“Powder keg” September 11: remember the explosion in the shopping center in 1993

Lolita Jackson sat at her desk on the 72nd floor of the World Trade Center, feeling like she was working on top of the world. Then there was a crash, and smoke billowed from the elevator shaft.

Not understanding what was happening, she joined thousands of other office workers on the torturous descent down the dark, smoky stairs to the attack site.

It wasn’t September 11, 2001. It was February 26, 1993, when a deadly explosion killed six people, one of them was pregnant, and injured more than 1,000 people, which was the harbinger of terror in the Twin Towers.

Jackson hopes Sunday’s 30th anniversary will serve as a reminder that although decades have passed since the seismic terrorist attacks in the United States’ most populous city, no one, anywhere, can say the threat of mass violence has passed. .

She knows this better than anyone: on September 11, she again had to flee from the south tower of the mall.

“I am living proof that this can happen to you, and it can happen to you twice.”

Victims’ relatives, survivors, dignitaries and others gather at the mall on Sunday for a ceremony during which the names of the six people who died in the 1993 bombing, one of whom was pregnant, will be read out. The anniversary events also include a Sunday mass at a church next to the mall and a panel discussion on Monday at the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

The midday explosion in a rented van parked in an underground garage signaled that Islamic extremists were eager to destroy the mall’s twin towers. But after 9/11, public memory of the attack largely faded. Even the fountain that commemorated the bombing was destroyed on 9/11.

But for some survivors and relatives of the victims, the 1993 attack still sounds like a warning that went unnoticed, a loss that goes unheeded, and a lesson that has yet to be learned.

“The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was the tinderbox for the 9/11 attacks,” said Andrew Colabella, cousin of bombing victim John DiGiovanni. Colabella believes the previous attack is largely remembered as a “splash” rather than a siren in the history of international terrorism.

“These two historical events that happened must be engraved in our hearts and minds in order to think as one and be as one,” Colabella said. Now a city council member in Westport, Connecticut, he regularly attends bombing and 9/11 anniversary ceremonies to honor a cousin he lost as a child but can still imagine.

DiGiovanni was at the mall as a visiting salesman. All of his fellow victims worked at the complex. They were Robert Kirkpatrick, Stephen A. Knapp, William Mako, Wilfredo Mercado, and Monica Rodriguez Smith, who was due to take maternity leave the next day.

The names of all six victims are now inscribed in one of the 9/11 memorial pools, and the 9/11 Museum has photographs of them and a room dedicated to discussing the 9/11 bombing.

“Every part of our effort has treated the 1993 explosion as part of the story we are telling,” said museum director Clifford Chanin.

According to federal prosecutors, the explosive device was planted by Muslim extremists who sought to punish the United States for its policies in the Middle East, in particular for Washington’s support for Israel.

Six people were convicted and jailed, including accused ringleader Ramzi Yousef. A seventh suspect in the bombing remains on the FBI’s most wanted list.

According to the FBI, Yousef hoped the bomb would fall on the twin towers, causing one to crash on top of the other. The idea of ​​tearing down the skyscrapers survived: a message found on another convicted conspirator’s laptop warned that “next time it will be very precise and the World Trade Center will remain one of our targets.”

Yousef’s uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, later became the self-proclaimed mastermind behind 9/11, when hijacked planes were used as rockets to strike buildings.

Although the towers withstood the 1993 bombing, it disabled the electricity, backup generators, and public address system. Tens of thousands of people descended the stairs; others were rescued from stalled elevators and a destroyed garage. Some workers smashed windows to get some air, a group of 120 kindergartners got stuck on the observation deck for a while, and police helicopters flew to the rooftops to pick up two dozen people.

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary, the government agency that runs the mall apologized to the relatives of the victims, saying that the complex and the country were not prepared for the attack.

After the explosion, underground parking was banned in the shopping center, CCTV cameras and barriers were installed. The stairwells are equipped with battery-operated lights and reflective tapes. Office tenants stepped up fire drills and issued work permits to enter the complex.

On September 11, 2001, Jackson was back in her office, by then on the 70th floor. When flames began to burst from a nearby tower, her company ordered an immediate evacuation.

She now wonders if what she experienced twice seems “like folklore” to people born after both attacks. She warns against complacency.

“You’re just at work drinking coffee,” she said, “and you might have to run for your life.”