102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers

by Dwyer, Jim

  At the moment Stanley Praimnath and his colleagues were sent back upstairs by the security guard at the lobby turnstile, not ten minutes after Flight 11 struck, the official map of the crisis did not yet include a single foot of the south tower. The massive explosion and the giant fireballs all had emerged from the other building, the north tower. So they should go back to their desks. The problem was contained.

  The dogma of Fuji/Mizuho—get out, go quickly—was overcome by the assurances of the security guard that no evacuation was needed. Perhaps that instruction was a reflexive reaction, or maybe it was the doctrine of high-rise firefighting—stay put, stand by—being applied at a moment of a bewildering and fast-moving crisis. In either case, it reflected the belief that high-rise buildings were bigger and more resilient than just about any problem that might beset them, including the crash of a commercial airliner next door. Encoded in all the plans for the trade center—the original architecture, the structural engineering, the day-to-day operations—was confidence that the towers would be able to stop their own fires. Without that faith, the complex never could have opened its doors. And yet at the trade center, fire resistance had been a matter of intense doubt, going back nearly four decades.

  Long before September 11, the Port Authority’s promotional literature for the trade center had boasted: “This is a building project like no other—in size, in complexity, in revolutionary concepts.” From its earliest days, though, serious questions were raised about the prudence of constructing such behemoths with untested technology. A founding principle of the modern skyscraper is the presumption that it will resist and contain fire. No one can stream a hose of water at the 60th floor of a tower, more than 700 feet above the ground. Tall buildings have to be capable of putting any fires out, or at least come close to it. The lives of the people inside rely on that principle. The continued existence of the structure depends on it. Flames must not move from floor to floor, but be stopped by the fireproofing; the steel structure of the building must be protected from the distorting effects of fire for at least two hours; the floors, for three hours.

  Here was a rich and not at all fanciful source of anxiety for the engineers and architects working for the Port Authority in the 1960s. They did not know if the innovative floors proposed for the towers—thin, lightweight webs of steel built into trusses—would survive a fire. Those floors helped hold the walls of the tower in place. That they weighed so little, compared with traditional beam-and-column construction, and did not cut into tenant space, helped make the towers economically feasible to build to such heights. Yet no one had experience in fireproofing those webbed trusses, known as “bar joists,” with the techniques proposed and ultimately used in the trade center—a spray-on mixture of mineral fibers and adhesive. Both the architect and the structural engineer for the project refused to vouch for the ability of the floors to withstand fire. The Port Authority has no records of any tests to determine if the lightweight structural steel was adequately protected, an assurance the city code requires. While not legally bound by the code, the agency had announced that it would “meet or exceed” the code’s requirements. The reasons the agency never did the fireproofing tests can only be guessed at, since the principal figures had died long before September 11, but negative results could have forced a new design—one that might have increased the construction costs so much that the towers could not have been built, at least on the scale that was planned.

  Yet these were issues of prime concern during design and construction. In 1966, Emery Roth & Sons, the New York architecture firm that was the local representative for Minoru Yamasaki, the lead architect, stated that the fire rating of the floor system could not be determined without testing. Even so, a federal investigation found no evidence that such tests were done—not in 1966, when the buildings were still being planned, or in 1975, when the towers’ structural engineering firm, Skilling Helle Christiansen Robertson, made similar statements. By that time, the towers had already opened, and small fires set by an arsonist in February 1975 had caused parts of floors to buckle. The fire damaged sections of the ninth through sixteenth floors.

  In 1969, a Port Authority executive had ordered that the steel be protected by the sprayed-on fireproofing materials, a half inch thick. Why a half inch? No one can say. Would it be possible to apply the material to such skinny parts and make it stick in buildings that would be in constant motion from the wind? Again, the records are bereft of any tests.

