102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers (36 page)

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Authors: Jim Dwyer,Kevin Flynn

BOOK: 102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers
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… it served as an occasional backdrop for Giuliani’s meetings:
Dan Janison, “Mayor’s Snow Time/Rudy Uses City’s Emergency Center to Show His Command,”
New York Newsday,
February 19, 2000, p. A3.
… dozens of these radios had been distributed:
Battalion Chief Charles Blaich, interview by Kevin Flynn, June 2002; testimony by Jerome Hauer, former director of the Office of Emergency Management, 9/11 Commission, May 19, 2004.
… but the talks had broken down:
Interviews by Kevin Flynn, with officials involved in the negotiations.
Thompson began fiddling with something:
Jules Naudet, video footage.
But before being used:
Chief Joseph Pfeifer, interview by Kevin Flynn, May 2004.
Palmer could not hear Pfeifer:
Pfeifer and Palmer remarks were captured on an audio tape of Channel 7 that was later recovered from the rubble.
… Orio Palmer was among the most knowledgeable:
Article Palmer wrote for the FDNY newsletter gives Palmer’s educational credentials.
It did not seem to work, either:
Account of developing radio reception problems is based on oral histories provided by firefighters and chiefs, Joseph Pfeifer account to
Firehouse,
transcripts of fire radio transmissions, the tape of Channel 7, and transcripts of Port Authority radio transmissions.
If there was an answer:
Chief Callan’s oral history interview with FDNY, November 2, 2001.
 
Chapter 5: “Should we be staying here, or should we evacuate?”
Stanley Praimnath and seventeen others:
Stanley Praimnath, interviews by Eric Lipton, April 2002, and by Jim Dwyer, August 2004.
All the technical literature on high-rise fires:
Fire Department, City of New York,
Firefighting Procedures, Volume 1, Book 5,
January 1, 1997. Paradoxically, fire scientists who have studied human behavior in fire report that panic very rarely occurs, and that it is far more common for large groups to conduct an orderly self-evacuation. Interviews with Guylene Proulx and Jake Pauls, 2004.
… only people on the same floor as the fire:
Glenn Corbett, professor of fire science, John Jay College, testimony before 9/11 Commission, November 19, 2003.
The Port Authority had adopted this strategy:
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,
World Trade Center Fire Safety Plan,
1995.
… stairways actually could be made narrower:
Steve Berry, Mitchell Landsberg, and Doug Smith, “A New View of High-Rise Firefighting,”
Los Angeles Times,
September 24, 2001, p. 6.
… the Port Authority’s promotional literature:
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,
The World Trade Center: A Building Project Like No Other,
February 1990.
… refused to vouch for the floors to withstand fire:
NIST, Interim Report, May 2003, p. 20.
The Port Authority has no records:
In May 1963, Malcom Levy, chief of the planning division for the world trade department of the Port Authority, instructed the architect to comply with the New York City Building Code. NIST, Interim Report, May 2003, p. 60. In 1969, the architect would protest that Levy had rendered some of its specifications “meaningless” by lessening the fireproofing requirements. Also James Glanz and Eric Lipton,
City in the Sky
(New York: Times Books/Henry Holt, 2003).
The fire damaged portions of the ninth through sixteenth floors:
John T. O’Hagan,
High-Rise/Fire & Life Safety
(Saddle Brook, N.J.: Pennwell Publications, 1977), p. 43.
Also in 1969, an architect from Emery Roth noted:
NIST Interim Report, May 2003, p. 70.
… the Port Authority refused to permit natural gas lines:
Frank Lombardi, chief engineer, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, interview by Jim Dwyer, February 9, 2004.
… had to cook using electricity:
Charles Maikish, interview by Jim Dwyer, March 1994.
To one officer, who understood that the trouble:
Brady conversations are from Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, World Trade Center, Channel 8, September 11, 2001. Maggett conversations are from Channel 9.
… heard a familiar voice:
Brian Clark, testimony before 9/11 Commission, Statement 13, May 2004; interview by Jim Dwyer, August 5, 2004. No recording of this announcement has been located, but the accounts of multiple witnesses are consistent on the gist of it.
The announcement most likely was made:
Michael Hurley, fire-safety director, World Trade Center, interview by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, February 2004.
… did not know about the hijacking of Flight 11:
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, transcripts of La Guardia tower, September 11, 2001.
She was among the forces that began driving people:
Jack Gentul, interview by James Glanz, April 26, 2002.
Hutton counted about ten people:
Steve Bates, “Above and Beyond: An HR Director’s ‘Sense of Duty’ Saved Co-workers’ Lives at the World Trade Center,”
HRMagazine,
December 1, 2001.
Ed Emery, another of the voices shepherding:
Stephanie Koskuba, interview by James Glanz, April 28, 2002.
The Fiduciary group looked to Emery:
Koskuba, Anne Foodim, interviews.
Marissa Panigrosso and Sarah Dechalus:
Marissa Panigrosso and Sarah Dechalus, interviews by Joseph Plambeck, June 4, 2004; Eric Lipton, April 2002.
She also met Tamitha Freeman:
Phil Reisman,
The Journal News
(Westchester County, N.Y.), September 10, 2002.
She turned back upstairs:
Marissa Panigrosso, interview.
Her elevator, which could hold fifty-five people:
Dechalus and Panigrosso, interviews.
It was, after all, their complex:
The Port Authority, which had built the center, existed to improve trade in the region, and was controlled by the governors of New York and New Jersey. The agency’s police department had a broad portfolio: the New York airports, among the busiest in the world, the ports in New Jersey and New York, and of course the trade center. Even though the Port Authority had turned over the operation of the trade center to a private real estate concern a few weeks earlier, the agreement called for the PAPD to continue providing security there.
… Capt. Anthony Whitaker, the commander:
Anthony Whitaker, interview by Jim Dwyer, May 2002.
A moment after DeVona issued his order:
Excerpts from transcript made by the Port Authority of Channel 26, Channel W, PAPD.
… Charles Maikish, then the director of the trade center:
Jim Dwyer, David Kocieniewski, Dee Murphy, and Peg Tyre,
Two Seconds under the World
(New York: Crown Publishers, 1994), pp. 61–62.
… Michael Hurley caught the attention of Chief Pfeifer:
Pfeifer, Hurley, interviews by Kevin Flynn and Jim Dwyer, May 2004.
 
