As Rebecca Solnit describes in A Paradise Built in Hell, everyday people and workers in the Twin Towers devised and implemented inspiring rescue and evacuation efforts on 9/11. Without any meaningful direction from authority—and in some cases, in defiance of instructions from 911 operators to shelter in place, which led to more deaths—people organized themselves to navigate dark stairwells, and some devised methods of assistance for disabled coworkers who otherwise would have been stranded as their coworkers fled.
