Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11: A gripping biography of triumph over tragedy

by Mitchell Zuckoff

THE FORCES OF catastrophe and heat had gnawed at the South Tower impact zone for fifty-six minutes. The fires weakened and added stress to its remaining core columns, its exposed steel floor supports, and its load-bearing exterior walls. The clock read 9:59 a.m. Passengers and crew members of United Flight 93 over Pennsylvania fought to prevent a fourth building strike. The Pentagon and the North Tower burned. Countless millions watched on live television. Thick gray smoke gushed with greater intensity from the South Tower. The weakened east wall, where fires had been the most intense, lost the strength to withstand the inexorable pull of gravity. As the east wall failed, its multi-million-pound burden shifted through the building’s core to the adjacent north and south walls. But those walls were compromised, too. The damage from Flight 175 and the resulting fires made the load too much to bear. Sapped of their fortitude, the steel wall columns bowed farther and farther inward. Floors sagged deeper and deeper. The end began. Above the impact zone, twenty-five stories tilted as one, to the east and south, then went into free fall. The plunging upper floors overwhelmed the undamaged lower floors with a mass impossible to resist. Down it all went, almost straight down. The roar of steel, concrete, furnishings, and so many lives crumbling to the ground was a seismic event. It registered as a minor earthquake on sensors throughout the Northeast. It lasted about ten seconds. A c...