Chapter 6: “Get away from the door!”
The jet fuel probably was spent within a few minutes:
FEMA,
World Trade Center Building Performance Study,
pp. 2–21.
His nephew had moved the company: Der Spiegel
, reporters and editors,
Inside 9-11—What Really Happened
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001).
Damian Meehan, a half century younger than Cava:
Eugene Meehan, interview by Jim Dwyer, October 2001.
Where the elevators had been were now gaping holes:
Mak Hanna, Gerry Gaeta, interviews by Jim Dwyer, August 25, 2003.
A few others stood with Elaine Duch:
Joanne Ciccolello, affidavit, June 14, 2002.
… this exchange was taped:
Transcript, Port Authority Channel 25, Radio Channel B, Electrical and Mechanical.
… De Martini’s eyes were red:
Anita Serpe, affidavit, June 14, 2002.
“Okay, I found a stairway”:
Dorene Smith, e-mail to Nicole De Martini, May 20, 2002.
Between twenty-five and forty people:
Estimates based on interviews with eight people who were on the floor. No precise head count was possible.
Walter Pilipiak, the company’s president:
Walter Pilipiak, interview by Jim Dwyer, August 2003.
Stephanie Manning from MetLife hung up:
Rob Sibarium, interview by Jim Dwyer, April 2002.
Ridiculous, he thought:
Rick Bryan, interview by Jim Dwyer, August 26, 2003.
Suddenly, a muffled voice called out:
Nathan Goldwasser, interview by Jim Dwyer, August 27, 2003.
Pablo Ortiz pushed the door open:
Some of the people rescued from the 89th floor believed that De Martini was the one to open the door, but Mak Hanna, a friend of De Martini’s, said that Pablo Ortiz actually pried open the door. De Martini stood with Hanna a few steps away.
Ortiz walked to the law office:
Dianne DeFontes, interview by Jim Dwyer, August 25, 2003.
Anne Prosser had gotten to her office:
Anne Prosser interview, by Sherri Day, September 11, 2001; also Anne Paine and Adriane Jaeckle, “Nashville Native Makes Long Descent to Ground,”
The Tennessean,
September 12, 2001.
On the 86th floor, Louis Lesce:
Louis Lesce, interview by Jim Dwyer, April 2002.
 
Chapter 7: “If the conditions warrant on your floor, you may wish to start an orderly evacuation.”
Now a different message was being broadcast:
Tape of voice mail provided by Beverly Eckert; digital audio enhancement by Paul Ginsberg, Professional Audio Labs, Spring Valley, New York.
Scott Johnson, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods:
Voice mail recording provided by Ann Johnson, enhanced by Paul Ginsberg, Professional Audio Laboratories.
The realization slammed into his mind:
Michael Sheehan, interview by Jim Dwyer, November 2003. The itinerary, as it turned out, was
not for either of the planes that crashed into the towers, but for a USAir flight to Los Angeles. Sheehan suggested it could have been blown off a desk as easily as fallen from one of the jets.
At the south tower’s 44th-floor sky lobby, Michael Otten:
Michael Otten, interview by Lauren Wolfe for the authors, December 12, 2003.

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