By Keysha Drexel
Journal editor
On those days in early September when the skies are clear and blue, Sunel Merchant prepares himself to relive a nightmare.
Merchant, who until a couple months ago owned the Philly Connection restaurant in Vestavia Hills, said the sunny, calm weather of late summer and early fall always reminds him of what the sky looked like on Sept. 11, 2001 as he looked out the window of his office on the 48th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center.
“This time of year is hard for me, especially on those days when the skies look just as they did that morning when I was at work in the World Trade Center,” he said. “I find myself looking up all the time, and my anxiety increases.”
Merchant, who now lives in Auburn, will speak at the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce’s Sept. 9 meeting about the nightmare he lived through and how he escaped the World Trade Center on that tragic day.
“It can sometimes be hard for me to talk about that day, to go back and relive those terrible scenes in my mind, but I feel it is important to continue to speak about that day,” Merchant said. “There’s that old saying about history repeating itself if you don’t learn from it, and to learn from it, we have to remember what happened.”
Merchant said the events that unfolded on what was supposed to be a typical day at work for him 13 years ago haunt him to this day.
“I get nightmares at least once a week, but during this time of year, it can happen every single night,” he said.
Merchant was standing by his desk when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the tower.
“There was this tremendous sound, and the whole floor was moving,” he said.
As he and others frantically made their way to the stairwell to try to escape, Merchant said, he heard the second plane hit the towers.
“I was down to the 25th floor by that time and I saw a woman that was trying to get out, and she was burned from head to toe,” Merchant said. “There were all kinds of scenes like that playing out in the stairwell in those panicked moments.”
But in the middle of the chaos of smoke and fire and broken bodies, Merchant said, he saw an image that to this day, he finds incredible.
“It was at that moment that I saw a firefighter running up the same stairs we were all rushing down, going into the chaos and danger that we were all trying to escape,” Merchant said. “I still remember the look in his eyes when we passed each other on the stairs–it was like he knew he was not coming back out of that building. But he kept climbing the stairs.”
It is the thousands of selfless acts of bravery like those of the firefighter that Merchant said he hopes people in the Over the Mountain communities–and across the nation–will remember this Sept. 11.
“I think we should look at those heroic acts of the firefighters and police and we should think about how we can also help others,” he said. “It just takes one person helping one person to make the world a better place.”
Merchant said surviving the 9/11 terrorist attacks taught him a lot about true bravery and real superheroes.
A few days after the attacks, Merchant was at home with his then-5-year-old son, and the young boy asked his father who his favorite superhero was.
“I was still very emotional, and I was really in no mood to play around about superheroes,” Merchant said. “I asked him what was so great about Superman or Batman and the look he gave me in his innocence struck me, and I instantly thought of the firefighter I had passed when I was in the stairwell (of the World Trade Center). That’s when I told my son that superheroes do exist–they are the men and women just like that firefighter on the stairwell who risk their lives to protect us every day.”
After 9/11, Merchant and his family moved to Alabama to make a fresh start and soon opened several restaurants.
Merchant and his wife, Sonia, open their Philly Connection restaurants to firefighters, police officers and military personnel each year on Sept. 11, giving them free food and thanking them for their service.
“Anything I can do to give back, to thank them for what they do every day for all of us, it is not enough,” Merchant said.
Merchant has returned to Ground Zero a few times since that tragic day 13 years ago but said it is still hard for him to accept that the original iconic Twin Towers are gone.
“I know it’s not the same towers there now, but sitting over here in Alabama, in my mind, the World Trade Center towers are still there,” he said. “Sometimes it is hard to accept how that day changed all of our lives forever.”
Merchant said in the years since the terrorist attacks, he’s been saddened to see the country lose the patriotism it had immediately following the 9/11 attacks.
“Unfortunately, tragedy binds people together and that’s what we saw in the first months after the attacks, but complacency is once again dividing people,” he said. “When you look at the news on some days, it seems that everyone has forgotten that we are all Americans and that we are all in this together.”
Merchant said when he speaks to the audience at the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce luncheon, he will bring a message of unity, of remembering and of “paying it forward.”
“I really believe in the concept of ‘paying it forward’–of helping someone without expecting anything in return,” he said. “It just takes one person helping one person to make the world a better place.”
Merchant will speak at the luncheon at the Vestavia Country Club Sept. 9. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m., and the program starts at noon. Reservations must be received by 4 p.m. on Sept. 5 and cost $18. Late reservations are $25.
To make reservations or for more information, visit vestaviahills.org.
