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You have no idea what you are talking about. No one knew what was going on at the time. The 911 operators were in a dark room in a different location. No one knew if FDNY was going to get there or what. Do you realize how many floors the WTC has? And what exit? Tower 2 didn't have any viable exits to handle that amount of people, if they were located in a spot where there was a staircase. EXITS??? who could see the exit signs in that cloud of smoke. Tower 1 took an hour to go down. No one knew that Tower 2 was also going to be hit and that it was a deliberate attack. They thought it was a plane crash-an accident at first after T 1 was hit.
My friend got out by the skin of his teeth only because the nurse (for an employee medical exam) had been there for the 1990s bombings and told him not to wait but to leave as she was doing. Fortunately, he was only on the ninth floor. These buildings are big. For some they heard a loud crash somewhere on "top" and then they continued working. No one expected the towers to collapse (we know why they did now).
You have no idea what you are talking about. No one knew what was going on at the time. The 911 operators were in a dark room in a different location. No one knew if FDNY was going to get there or what. Do you realize how many floors the WTC has? And what exit? Tower 2 didn't have any viable exits to handle that amount of people, if they were located in a spot where there was a staircase. EXITS??? who could see the exit signs in that cloud of smoke. Tower 1 took an hour to go down. No one knew that Tower 2 was also going to be hit and that it was a deliberate attack. They thought it was a plane crash-an accident at first after T 1 was hit.
My friend got out by the skin of his teeth only because the nurse (for an employee medical exam) had been there for the 1990s bombings and told him not to wait but to leave as she was doing. Fortunately, he was only on the ninth floor. These buildings are big. For some they heard a loud crash somewhere on "top" and then they continued working. No one expected the towers to collapse (we know why they did now).
This is why I think it's important to know where and when the calls were coming from if the operators told them to stay. I have heard calls from One WTC above the survival line. It is stark--everyone on 91 is alive, everyone on 92 is dead. The plane went in around 93 and 94, and debris blocked all the staircases for people on 92. This is not to say that people on lower floors did not die--they certainly did, but my point here is that NO ONE above 91 in T1 got out alive. I have coworkers who got down from some of the 80s, and at least one of the staircases was blocked there, too, but they made their way to another one because and got down because one of the people in that group was in charge of all buildings services and knew the place like the back of his hand.
I have heard calls made from those upper floors in T1 where the staircases are blocked. Those people ARE told to wait for help, because there was nothing else to tell them. I have heard one call where someone asked if they should just jump because the fire is approaching and the smoke is too thick to breathe, and the operator says "I cannot tell you what to do." Another woman says she is going to jump and gives her mother's name and says, "Please tell my mother I will see her again." These calls are heartbreaking to hear.
However. In T2, BEFORE THE SECOND PLANE HIT, the announcement was made to stay in the offices because at that time no one knew another plane was coming, T1 was being evacuated, and huge chunks of the building were falling off and could strike people running out into the mess. It was a safety call. Some people did not listen. For many of those who did, it turned out to mean their deaths. The guy who made the announcement is dead, too.
So I do wonder if some of the calls otterhere refers to are from people in T2 who heard that announcement but were still wondering if they should leave anyway before the second plane hit.
If that nurse hadn't had the experience of the 1993 bombing, perhaps my friend would have died since others were staying put as directed. However, chances are that he would still have been alive since he was on the 9th floor. He told me that he didn't see any flames and only heard an explosion. But no one knew what was going on at the time. He told me that the staircase was full, but there was no bottle neck at that time. Originally they thought it could have been some sort of accident. Also look, this is NYC. We expect stuff to happen. We walk over the dead bodies in the streets. No one flinches at the sounds of sirens. This was before "if you suspect something say something campaign." My initial reaction would have also been to just go back to work. In today's world. the sound of loud noises, explosions, gun shots, has people running in a panic.
Of course the fact that my friend developed cancer from that day from inhaling all of that smoke and carcinogens just delayed his death by 10 years.
What people in other parts of the country don't realize is that many people died years later or have permanent respiratory diseases even now.
There was a good documentary explaining why the twin towers collapsed and how that open floor plan, while providing panoramic views, were not safe from this type of event. We have learned from this tragedy and the new Freedom Tower has more structural integrity.