  Also in 1969, an architect from Emery Roth noted that Port Authority officials had deleted a requirement that the steel in the towers be able to stand up for three or four hours of fire, depending on the part of the structure. That deletion had turned the carefully drawn specifications for the buildings into a “meaningless document,” the architects complained, for which they renounced responsibility.

  Once the towers were open, the Port Authority refused to permit natural gas lines in the building, concerned for what a fire supplied with potent fuel might do to the structure. The chefs at Windows on the World, one of the nation’s highest grossing restaurants, had to cook using electricity.

  Over the three decades that the towers stood, endless rounds of remedial, if not penitential, reconstruction took place to address fire-safety vulnerabilities, some of them endemic to buildings that rose under the 1968 building code, others—most prominently, the fireproofing—unique to the trade center.

  In a breathtakingly dense litigation, the Port Authority sued the manufacturer of one of its fireproofing products because it contained asbestos, viewed as a serious health hazard. Expert witnesses reported that hunks of the fireproofing, whether asbestos based or not, had fallen off the steel, leaving it exposed. In some cases, they said, it appeared never to have been applied at all. The Port Authority received a judgment of $66 million for its claim that asbestos was an unsafe product.

  With the lawsuit over, the Port Authority was forced to confront the documentary evidence that large sections of its structural steel were not protected against fire. In 1995, Frank Lombardi, who had recently become the agency’s chief engineer, began to consider how to improve the situation. By 1999, he had ordered the density of the fireproofing tripled, increasing it from a half inch of coating to an inch and a half. The work would be done only as tenants renovated their floors, when the floors and ceilings could be exposed for the messy work. The Port Authority would pick up the cost, about $1 million per floor. Just as in the 1960s, however, the adequacy of the new fireproofing for the trusses was not tested, a federal investigation found in 2003. Few people could have imagined that the fire-resistance system of two of the world’s tallest buildings had never undergone a trial by fire.

  Despite the gravity of these doubts, the evacuation policies at the trade center assumed that the towers were sturdy and fire-resistant. And now the towers and the people inside were going to be tested by a fire greater than what any building code had anticipated.

  Among the buildings that hovered around the two towers, like pilot fish around a pair of whales, was 5 World Trade Center, where the Port Authority Police Department fielded hundreds of calls from the tenants of the towers. Within minutes of the attack on the north tower, the people in the south tower got drastically different instructions, depending on which police officer answered the phone. To one officer, who understood that the trouble was entirely in the north tower, that meant people in the south tower would be better off staying put.

  Male Caller, 92nd Floor: Hello?

  PAPD Officer Greg Brady: Yeah, Port Authority Police.

  Male Caller, 92nd Floor: This is … yeah, we’re on 92, World Trade Center, Two World Trade.

  PAPD Officer Greg Brady: Two World Trade?

  Male Caller, 92nd Floor: We need to know if we need to get out of here, because we know there’s an explosion, I don’t know which building.

  PAPD Officer Greg Brady: Do you have any smoke … smoke conditions up in your location at two?

  Male Caller, 92nd Floor: N
o, we just smell it, though.

  PAPD Officer Greg Brady: Okay.

  Male Caller, 92nd Floor: Should we be staying here, or should we evacuate?

  [simultaneous conversations and other noise heard in background ]

  Male Caller, 92nd Floor: I’m … I’m waiting …

  Officer Brady was apparently distracted by another conversation, parts of which the caller from the 92nd floor heard. The policeman returned to his conversation with the man from the 92nd floor.

  Male Caller, 92nd Floor: We’re on 92, uh, we don’t … I don’t know if the elevators are working.

  PAPD Officer Greg Brady: What building are you in?

  Male Caller, 92nd Floor: Two World Trade.

  PAPD Officer Greg Brady: Two World Trade.

  Male Caller, 92nd Floor: Should we stay or should we not?

  PAPD Officer Greg Brady: I would wait till further notice, we have … Building 1, they have people that can’t get out of [overlap] floor.

