Just-released transcripts give voice to the horror

USA TODAY ^ | 8/28/03 | Dennis Cauchon, Rick Hampson and Martha T. Moore,

[ambrose]

"We need to know if we need to get out of here, because we know there's an explosion," said the caller, who was in the south tower of the World Trade Center. It was Sept. 11, 2001. A jet had just crashed into the Trade Center's north tower. "Should we stay or should we not?"

The officer on the line asked whether there was smoke on the floor. Told no, he replied: "I would wait 'til further notice."

Moral of the story: Never Trust the Cops.

[Arkinsaw]

Moral of the story: Never Trust the Cops

A lot of them died in there trying to save people. Your comment sucks.

[ambrose]

sorry, forgot the obligatory < /sarcam> tag.

[HighRoadToChina]

The moral of the story is to listen to God more carefully like that one cop who dived under cars to avoid being buried by the falling debris.

[Timesink]

Related pieces from USA Today:

• Excellent Illustrated gallery of 9/11 911 tapes (requires Flash)

• Excerpts from the Port Authority transcript

[Mr. Mojo]

Moral of the story: Never Trust the Cops.

Actually, the moral of the story is to use some common sense.

[nutmeg]

read later bump

[Publius6961]

Moral of the story: grow a brain.

Scenario: my house is on fire and my family at risk. Do I call 911 and ask their advice?

[ambrose]

our society has been conditioned to obey government under all circumstances.

[kayak]

My version of the moral of the story ..... terrorists are truly evil and what they did to our nation and to many individual families that day was horrific.

I must say that the authorities were in a lose/lose situation ..... only hindsight shows what might have been the better course of action and those brave heroes didn't have the advantages that we have in assessing the situation .... we know exactly what had happened, we know how little time they had, we know the tragic results.

I read on a number of threads in the days following that attacks on 9/11 that the WTC center was divided into "modules" (my word) for firefighting purposes. The building was designed so that, in a normal fire situation, it was better for people not within a "module" to stay put ..... there were partitions, firewalls, etc. that made it safe even for those in higher floors than a fire to remain where they were. But this was no "ordinary" fire nor an ordinary situation in any way.

I, for one, do not intend to play Monday morning quarterback and critique the actions of those caught up in that horror. I am thankful that there weren't many more thousands of people killed because the potential was certainly there; it was due to the brave acts of many heroes that the death toll, as awful as it was, was not even higher. May God bless those who lived through that nightmare and the families of those who did not!

[stlnative]

bttt

[Fledermaus]

I hate to speak ill of the dead, but I wouldn't need to call 9-1-1 to realize I'm going to go the stairwells and head down. Especially if I was in the south tower in which I would have taken the elevator and left or taken the stairs.

Have some people become such sheep that they need some authority figure, usually an overpaid bureaucratic moron, to tell them what to do? Is there no instinct in them any longer?

There was plenty of time between the attack on the north tower and the south tower to evacuate the entire south tower. That would have helped 600 or more survive.

I don't need some cop or fireman to tell me what to do. I survived a tornado in downtown Nashville and didn't need them to tell me what to do.

[thoughtomator]

The moral of the story is twofold:

1) Where there's smoke, there's fire.

2) When the building you're in is on fire, get the hell out ASAP.

[Ramius]

Oh, come on... in the first minutes of the attack, somehow it is not understandable that there was a great deal of confusion? In fact, it makes perfect sense that those inside the buildings knew a whole lot less than even we who were watching it on TV. And nobody knew until later exactly what was going to happen, or when, or how. That some authorities were telling people to stay put and some were telling people to get out is all merely part of the fog of battle. Those folks simply didn't happen to know yet that they were at war.

[Ramius]

There were 50,000 some odd people in those buildings, not counting those in the other buildings nearby.

That there were ONLY 3,000 lost tells me that a whole lot of people knew the right thing to do. Most of the rest had no choice in the matter.

[Ramius]

Exactly. Thanks.

[rockfish59]

All the more reason to continue killing the ragshirt scumbags!

[onyx]

Reading this makes 9/11 even sadder, if that's possible.