And it wasn't just the twin towers that collapsed. No 7 WTC in that complex also collapsed later in the day.
If that nurse hadn't had the experience of the 1993 bombing, perhaps my friend would have died since others were staying put as directed. However, chances are that he would still have been alive since he was on the 9th floor. He told me that he didn't see any flames and only heard an explosion. But no one knew what was going on at the time. He told me that the staircase was full, but there was no bottle neck at that time. Originally they thought it could have been some sort of accident. Also look, this is NYC. We expect stuff to happen. We walk over the dead bodies in the streets. No one flinches at the sounds of sirens. This was before "if you suspect something say something campaign." My initial reaction would have also been to just go back to work. In today's world. the sound of loud noises, explosions, gun shots, has people running in a panic.
Of course the fact that my friend developed cancer from that day from inhaling all of that smoke and carcinogens just delayed his death by 10 years.
What people in other parts of the country don't realize is that many people died years later or have permanent respiratory diseases even now.
I'm sorry about your friend. God only knows what we breathed in that day. Interesting that down on the ninth floor he didn't feel/hear as much. I was there in 1993, and on 43, I knew immediately that this was far, far worse. The building felt as if it was going over sideways, but it shuddered back and forth and the stopped. However, you could tell it was leaning, that it never righted itself all the way. I barely maintained my balance, and the person I was with fell on the floor. Fire and smoke was coming out of a nearby elevator bank, and the ceiling tiles over my head were crumbling and coming down. I hauled my friend to her feet and I think we were in the stairs in less than 30 seconds. In my memory, I am literally flying down the first ten flights or so, as if my feet weren't touching the ground, holding my friend's hand and dragging her with me. Then the doors from other floors were opening and people streaming into the stairwell, and we slowed down.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coney
There was a good documentary explaining why the twin towers collapsed and how that open floor plan, while providing panoramic views, were not safe from this type of event. We have learned from this tragedy and the new Freedom Tower has more structural integrity.
And it wasn't just the twin towers that collapsed. No 7 WTC in that complex also collapsed later in the day.
19 buildings were destroyed or damaged that day. 1, 2, 3, and 7 WTC were total collapses, the rest of the WTC buildings were partial collapses. This handy chart is pretty good.
The super-reinforced concrete in the new One WTC foundation (it's not really called The Freedom Tower, but for some reason that keeps sticking) includes rebar, as one of my friends put it, as thick as her arm. The engineers were admonished to stop referring to it as "the bunker", as the PTB did not want a defensive or military connotation attached to the building.
Actually, many of them argued with the callers, persuading them to stay put rather than walk out. Several said, "I can't tell you what to do" or "do what you think best" when the caller apparently insisted. I wouldn't bother calling, either, but some were calling on behalf of others who WERE trapped. One operator answered every call with "Good day!" Um, it's not a "good day" if you're calling 911 -- especially if that day happens to be 9/11. I just end up feeling their training is somehow lacking when I listen to too many of those...
How exactly would you expect them to be trained when this level of an attack had never happened before?
Hindsight is always just that - shoulda, coulda, woulda. Do you think the 911 operators knew the buildings were going to collapse?
How exactly would you expect them to be trained when this level of an attack had never happened before?
Hindsight is always just that - shoulda, coulda, woulda. Do you think the 911 operators knew the buildings were going to collapse?
God I love keyboard warriors.
Even if the buildings hadn't collapsed, was there ever any realistic hope of those hoses reaching the 106th floor when the elevators were breached; of everyone from the 74th floor up being personally escorted out?
Their advice - often rudely delivered - seemed to be rote and textbook; not informed by these particular circumstances. Were they even being advised by fire and rescue? At any rate, the fact that telling EVERYONE, regardless of location, to "just stay put" likely killed many people who might otherwise have been able to escape via staircases seems pretty indisputable. And there are plenty of boneheaded 911 calls in other situations on YouTube if this is a totally new phenomenon to you. I'm simply saying it seems to me they could probably use better training.
At least around here, it's just a clerical position requiring a high school diploma, so they probably did their best considering, but some truly seem to lack common sense!
Sorry, I wanted to differentiate the new WTC from the old one.
