Utahn in N.Y. knows to be prepared

Ten years later, Brent Belnap remembers the surreal events of 9/11 as if it were yesterday. The crystalline blue skies. The smell of burning rubber. A strange nudge in the back. A thick cloud of ash that turned day to night. Resumes falling from the sky. Apocalyptic scenes of ghosty figures walking like zombies through the desolation.

"I remember thinking as I walked to the office that it was a beautiful day — no haze, blue skies, a little cool," says Belnap. "Just a perfect day."

Like millions of others around the country, Belnap will reflect on the events of 9/11 this week as the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center is marked Sunday. He was in the shadow of the doomed WTC that morning and exhibited the kind of quiet, unsung courage that came to definite the tragedy. Like a ship's captain, he didn't abandon ship until he had seen to the safety of his crew.

Belnap, who grew up in Ogden and graduated from BYU, was working on Wall Street at the time as a lawyer for Citibank, his office just a few minutes' walk from the World Trade Center. He also was — and this is relevant to his story — president of the New York New York Stake for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which included nine wards and two branches in Manhattan.

Belnap was riding the subway when he felt a jolt during a stop at Fulton Street. The other passengers felt it, as well. What was that? He saw a panicked woman run onto the train, but she said nothing.

"As we were sitting there, there was the unmistakable smell of rubber," says Belnap.

He disembarked at the next stop, and as he walked out onto Broadway and Wall Street he smelled burning rubber again and noticed paper fluttering down out of the sky. It's only September, he thought to himself; the Yankees couldn't have won the World Series, so it can't be a ticker-tape parade. What else could we be celebrating?

He looked up and saw a large gash in the side of the South Tower of the WTC; it was bellowing smoke and more paper — full-size sheets of paper. He picked one off the street; it was a contract. He picked up another one — someone's resume. A stranger told him that he had heard something about a plane hitting the building. Belnap noticed a long line of people trying to buy disposable cameras at an adjacent photo shop and hundreds of the curious were moving toward the WTC.