On their way home

June Casagrande

NEWPORT BEACH -- A last-minute change of plans moved Rob Stewart’s

8:30 a.m. Tuesday meeting from one of the World Trade Center towers to a

nearby office building.

The Newport Beach resident was walking alone as he heard it crashing

to the ground, escaping death by mere minutes.

At the same moment, Newport Beach resident Lyle Davis was watching

America’s landscape crumble from across the Hudson.

And, still winded from running three blocks at the urging of police

officers, Newport Beach resident Scott Ramser saw the building come down

from a New York Starbucks.

At that indescribably horrible moment, none knew the others were

there. But through messages from their families, they found each other in

the wreckage. This morning, the otherwise stranded and separated

neighbors were scheduled to pile into Davis’ rented Nissan Altima to

begin the 3,000-mile journey home.

“It’s very nice to be able to drive home with a friend,” said Ramser,

41, who was without a way home until he learned Wednesday afternoon that

his friend Davis was in town.

As the three share driving duties, they will also be able to share an

experience that has changed each of their lives forever.

“It was the most horrific, horrendous thing I’ve ever seen in my

life,” said Davis, who had been in Newark on business since Sunday along

with associate Wes Morrissey of Laguna Beach, who will be the fourth

passenger on today’s trip home. “We watched the cloud envelope Manhattan

and the river. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”

Stewart, 35, had been even closer to the carnage. The first tower to

fall landed where he had been standing moments before.

“I had walked away because I couldn’t watch the people jumping or

falling out of the windows anymore,” said Stewart, a husband and father

in New York alone on business. “I turned and started walking away. I

knocked on a guy’s car window and asked him for a ride. When we were

about six or seven blocks away, the tower came down and there was nothing

visible but cloud behind us.”

Ramsey, a married father of four, had been in his hotel room when a

loud blast and clouds of debris outside filled his senses. After

evacuating his hotel, he headed toward the State Street offices where he

was supposed to meet business associates. As he approached, he saw them

sitting in a Starbucks and joined the six or seven others. There, they

watched as chaos overran the city.

“It was like a horror movie,” he said.

People were running around screaming, covered with ash. After holing

up in an office building basement for 2 1/2 hours, Ramsey walked five

miles to Newark, where he found a hotel room. There, he received the call

from his friend Davis.

Without hope of traveling by plane, train or bus, and without a rental

car available anywhere in the city, Davis’ rental car, they decided, was

their only way home.

“We’re getting out of this city; we’re coming home,” Davis, a father

of four, said Wednesday afternoon. “I miss my family, I love them and I

hope to see them soon.”

* June Casagrande covers Newport Beach. She may be reached at (949)

574-4232 or by e-mail at o7 june.casagrande@latimes.comf7 .