By:Laurie Budgar Dwek
There was the dust, the noise, the acrid smell. There was the billowing white smoke. And then there was the black smoke. Billy Halsey got caught in the black smoke.
Halsey and Nelly Davorenwere selling fruits and vegetables at the farmers' market at the World Trade Center like they do every Tuesday, when a pair of hijacked planes ripped through the Twin Towers of that New York City landmark, vomiting concrete and steel and body parts and clothing, computers and pencils and photographs.
Debris was raining down on the street,said Linda Concklin-Hill, a farmer who operates a stand right next to Nelly and Billy, at the World Trade Center and at the Lynbrook farmers' market.
Nelly had seen the first plane hit the tower. I thought the plane was flying very low,she said. I just figured it would crash on top of the tower ... I saw the plane coming in, but I didn't see it coming out,she said in her thick Irish brogue.
At first, Billy thought it was just a sonic boom. But when the debris started coming down, he told the two women to hide in their employer's truck. Fred and Ethel Terry run a farm in Orient Point and make their living working various fairs on Long Island and in New York City.
Linda said they started pulling other people into the truck with them.
When we came out, all we saw is paper flying down from offices, and computers. Billy saw a picture on the ground [of] a couple and a baby,said Nelly.
Billy told the women they had to pack up their equipment, to keep it safe, and so emergency vehicles could get through.
All of a sudden, there was this huge explosion
