John McMullen, the former New Jersey Devils and Houston Astros owner, had just completed his workout and was in the shower at the Devils' practice facility in West Orange, N.J., on Tuesday morning when he was called to watch what was unfolding on TV.

	Pedestrians flee the area of the World Trade Center as the center's south tower crashes.

"John, you gotta come look at this," McMullen said Lou Lamiorello, the Devils' CEO and general manager, told him shortly after 9 a.m. McMullen rushed out of the shower and looked at the big screen television in the center of the room.

A live news report showed smoke billowing from a hole in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. A passenger plane had just hit the building. Moments later, McMullen watched on live television as the South Tower -- the building McMullen had worked in from 1975 to 1993 -- was hit by a second American Airlines passenger plane.

The surreal events were unfolding only 18 miles away.

"All the players were there, just watching the television, and I saw this and I was just flabbergasted," said McMullen, whose naval architectural firm, John J. McMullen & Associates, once took up the 30th and 31st floors.

McMullen said he sold the firm eight years ago. Its offices were subsequently moved to the 15th floor of the North Tower building. Both buildings collapsed to the ground on Tuesday morning. The death toll is expected to reach into the thousands.

"I said they did a poor job with dealing with the bombing (in 1993) and I always said someone could be much more successful (at doing harm)," McMullen said from his New Jersey office at Norton Lilly International, a steamship agency which he owns. McMullen sold the New Jersey Devils a year ago to YankeeNets for a reported $175 million.

When McMullen moved in to the World Trade Center in 1975, roughly two years after the structure was built, he said he negotiated one of the best leases in the New York. "We signed a 20-year lease at $4 a square foot." Between the two floors, McMullen said the company took up about 60,000 square feet of office space.

McMullen is permitted to continue working out at the Devils' training facility in New Jersey as a stipulation of his sale of the team to YankeeNets.

McMullen was supposed to attend a series of lectures in his honor at the United States Naval Academy but at 12:15 pm on Tuesday afternoon, he received word from U.S. Naval Academy superintendent Vice Admiral John Ryan that the lecture series were postponed.

McMullen stopped working in the World Trade Center shortly after the bombing in February 1993. "I did it because I wanted to save an hour and a half (commuting) in and out of the tunnels, but I always thought they there would make another attempt since it's such a big target," he said. McMullen, who sold the Astros in 1992, said he was in spring training in Florida watching his former team when he heard about the bombing in '93.

"All you had to see was how close they came to knocking down the whole building," McMullen said. "What a wonderful place, what a great spot. You could do more business in front of that building than any other place in the United States."

Darren Rovell is a staff writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at darren.rovell@espn.com.