A mad dash

By MARY EVERTZ

© St. Petersburg Times,
published September 17, 2001

For a St. Petersburg family, everything was fine. Then it wasn't. Then it was. Then . . .

Michael Ballou, a St. Petersburg native and graduate of Boca Ciega High, was at work at Deloitte and Touche at 2 World Trade Center when a plane hit the other tower. He called his wife, Amy, at their 11th-floor apartment across the Hudson in New Jersey, and told her he was all right.

Amy called her mother, Kathleen DeMeza, in St. Petersburg and was giving her an eyewitness account of the horror in Manhattan. Then the second plane hit Michael's tower.

[Family photo] Michael Ballou made a frantic call across the Hudson River to his wife, Amy. Everything was all right, or so it seemed.

Michael and Amy were married last St. Patrick's Day at St. Jude Cathedral in St. Petersburg. He received his CPA and MBA from Wake Forest University; she graduated from St. Petersburg Catholic and the University of South Florida and is working on a master's degree at New York University.

Michael's mother, Yvonne Ulmer, is associate provost of St. Petersburg College. She is married to Circuit Judge Ray "Gene" Ulmer, the administrative family judge for Pinellas-Pasco. Michael's father and stepmother, Raymond and Margaret Ballou, also live in St. Petersburg.

For several hours no one in the family knew if Michael was alive or dead. All phone contact with Manhattan was severed.

Then, the impossible. Watching TV, Yvonne Ulmer saw a familiar face among the panicked throngs.

It was Michael. She was sure of it.

He had been on the 15th floor when the second plane hit. It took him a minute and a half to get to the street. He ran to the ferry back to New Jersey, but he didn't have any money and they wouldn't let him board.

Michael sprinted six blocks to the nearest ATM, got the money, ran back and boarded the ferry. In Jersey City he was reunited with Amy and was able to call home to St. Petersburg.

He turns 28 tomorrow.

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