Fresh Glimpse in 9/11 Files of the Struggles for Survival

The New York Times ^ | August 29, 2003 | JIM DWYER

[Prof Engineer]

Never Forget ping

[WorkingClassFilth]

Agreed. If anyone wants evidence of a leftist media bias, a sure clue is how consistently they strive to ignore the triggering event of 911 and its relation to the current war.

[McGavin999]

Why does it still hurt as much as it did the first day? Are we ever going to heal or will we alway have this great, gaping wound in the center of our hearts?

[abner]

or will we alway have this great, gaping wound in the center of our hearts?

Yes.

[sarcasm]

I've been downtown exactly once since 9-11 - while the fires were still burning. I worked near the towers for many years and I doubt that I'll ever get over it.

[A-teamMom]

God bless those brave souls. May their families know peace. May our leaders stive unfailingly to keep us all safe.

[Just another Joe]

Are we ever going to heal or will we alway have this great, gaping wound in the center of our hearts?

We will heal, we will also have that gaping wound. I know it is a conundrum but a lot of life is.

To paraphrase a post I saw that day, I will be satisfied when the ones that did this cower in their caves when a helicopter flys over and tell their childrens children about the gods that they angered.

Never forgive, never forget

[xJones]

After Pearl Harbor, Americans might have asked the same question. Both were acts of war, but the enemy is far more nebulous this time.

[thegreatbeast]

Hopefully we can mark September 11th with the death of 30,000 radical islamists. A fitting tribute to the heroism of the ordinary Joe.

[TexKat]

Sept. 11 transcripts detail horror of moment

By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Grisly accounts of falling bodies, pleas for help and warnings to flee the World Trade Center fill thousands of heart-wrenching pages of transcripts of Sept. 11 emergency calls that were released on Thursday.

Many calls are from frantic people trapped in the upper floors of the heavily damaged twin towers, including a woman making repeated calls from the Windows on the World restaurant, reporting fires in the building and elevator shafts and pleading for guidance on what to do.

"We are on the 88th floor. We're trapped," one woman caller said. "The whole building is going to coming down on me. The building is starting ... coming down (inaudible) ..."

A caller identified as "Rocko" said he was on the 105th floor of the north tower. "Don't let no people up here," he urged police. "There's big smoke!"

Most of the 2,792 people who died on Sept. 11, 2001 were trapped in the 110-story towers above the level where the two hijacked planes struck. The first jet slammed into the north tower at the 94th and higher floors; the second jet hit the 78th and higher floors of the south tower.

Myriad calls described people jumping in terror.

"There's body parts all over the place. So much ... bodies blew out of the building. There's got to be hundreds of people killed here. There's body parts like five blocks away," said one caller.

Another caller said, "I've got dozens of bodies, people just jumping from the top of the building ... bodies are just coming from out of the sky."

One body got caught in a wind current and sailed one or two blocks away, a police detective wrote in a report, while another said he could see some people jumping in pairs holding hands.

"We had to time our run into the tower in order to avoid being hit by human bodies that were coming down and exploding on impact with the ground," he wrote. "Within seconds, I approximated some 13 suicides."

The sounds of bodies hitting the ground were so loud that one police officer said he thought they were exploding bombs.

A judge ordered the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site, to release the roughly 2,000 pages of transcripts and reports after a lawsuit was filed by The New York Times.

Law enforcement officers from all around the New York area called in, including many off-duty or out sick, volunteering to come and work at the trade center. Others voiced frustration that radios and phones were not working.

One officer recalled in a memo how he could not see the Trade Center and was told by a colleague it was surrounded by smoke. "No," he said. "You don't understand. It's gone. It's not there at all."

WAVE OF SHAME

As well as the harrowing and desperate calls from terrified people within the buildings, the transcripts also detailed the emotions felt by thwarted rescue workers.

"We noticed that people had begun jumping from the towers. Several of these people were on fire ... a wave of shame came over us because we couldn't help them," Detective R.P. Mendenhall wrote in a memo.

Another Port Authority officer, Timothy Norris, wrote that he was outside Tower Two when he "felt extreme vibration and an incredible noise like a thousand freight trains."

"I knew instantly that the Tower was falling down," he wrote. "I said prayers that I would be spared."

The scene "resembled the biblical description of hell," one police sergeant said.

The transcripts recorded calls to nearly 100 Port Authority police and civilian radio channels made by authority staff at the scene, and calls made to Port Authority police stations.

The Port Authority, which oversaw the trade center's operations, had its headquarters there and lost 37 of its officers in the attacks.

[ladyinred]

What heroes these people were and are. How very sad that there are those who would rather we not avenge their suffering and deaths at the hands of monsters. They would rather we wait and let them strike again.

[evilC]

ping

[Freee-dame]

another Never Forget ping

[nutmeg]

Thanks for the ping... I'll ping the list on this one.

[nutmeg]

NEVER FORGET ping...

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[cajungirl]

My heart just aches for those poor doomed people. I will never forget it.

[stanz]

I do work downtown right across the street from where the towers stood at 1 Liberty Plaza. I still have not gotten over it, nor will I ever.

[TexKat]

sarcasm FYI, I believe that NY Times articles only excerpts can be posted. You may want to get the moderator to fix this one although I like it just the way it is.

[elbucko]

If anyone wants evidence of a leftist media bias, a sure clue is how consistently they strive to ignore the triggering event of 911...

That's for sure. The Fourth Estate treat the events of 9/11 as an isolated occurrence that has no past or future history. The media should be ashamed, but they're not and never will be.

The events of that day will affect this country for the next hundred years.