HOUSTON \u2013 A small ATM receipt tucked between two books sat untouched for years.<\/p>\n
The date: Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n
The time: 8:07 a.m.<\/p>\n
For Houston native Billy Forney, the receipt captures an ordinary moment just 39 minutes before his life, and the country, changed forever.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt kind of gave me chills when I saw this,\u201d Forney said. \u201cI usually throw these things away. I don\u2019t even know why or how I kept it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forney recently rediscovered the receipt while going through a box of memorabilia he has collected in the 25 years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It came from a Chase ATM near the entrance to the World Trade Center, where Forney stopped to make a deposit before heading to work.<\/p>\n
\u2018All of a sudden this tremendous explosion occurs\u2019<\/p>\n
In 2001, Forney was living in New York City and working as a commodities trader for SMW Trading Company. His office was on the 85th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n
Forney remembers Sept. 11 beginning as an ordinary Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
He arrived at the World Trade Center complex around 8 a.m., stopped at the ATM and made his way upstairs. He was preparing to leave for the New York Mercantile Exchange when, at 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sitting there in the center of our office, back towards the window, and all of a sudden this tremendous explosion occurs,\u201d Forney recalled.<\/p>\n
He said the force threw him from his chair onto his knees. He remembers a sudden change in air pressure and what looked like a \u201cghostly, white column of air\u201d shooting through the office.<\/p>\n
The building began swaying.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually thought I was going to die,\u201d Forney said.<\/p>\n
The plane struck the North Tower several floors above Forney, between floors 93 and 99. Despite the force of the impact, Forney said the electricity, phones and computers in his office continued working.<\/p>\n
Within about five minutes, he and his colleagues decided to evacuate.<\/p>\n
85 floors to safety<\/p>\n
The first emergency stairwell they tried was blocked several floors below them, forcing the group to find another route.<\/p>\n
When they entered a second stairwell, Forney said the evacuation reminded him of something familiar back home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like Houston traffic at 5 p.m.,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was stop and go the rest of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was no running and, according to Forney, little chaos. People moved slowly and orderly down the tower, one step at a time.<\/p>\n
The descent took roughly 68 minutes.<\/p>\n
At one point, Forney and a colleague encountered a woman named Juliette standing in the stairwell around the 19th floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said, \u2018I can\u2019t go anymore,\u2019\u201d Forney recalled.<\/p>\n
The two men helped carry her belongings and continued down with her. Years later, Forney said Juliette\u2019s husband, a Holocaust survivor, told the two men he believed she would not have survived without their help.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t consider myself a hero,\u201d Forney said. \u201cThis was a lady who was not moving and maybe it was the Texan in me that wanted to help her. <\/p>\n
\u2018It was like a war zone\u2019<\/p>\n
Reaching the bottom of the North Tower did not immediately bring Forney to safety.<\/p>\n
First responders directed evacuees underground in an effort to protect them from falling debris. While Forney was making his way through the underground complex, the South Tower collapsed.<\/p>\n
It was the second time that morning he believed he was going to die.<\/p>\n
Forney said he was pelted by pieces of glass and thought the ceiling above him was going to collapse.<\/p>\n
When he eventually emerged onto the streets of Lower Manhattan, he barely recognized the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like a war zone,\u201d he said. \u201cEverything turned to one color, gray.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dust and debris covered the ground and continued falling through the air.<\/p>\n
Forney said he was still operating almost entirely on instinct, focused on getting away.<\/p>\n
Later, while walking with his colleagues, he heard a collective gasp. He turned around and watched the North Tower, the building where he had started his workday hours earlier, collapse.<\/p>\n
Only then did the enormity of what had happened begin to register.<\/p>\n
He said one of his colleagues told him, \u201cWe\u2019re under attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when it dawned on me,\u201d Forney said. \u201cOh my gosh, you\u2019re right.\u201d<\/p>\n
One phone call home<\/p>\n
Forney\u2019s next priority was letting his family know he was alive.<\/p>\n
With cellphone service disrupted, he found a payphone and called his father\u2019s office in Houston. He knew one call there could quickly spread the word to his parents, his wife and other relatives.<\/p>\n
Friends later told him they could hear the shock in his voice.<\/p>\n
From Lower Manhattan, Forney walked roughly 12 or 13 miles back to his apartment on the Upper West Side. He estimates he finally made it home around 3 p.m.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterward, he went to a hospital because of what he had inhaled while trapped underground. Forney said he received a clean bill of health, but concerns about the long-term effects have stayed with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t live in that fear,\u201d he said. \u201cI just choose to refocus my attention on life, on living, right? Because I did survive and I am alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018My therapy has been telling my story\u2019<\/p>\n
Twenty-five years later, Forney says the memories have not faded.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like it was yesterday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Forney said he has never gone to therapy specifically for what he experienced on 9\/11. Instead, he found another way to process it.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy therapy has been telling my story,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Days after the attacks, a colleague encouraged him to write down everything he could remember. Forney initially emailed his account to only a handful of friends and relatives.<\/p>\n
The story spread.<\/p>\n
Before long, messages were coming back from people he had never met, including people across the United States and overseas.<\/p>\n
That eventually grew into a speaking platform. Forney estimates he has told his 9\/11 story more than 250 times over the past 25 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt allows me to get it off my chest,\u201d Forney said. \u201cAnd it allows me to feel like I\u2019m actually doing something good for people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forney believes sharing firsthand accounts has become even more important as a generation that was not alive on Sept. 11, 2001, reaches adulthood.<\/p>\n
He hopes his story can help preserve what happened and counter misinformation as the attacks move further into history.<\/p>\n
A receipt frozen in time<\/p>\n
That mission is reflected in the box of memorabilia Forney has kept through the years.<\/p>\n
Inside are newspapers, magazines, letters from schoolchildren and other pieces of his life before and after the attacks.<\/p>\n
And now, once again, the ATM receipt.<\/p>\n
Forney said he had not seen it in 25 years before discovering it between two books.<\/p>\n
The receipt shows he completed the transaction at 8:07 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n
Less than 40 minutes later, the North Tower was struck.<\/p>\n
\u201cI usually throw these things away,\u201d Forney said. \u201cI don\u2019t even know why I kept it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forney says the message he wants future generations to take from his experience is simple: \u201cNever forget.\u201d<\/p>\n
That means remembering the people who died, but also the first responders who went toward danger as thousands of others tried to escape.<\/p>\n
Forney also sees his survival as a lesson in resilience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can do hard things,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the easiest things to do is what I did coming down those 85 steps \u2014 focus one step at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Twenty-five years after he walked out of the World Trade Center, Forney is still telling his story.<\/p>\n
And an ordinary ATM receipt from an ordinary Tuesday morning is now another way to remember the moment before everything changed.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 A small ATM receipt tucked between two books sat untouched for years. The date: Sept. 11,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[17802,150158,56,58,57,32354,188,149737,113729],"class_list":["post-432373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-9-11","tag-9-11-attacks","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-september-11","tag-world-trade-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}