Interview with Peter Rinaldi

This transcript is based on videotaped interviews conducted by Great Projects Film Company for the documentary "America Rebuilds: A Year at Ground Zero," and has been edited lightly for readability.

Interviewer (Q): I'm actually going to start with a weird question. I want to see if I can take you back before September 11th, any time before September 11th. Put yourself in the Trade Center, somewhere in the Trade Center, because you spent a considerable amount of time down here. Where would you put yourself if I asked you to think about where you would be?

Peter Rinaldi (PR): I were in the World Trade Center today, I would be on the 72nd floor in the northwest corner, where my offices were located. That's where I spent my career in the World Trade Center. I sarted with the Port Authority in 1973 working at the World Trade Center right up until September 11th.

Q: Where were you on that day, by the way?

PR: On September 11th, I was fortunate enough to be on vacation. I had just finished up some work on that previous Friday and had left for two weeks vacation. I was down on the Outer Banks in North Carolina when I had a phone call from my son that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. And then, obviously, events unfolded from there on. Shortly thereafter, I came back up to help out in this whole recovery and reconstruction.

Q: You were in North Carolina, you say?

PR: I was actually down in North Carolina. I've been going on vacation there for the past ten or 12 years, to the Outer Banks. It's a nice beach area. I had left for two weeks vacation, and that got cut short.

Q: I was going to leave on vacation on the 16th, and obviously didn't go. Did you have a daily routine in the building?

PR: Okay. In the World Trade Center, the Port Authority had their corporate offices there, and the engineering department, who I worked for, had their offices there. So my daily routine consisted of heading up and managing the engineering for all our tunnels, bridges and terminals at the Port Authority. You come in every morning, carry forward on the projects we were undertaking, which included planning, design and construction for the Port Authority's tunnels and bridges. [Those include] the George Washington Bridge, the Bayonne Outer Bridge Crossing, Goethal's Bridge, the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Those are the facilities I had responsibility for. So, every day consisted of handling the planning design and the capital program for those facilities.

Q: Up on the 72nd?

PR: On the 72nd floor.

Q: When you heard about the attack, what was going through your mind? Do you remember?

PR: When I first received a phone call that a plane had hit the building, my son had called me, we were on vacation, as I mentioned, in North Carolina. I turned on the TV and saw this large, gaping, flaming hole in Tower One. Someone had mentioned that it was a commuter plane that hit the building. And I remember thinking that that was an awful large amount of damage for a small plane to hit such a strong building. Another thing started to occur to me as I was looking at the weather conditions. Many times when we were in the World Trade Center and I'm sitting on the 72nd floor, it was cloudy and overcast and you can't see out the windows. But this was such a bright, clear day. I found it difficult to comprehend how a plane could just inadvertently hit a building in clear sunlight like that, when you had clear visibility on that day for at least ten to 15 miles. That's what started to go through my head. And then obviously, shortly thereafter, I saw the second plane, as everyone else did, hit the building. That kind of confirmed my fears that this wasn't an accident.

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