  Male Caller, 92nd Floor: Okay, all right [overlap]. Don’t evacuate. [Hangs up.]

  The doctrine—or reflex—of telling people to stay put during evacuations was not universally applied. Seated next to Officer Brady was another policeman, Officer Steve Maggett, who was receiving calls at the same moment. His advice was entirely different.

  PAPD Officer Steve Maggett: Port Authority Police, Officer Maggett.

  Female Caller, 2 WTC: Yes, I’m in 2 World Trade, what’s going on?

  PAPD Officer Steve Maggett: Uh, there was some kind of either accident or explosion in Building 1. Everybody get out.

  Female Caller, 2 WTC: It’s … shall we take the elevator?

  PAPD Officer Steve Maggett: Everybody … no, try to take the stairs if you can, just in case.

  Female Caller, 2 WTC: Okay.

  Meanwhile, Officer Brady continued to receive calls from the south tower and advised the tenants to stay put.

  PAPD Officer Greg Brady: Port Authority Police, World Trade Center, Officer Brady.

  Male Caller, 87th Floor: Yes, we’re trying to figure … we are up on the 87th floor. We’re trying to figure out what’s going on.

  PAPD Officer Greg Brady: One World Trade or—

  Male Caller, 87th Floor: Two.

  PAPD Officer Greg Brady: Two. Just stand by, there’s no cond— … the incident happened at 1 World Trade Center. And we have the … that’s the first … the first incident, the first emergency, as far as rescue. Just stand by.

  Male Caller, 87th Floor: Okay, thank you.

  PAPD Officer Greg Brady: Okay, thank you.

  Around the same time, Officer Maggett received another call from the south tower—in this case, from Morgan Stanley, which had several thousand employees based at the trade center, though not all of them were on the scene.

  PAPD Officer Steve Maggett: Port Authority Police, Officer Maggett.

  Al Roxo, Morgan Stanley: Yeah, this is Al Roxo, Securities Department, from Morgan Stanley.

  PAPD Officer Steve Maggett: Uh-huh?

  Al Roxo, Morgan Stanley: Uh, what’s the status right now as far as [overlap]?

  PAPD Officer Steve Maggett: We’re still checking. Everybody just get out of the building, right now.

  Al Roxo, Morgan Stanley: All right. Have you guys announced an evacuation of two?

  PAPD Officer Steve Maggett: We are trying to do that right now.

  Al Roxo, Morgan Stanley: All right, thank you.

  PAPD Officer Steve Maggett: All right? We are just advising everybody to get out of the building.

  Al Roxo, Morgan Stanley: All right, thank you, bye-bye.

  The instruction to the caller from Morgan Stanley was especially important. Morgan Stanley occupied twenty-two floors in the south tower, and over 2,000 people worked for the company. An executive for the bank, Ed Ciffone, had overseen years of intense evacuation programs, and one of his deputies, Rick Rescorla, had led the drills with a zeal that seemed near-evangelical, certainly on the eccentric side. Now it made sense. Their wardens pulled out megaphones and began to drive the Morgan staff out of the building.

  Telephone calls were hardly the best way to provide guidance to large numbers of people, however. Around 8:55, nine minutes after Flight 11 had struck the north tower, the strobe lights flashed in the south tower, and the wall siren gave a few whoops. On the 84th floor, Brian Clark, an executive with Euro Brokers who also served as a fire warden, heard a familiar voice over the public-address system.

  Your attention please, ladies and gentlemen. Building 2 is secure. There is no need to evacuate Building 2. If you are in the midst of evacuation, you may use the reentry doors and the elevators to return to your office. Repeat, Building 2 is secure.