No one on that day knew what to do. People had to call their homes to find out what was going on and learned from their households watching the TV. Otherwise, many didn't even realize that an airplane hit their building and many didn't even know where the airplanes hit. Some people climbed to the top thinking that a helicopter would have been able to rescue them.
MQ, you lived through hell. I can never forget the smell and it seemed to last forever.
No one on that day knew what to do. People had to call their homes to find out what was going on and learned from their households watching the TV. Otherwise, many didn't even realize that an airplane hit their building and many didn't even know where the airplanes hit. Some people climbed to the top thinking that a helicopter would have been able to rescue them.
Still, many brave men and women responded there that day. All gave some, and some gave all.
Sorry, I wanted to differentiate the new WTC from the old one.
No one on that day knew what to do. People had to call their homes to find out what was going on and learned from their households watching the TV. Otherwise, many didn't even realize that an airplane hit their building and many didn't even know where the airplanes hit. Some people climbed to the top thinking that a helicopter would have been able to rescue them.
MQ, you lived through hell. I can never forget the smell and it seemed to last forever.
Yup.
Yes, I get that. I'm just such a stickler for details. Pataki came up with Freedom Tower, which was squashed like a bug as soon as he was no longer governor, but in the public mind, it stuck. It is One World Trade Center.
I knew immediately it was a terrorist attack, even though I didn't know what exactly had happened. I even said to my friend, "They're back, and we've got to get in the stairs." I thought the building was going to go over sideways.
If you worked there, you knew you worked in a terrorist target. I even had two coworkers who said "next time, they'll come back with planes", even though both envisioned different scenarios, like a small plane or a cargo plane, such as FedEx. Neither said commercial jets. I thought they'd use a truck bomb, like OKC, even though they'd installed bollards all around the complex anticipating that.
I knew what to do. RUN AND GET IN THE DAMN STAIRS. It was obvious that something really bad had happened, and having been in the building in 1993, I knew for sure this was much, much, worse. We didn't know what had actually happened though ("we" meaning my friend and I). I do know some people who were on the north side who saw the plane coming at them and knew what hit us.
In the stairs, there was a guy with a Palm Pilot (remember them?) who said we were hit by a small plane. A few minutes later he said "now they are saying it's a terrorist attack". And right after that, I saw some very serious-looking guys walking up holding their FBI badges aloft.
The steel sounded very bad in the stairs, clanking and going one way and not coming back like it sounded normally, and we were running down in streaming water from the broken fire system pipes in the staircases, so I knew we were badly damaged.
As for the smell, I have caught myself holding my nose while watching it on TV. I could smell it in my brain.
As bad as it was, others had it much worse than I did. When we came back, they put us in Jersey City at our offices near the Holland Tunnel. It's where PAPD headquarters was. There was a young woman cop there, and I was talking to one of the guys from the security group, and he pointed at her and said, "She's a mess, drinking very heavily. She was with a bunch of other cops in the lobby of T2 when it started to go down. She ran, and she's the only one of the group still alive."
I hope she got help. They hired a slew of shrinks to talk to us, and in three weeks time, the shrinks were a mess from hearing the stories of body parts and whatnot over and over and so they were being sent for debriefing and they sent us fresh ones. The shrinks needed shrinks.
You are right, though, there is a lot we didn't know. One of my coworkers (I worked on 72 but was all the way down on 43 at our cafeteria when we got hit) got down and was heading toward the Brooklyn Bridge when she saw Two collapse. She could not understand why Two went down when it was our building that got hit. She had no idea yet that the other building was also hit.
I remember standing outside watching the fighter jets soaring over Manhattan, and I didn't know whose jets they were and neither did anyone else because everybody on the streets screamed and crouched down (as if that would do anything). I said, "Wow, this is some kind of WAR."
And then I wondered out loud if anyone outside of Manhattan knew this was all going on. LOL. Apparently so.
Last edited by Mightyqueen801; 09-13-2022 at 01:44 PM..
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The super-reinforced concrete in the new One WTC foundation (it's not really called The Freedom Tower, but for some reason that keeps sticking) includes rebar, as one of my friends put it, as thick as her arm. The engineers were admonished to stop referring to it as "the bunker", as the PTB did not want a defensive or military connotation attached to the building.
