once, then again.''
``Then we heard a rumbling sound, like a B-52 bomber taking off, getting louder and louder _ the Trade Center was coming down,'' he said.
The school was immediately evacuated. ``We started running north as fast as we could. The school was being pelted by the debris from the World Trade Center,'' he recalled.
``We saw people on the streets crying, hysterical. We didn't know what was safe; we didn't know what would be the next target.''
The family is safe now, and struggling to get back to its regular routine, and Kopel said Thursday that he finds much to be thankful for.
At the last minute, his wife had changed her mind about going to a grocery in the Trade Center concourse.
Kopel still has a job, at another store in Brooklyn.
Their apartment, five blocks away, is livable.
Their daughter's school is being used as an emergency command center; she's attending classes elsewhere. But she's alive.
On Thursday, the count of people missing in the World Trade Center attacks surpassed 6,300. Of the 241 bodies recovered, 170 have been identified.
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