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

by Jim Dwyer

It is now 10:28, 102 minutes since the nose of American Airlines Flight 11 shot into the 98th floor of the north tower. The bangs are distant, then grow nearer and louder, and in stairway B, Josephine Harris and the men hear the approaching collapse: a bowling ball rolling down the steps. They curl in corners, or grab doors to use the frame as shelter, but the doors are hard to budge. The building is twisting. So are the door frames. Jonas pulls at the door from inside the 4th floor. It will not open. He yanks again, and it springs open, and the wind blasts ahead of the collapse—not a gust, but a raging storm of a wind. As each floor drops, one upon the other, it is as if a giant accordion is being squeezed, pushing 55 million cubic feet of air. Behind the rush of air comes the screech of the failing trusses, the slap of tons of metal columns against other tons of metal, percussive bangs, end sounds.