He speaks at the moment of death, particularly for those at the top of the north tower, the 1,000 or so people who survived the crash of Flight 11 at 8:46 but have not been able to find an open staircase. Their fate was sealed nearly four decades earlier, when the stairways were clustered in the core of the building, and fire stairs were eliminated as a wasteful use of valuable space. The top floors of the north tower, weakened by the unabated, uncontained fire, now crater in a tremendous rush. As the floors fall, they pick up speed: ten stories in a single second.
