Dad • Veteran • Educator
Pearland, TX
Joined March 2009
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I voted! 🗳️
Our democracy matters. Our rights matter. And our communities deserve leadership that values equality, opportunity, and progress.
Your voice matters. Get out and VOTE!
William Phelps retweeted
We promised never to forget September 11, 2001 25 years already. But most importantly we must remember the innocent children whose lives were lost that day children who had done nothing wrong
May they never be forgotten
#NeverForget #NYC
#11septembre
William Phelps retweeted
When the North Tower collapsed on September 11, 2001, Genelle Guzman-McMillan was still inside.
She had been working on the 64th floor of the World Trade Center when the first plane struck. Genelle and her coworkers began the long descent down the emergency stairs. Floor after floor, they kept moving. By the time they reached the lower levels, they had been walking for nearly an hour.
Then the building began to come down.
Genelle remembered holding hands with a coworker. There was a deafening roar, the floor seemed to disappear, and everything went black.
When she regained consciousness, she could not move. Concrete and twisted steel surrounded her. Her leg was pinned. Her head was trapped between pieces of debris. Somewhere above her was the enormous wreckage of a 110-story skyscraper.
Hours passed.
She called out, but no one answered. Fires burned in the ruins. Rescue workers searched an unstable mountain of steel while Genelle remained buried beneath it, unable to know whether anyone was coming.
Night fell. Then morning came.
Genelle prayed. She thought about her daughter. She promised God that if she survived, she would change her life.
Then, after roughly 27 hours beneath the rubble, she heard something.
Rescuers had found her.
On September 12, Genelle was carried from Ground Zero alive. Of the thousands trapped when the towers collapsed, only a small number were pulled alive from the debris.
Genelle Guzman-McMillan was the last.
For nearly 27 hours, the ruins had hidden one more survivor. And beneath all that steel, dust and devastation, she had kept breathing.
#archaeohistories
William Phelps retweeted
911 - HE WAS THE JANITOR🔑
And on September 11, 2001 the key in his pocket suddenly became one of the most important keys in America.
His name was William Rodriguez.
He had worked at the World Trade Center for roughly 20 years.
That morning, Rodriguez was in the basement of the North Tower when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the building.
Chaos erupted.
A badly burned man appeared.
Rodriguez helped him.
Then he could have gotten out.
He went back … Because Rodriguez had something almost nobody else in that building had:
A MASTER KEY 🔑
It opened the stairwell doors throughout the North Tower.
Firefighters and police were rushing into a building thousands of terrified people were trying to escape.
Rodriguez knew the building.
And he had the key.
So he went UP with the rescuers.
Floor after floor.
Door after door.
Unlock. Open. Keep moving.
People were coming down.
Rodriguez kept going up.
He reportedly made it as high as the 39th floor before firefighters ordered him to turn around.
Think about that.
The building had been struck by a passenger jet.
Smoke was spreading.
People were desperately trying to get OUT.
And the janitor was climbing farther INSIDE.
Rodriguez eventually made it back down and survived.
But approximately 200 people he knew at the World Trade Center did not.
25 years later he still carries the memories of that morning.
And he still has the master key.
We remember the firefighters.
We remember the police officers.
We remember the passengers who fought back.
🔥We should also remember the janitor with the key.
William Rodriguez wasn’t carrying a badge.
He wasn’t carrying a weapon.
He was carrying something much simpler.
A key.
And when America was attacked, he used what he had to help save whoever he could.
Never forget William Rodriguez.
Many will never forget where they were on September 11, 2001. I was a senior in high school, watching as our country changed forever.
25 years later, we remember the lives lost, the families forever changed, and the heroes who answered the call.
We will never forget. 🇺🇸
William Phelps retweeted
On September 11, 2001, an iconic photo captured a woman covered head-to-toe in yellow-grey ash after escaping the North Tower. Her name was Marcy Borders, and the world came to know her as the "Dust Lady."
But her survival story didn't end that day - it took a tragic turn years later when 🧵/1
William Phelps retweeted
A former Marine turned office chef refused to leave a woman in a wheelchair behind.
On September 11, 2001, Benjamin Clark was thirty nine years old and working as the corporate chef for Fiduciary Trust on the 96th floor of the South Tower. After the second plane struck he moved through the floor and made sure his coworkers headed for the stairs.
He could have kept going down with them. Instead he stopped on the 78th floor sky lobby, where smoke and wreckage had already trapped the injured and the slow.
A woman there could not walk the stairs on her own. Clark stayed because leaving her meant leaving her to die. The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. He never came out.
A Marine who had already served his country chose one more duty that morning and gave his life keeping it.
William Phelps retweeted
Josephine Harris was 59, a Port Authority bookkeeper with a bad leg, walking down from the 73rd floor of the North Tower on September 11.
By the time the firefighters of Ladder
Company 6 found her in the stairwell, she was exhausted and crying.
They had just been ordered out.
The other tower was already gone.
They did not leave her.
Firefighter Bill Butler put her arm over his shoulder.
“Josephine,” he said, “we’re going to get you out of here today.”
Their pace became hers.
Lower down she collapsed and told them to go on without her.
They refused.
Then the North Tower fell.
Stairwell B held.
The building peeled away around them.
Fourteen people survived in that pocket: firefighters, a Port Authority officer, and Josephine.
People who had passed them on the stairs did not.
The men of Ladder 6 called her their guardian angel.
They believed she slowed them just enough.
Without her they would have been lower when it came down.
Without them, she would not have made it out.
When she died years later, those firefighters carried her coffin.
One of them named a daughter after her.
She was not trying to save anyone.
She was a tired woman who could not walk any faster.
That was enough.
William Phelps retweeted
Meet your heroes and tell them how special they are. Come join @missjillscott and I for a very special House Guest episode tonight at 8pm ET
William Phelps retweeted
BREAKING: Dolly Parton, iconic songwriter, singer and actor, dies at 80. apnews.com/article/dolly-par…
I wore the cloth of this nation. 🇺🇸
Not because America is perfect, but because I believe it’s worth protecting.
This flag belongs to all of us.
Our differences aren’t what make America weak, they’re what have always made us strong.
Happy 250th, America!
#America250
William Phelps retweeted
Tune in today! It’s time to open the Obama Presidential Center! The Grand Opening Ceremony starts at 11 a.m. CT. Tune in to the global livestream and be a part of history from wherever you are xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1DxLddjgw…
Today is the first day of hurricane season.
Take time to make a plan, gather supplies, and stay informed. Preparation today can make all the difference tomorrow.
Stay safe. Stay ready.
