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John Daley ReportingNow, five years after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, the memories are still fresh for one Utah man. That's because he was there and, in an unexpected twist, he found himself at the scene taking pictures.
Nathan Rafferty is no photographer, he's a ski industry executive, but five years ago he ended up at Ground Zero and took some photos that capture the scene there as well as just about anything you'll see.
After 9-11, Nathan Rafferty, President of Ski Utah, put an extraordinary, eerie photo on the wall of his office, of a fire truck - melted, windows broken, in ruins, at Ground Zero. That photo he took is a grim reminder.
Nathan Rafferty, Witness to 9-11: "The realization, you know, any second, your life can change so quickly."
Rafferty was in New York on business, eating lunch less than a mile from the World Trade Center when the planes hit.
Next morning, he and friend walked down the scene of the disaster. When a man he didn't know saw the digital camera he was carrying…
Nathan Rafferty: "He grabbed me and said, ‘Hey we want you to come down and document our visit downtown, to ground zero.'"
The man was a staffer to Staten Island Congressman Vito Fossella. After taking a few shots of the lawmaker, Rafferty was left to himself. So he took more pictures of the devastation.
Nathan Rafferty: "It looked like something out of a b movie, Godzilla Attacks. There were just chunks out of buildings and whole walls with windows broken and just this surreal scene."
The debris, the smell…
Nathan Rafferty: "The smell is always kind of that wet campfire kind of smell."
...of buildings where people had sprinted for safety, leaving cells phones, laptops, everything behind.
Nathan Rafferty: "It was like kind of wandering onto the Titanic. I walked into the Millennium Hlton that was downtown there. It was totally vacated."
He also remembers the first responders.
Nathan Rafferty: "They'd been down there for 24 hours and maybe it was starting to sink in finally. The magnitude of the event, sleep deprivation, being so tired and working so hard down there."
Five years later, it's all still a shock.
Nathan Rafferty: "We were just going to wake up, beautiful day in New York. Gonna take care of business. Next thing you know September 11th and it's the day everyone is going to remember forever."
So what happened to those photos of the politician Nathan took at the scene? They ended up on Representative Vito Fossella's website.
