Steve Peck was sitting in a conference room on the 63rd floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower, preparing for a meeting, when the first plane struck the building on the morning of September 11, 2001. He ran to the nearest stairwell and began the long descent, only to feel the second tower get hit while he was still evacuating. Nine hours later, he was back home in Maryland, reunited with his wife and two young children in Timonium.
Peck shared his story in an interview with WJZ's Dennis Valera, recounting the smell of smoke filling the staircases and the way strangers looked out for one another as they filed down floor after floor, according to CBS Baltimore. He left a message for his wife while still inside the tower, then called her again after feeling the second plane's impact. Peck still keeps a folder with photographs, memorial images, and the security badge that let him into the World Trade Center that morning.
Peck was in a 63rd-floor conference room when he began his evacuation. American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower between floors 93 and 99 at 8:46 a.m., severing all three primary stairwells above floor 92 and trapping everyone caught higher up, according to the federal 9/11 Commission Report. Peck was in a 63rd-floor conference room. He was one of an estimated 13,000 to 15,000 people who made it out of the Twin Towers before they fell, per the World Trade Center Evacuation Study conducted by Columbia University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A Family Tradition Born From Survival
The night Peck made it home, his family began a tradition that continues today: taking a photograph together to mark the anniversary of his return. He describes every year since as “bonus time,” a phrase that has stuck with him as he has retold his survival story many times over the past quarter-century, the CBS Baltimore report notes. Peck says he now makes a point of thanking every firefighter and police officer he encounters, and he calls for people to honor those who died in the attacks while pushing for more unity across the country.
“America was at its best during the worst time,” Peck said, reflecting on how World Trade Center evacuees helped one another that day regardless of political party or occupation. He advocates for living life to the fullest, a lesson he says he carries with him from the moment he ran for that stairwell.
How 9/11 Reshaped Building Codes and Public Health
The structural lessons of that day reached far beyond Peck's own escape. On its 2021 World Trade Center Investigation page, the National Institute of Standards and Technology reported that its federal investigation into the WTC collapses influenced more than 40 changes to International Code Council building codes, including wider emergency stairwells, hardened elevator shafts, and improved structural fire resistance. The health toll on survivors has also been part of the broader discussion. The FDNY Fire and Life Safety Director Curriculum says Local Law 5 was passed after five fatalities occurred in two New York City high-rise buildings in 1970. New York City's Local Law 26 of 2004 is also part of the fire-safety discussion. The New York City Fire Code is also part of the discussion.
That toll has extended well past the day of the attacks themselves. By late 2024, the Fire Department of New York reported that more than 360 FDNY members had died from 9/11-related toxic exposure illnesses tied to recovery work at Ground Zero, a number that now exceeds the 343 firefighters killed in the attacks, as Hoodline reported in its coverage of Baltimore's 25th-anniversary stadium climb.
Maryland's Own Ties to That Day
Peck's story sits alongside Maryland's broader connection to 9/11. A total of 68 Maryland residents were killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, according to the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The state's Maryland 9/11 Memorial at Baltimore's Inner Harbor, dedicated on the tenth anniversary in 2011, centers on three 22-foot twisted steel columns recovered from the North Tower, resting on limestone blocks salvaged from the Pentagon's damaged west wall.
Maryland also hosts the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, which is headquartered in Emmitsburg and operates from the National Emergency Training Center in Frederick County, Maryland, and coordinates national 9/11 memorial stair climbs and survivor support services. Peck's story remains connected to the World Trade Center site.
Twenty-five years later, Peck is still telling his story, still thanking first responders, and still describing each anniversary as “bonus time.” His account joins a wave of 25th-anniversary reflections from survivors around the country, a reminder that for those who lived through it, September 11 never fully recedes into history.