  The announcement was most likely made by Phil Hayes, the retired city firefighter who worked at the trade center as a deputy fire-safety director, and who was manning the control station in the south tower. At 8:49, three minutes after the attack, he had been recorded on a phone call to the north tower saying that he was going to await orders before giving any instructions to the tenants of the south tower. The reasons he ended up making the announcement a few minutes later can only be guessed: the policy at the trade center, and of the Fire Department, was to reserve the stairs and lobbies for people who were in immediate danger, or for the rescuers who were going to provide help. Under prevailing theories about the modern, “fireproof” building, the tenants on other floors were in no danger, and did not need to leave. At this moment, no floors in the south tower were on fire. Moreover, people and flaming metal were dropping onto the plaza between the two towers, a common exit point, and the crisis appeared to be confined to the north tower.

  The people at the fire-command desk in the south tower lobby had no view whatsoever of the fire that raged in the north tower. They could not look directly into the gaping holes of the north tower, as tenants on the upper floor of the south tower could; they did not see people step up to the windows in the north tower and jump, some holding hands; the papers on their desks were not singed, as they were in offices on the 98th floor. And even after the crash, the air-traffic controllers at La Guardia Airport in Queens did not know about the hijacking of Flight 11, or that three other planes had been seized by terrorists, or that one of them was flying toward New York—much less Phil Hayes in the lobby of the south tower, who was trying to keep people out of harm’s way.

  At the 55th floor, Stephen Miller hit a logjam in the stairs of the south tower. Until then, despite his stiff new shoes, he had made reasonable progress in his departure from the 80th-floor offices of Mizuho. Now the crowds joining the exodus from the lower floors fell in ahead of them. The delay gnawed at him, so he stepped out of the stairway. He would call home. He would use the men’s room. Then he heard the announcement: There was no danger to tower two. The problem is localized in tower one. You can return to your desks.

  Some of the people who had gotten out of the stairwell with him headed for the elevators. Keiji Takahashi, the boss who had swept him out of the office, was at the elevator bank. Miller boarded a different elevator, but felt uneasy. He had a muscular skepticism about most official pronouncements, a trait he felt had been cultivated by having grown up during the Watergate political scandals in the early 1970s. He didn’t buy into a lot that came over public-address systems.

  Something about staying in this elevator headed back up to the 78th floor did not sit well with Miller. He saw a friend from the office, told her that he was afraid. As more people boarded the elevator, the space seemed to shrink. He was sweating. He couldn’t stay on. He jumped off. Keiji and three other bosses went up, although not on that elevator.

  Then he went off in search of a phone. While he was hunting around the floor, he could hear the people at the windows. “Oh, my God, no—they’re jumping.”

  As Miller was scouting the 55th floor, another of his colleagues from the 80th floor, Michael Otten, had already gotten down to 44, where he heard something about an airplane having hit the north to
wer. The announcement suggested that people could go to the cafeteria or return to their desks. Like Otten and Miller, many of the people from the upper floors who had gotten down quickly were driven more by the orders of their bosses and fear of what they didn’t know than by any frightful thing they had seen. Before he had left his desk, Otten had seen the ugly gaping hole in one side of the other tower and had figured it was some kind of explosion. Now he was hearing it had been a plane crash. He assumed it was a twin engine, maybe a Cessna. The problem was taking a shape, still disturbing, but less fearsome. Now the public-address system was broadcasting that there was no problem in this tower, so Michael Otten turned back for the 80th floor.

  He was delayed. The elevator doors would not shut. Otten eyeballed a man with a backpack who had pushed onto the elevator. Like people in elevators everywhere, he stared blankly ahead, waiting to reclaim his interrupted day.

  In the minutes just after Flight 11 struck the north tower, a vortex had formed in the south tower, not from any precise understanding of what had happened across the plaza, but from the power of sounds and memories and sights. The voices of people like Eric Eisenberg in the offices of Aon on the 98th floor, who boomed orders to get out; the recollection of the 1993 attack; the sight of people leaping or falling from the north tower—all these forces wrenched thousands of people from their routines. Along the upper floors, they were drawn as if in a funnel toward the 78th and 44th floors—the points of embarkation, where express elevators dropped passengers in sky lobbies.