My 9/11: I missed the second tower being hit - the phone line didn't reach the door

I was on the ground floor of the South Tower when the first plane hit the North Tower. It sounded like a huge skip of concrete falling from a great height. Some dust or smoke came through the lobby and people started rushing through urging us to get out. I fumbled on the floor for my MiniDisc and recorded maybe 20 seconds of atmos which turned out to be useless.

I then left the building and crossed the road to a newsagent, seeing the burning top of the North Tower over my shoulder. I persuaded the shopkeeper to let me use his phone to call the desk in London. Mobile phones then were rare. 

The desk put me through to various radio programmes and I was on the air at the top of the hour. 

I was also on the air when the second plane hit the South Tower above us, though I didn't see it because the phone line didn't stretch to the door. The newsagent insisted on closing and pulling down the shutters. He refused - I'm pleased to say - my offer of my credit card in return for continued use of his phone. To get a phone, I went into empty neighbouring shops (I remember Kinkos) and wandered round trying the phones - nine or zero for an outside line, all to no avail. So I went to the Embassy Suites on Vesey Street by the North Tower and hired a room for the phone. 

I can remember looking out and seeing a line of neat fire trucks and thinking everything was OK because the authorities had arrived. I was on the air - I think to News 24 - when the North Tower collapsed, cutting the line off. I can remember ranting at this. The hotel alarm went off and we evacuated down a back stairs in an orderly fashion.

I then headed towards the East River, seeking a crew to do a piece to camera. Eventually, I did a deal with a crew from TechTV: I would give them an eyewitness account and they would record a PTC. During my account, the South Tower collapsed behind me (above). I then decided to head uptown and cadged a lift. 

I sat on the back seat with a Chinese-American woman who was going into labour. Her thoughts were flitting between the big event in her own body and the big event she was leaving. She gave me a phone number for her husband which, I'm ashamed to say, I lost somehow in the flurry. Later in the day, I retrieved the tape from TechTV and fed it to London.

Some thoughts: very quickly presenters in London knew more than I did. It didn't need any dressing up - no purple prose or false gravitas - just tell it. I was very angry at the attacks, seeing them as a personal attack on me and on democracy, but I think I kept that off the air. Should I have?

Stephen Evans is now the BBC's Berlin Correspondent.

The is the first in a short series of personal memories of the coverage of 9/11, around the tenth anniversary of the attack.