102 Minutes

In Chapter 11, the authors discuss how lessons learned from a chaotic evacuation after the 1993 bombing led to $34M in improvements that made the shopping concourse beneath the trade centers a safer mode of escape, as it proved to be on 9/11. The chapter picks up at 9:20 a.m., in the south tower. As workers proceed from the mezzanine lining the lobby perimeter, down the escalators, and into the concourse and towards safety, the lines thin, meaning a majority of those on the floors below the impact are able to evacuate. The concourse offers protection from the falling debris of the plane, flames, and plummeting bodies. Officers try to remain strong to ease evacuees’ fears.

The chapter documents the chest pains and dehydration firefighters experience climbing the towers, and the thanks evacuees show. Chapter 11 also chronicles the selflessness of many workers, some $10/hour employees, who decide to stay behind to aid in the rescue: “There had been no drills for this. No one had the duty of running such a full scale operation because it was never supposed to take place. In a wave of improvisation, people had gone to these critical spots and saved lives simply by pointing fingers” (156).

These people include Sue Keane, a Port Authority officer who is among the first to arrive after running to the towers from her post at the Manhattan courthouse; and John Perry, who that morning had literally been handing in his retirement papers when he asks the clerk for his badge back, purchases an NYPD golf shirt, and runs to the scene. There is the story two brothers, one an evacuee, the other a firefighter, going opposite directions in the tower. Also at play is a return to the story of Ed Beyea, the paralyzed man waiting on the 27th floor, and his friend Abe Zelmanowtiz, who refuses to leave Beyea behind. The chapter shows the poise and bravery of rescuers and provides contrast to the larger horrors of the day’s events.

News of a possible third plane creates new fear among rescue leadership, until it’s confirmed this is a military jet scrambling to protect New York skies. Dwyer and Flynn close the chapter with discussions about the lack of communication between rescue forces, and the fact that fire chiefs tell their men to evacuate the towers and receive no response. 

Chapter 12 opens with those trapped above the point of impact in the south tower making last calls home to loved ones, at 9:22 a.m., and closes at 9:57 a.m., as the south tower crumbles to the ground. In between, Dwyer and Flynn weave the escape narratives of those stuck on the upper floors with the story of the firefighters rushing up the stairs and working to fix stuck elevators. As in previous chapters, lack of clear information and communication failures between agencies, as well as within the fire department, confuse rescue efforts. Meanwhile, on the 78th floor, at the point of impact, individuals fight for their last moments, as smoke and flames engulf the floor, despite the best laid efforts of the firefighters. Neither 911 dispatchers nor operation commanders know that stairway A remains open; indeed, workers from the agencies on the upper floors who make their way down stairway A turn back.

On many pagesof this chapter are accounts of devastating calls made to loved ones or 911 dispatchers, interspersed with accounts of firefighters encouraging those stuck that help is on the way. A major player in Chapter 12 is Chief Orio J. Palmer, who radios to the operations centers that firefighters have mobilized an elevator on the 40th floor. A longtime veteran who in his free time earned an associates degree in electrical engineering, Palmer is able to communicate on the malfunctioning fire department walkie talkies after tinkering with them. Palmer is incredibly fit, runs a half marathon each year, and makes incredible speed up the tower, according to time stamps of Palmer’s radio transmissions. When Palmer finds a working elevator, “all the promises the dispatchers made to people trapped above and around the flames, the assurances from friends and family to the Brooklyn cowboy Jack Andreacchio, to Greg Milanowycz and his father, no longer were empty words, palliatives dosed out to the frantic and doomed. Help was not only on the way, it was getting there. At least some of it was” (177).

Meanwhile, Mary Jos “crawled across the ground, not sure how she had gotten to the 78th floor from her office in the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance on the 86th” (178). Jos encounters lifeless or terribly-injured bodies on the carpeted floor of the sky lobby. She smothers her burning clothes by rolling on the ground. Her friend Ling Young’s glasses are covered in blood. A man walks by Young, pleading for help. “I’m on fire” (179) he says. Bleeding heavily, an arm nearly severed from the shoulder, Ed Nicholls, along with others, think their efforts to descend stairway A are fruitless and turn around. By 9:30, most of the 6,000 people who came to work that morning in the south tower are on their way out. Some 600 would never leave. Alayne Gentul, whose father helped build the towers, herds employees out of the upper floors with the help of a colleague and returns to keep helping. On the 97th floor, after Fiduciary employee Shimmy Biegelisen phones his wife, Biegelisen sings a Hebrew hymn.

There is an interlude in the middle of the chapter, when the authors tell the story of firefighter Tom Kelly’s first date with a woman years ago. Kelly brings her to the construction project he was working on—the trade center towers. For a moment, the towers are shown prior to what they will become, before the authors return to the present.

Between 9:45 and 9:50, building engineers warn fire department delegate John Peruggia, who’d experienced the 1993 bombings, that a collapse of the south tower seems imminent. Because of the lack of functional technology, Peruggia sends a messenger to Chief Peter Ganci, who cannot believe the news.