Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11

by Mitchell Zuckoff

None of the 9-1-1 operators Brian spoke with asked him how high he’d been inside the building, conditions on the upper floors, or details about which stairwell he’d used. As a result, they never learned potentially lifesaving information that might have helped firefighters or trapped people in the South Tower who survived the crash and then called 9-1-1 for guidance. Amid the chaos, overwhelmed 9-1-1 operators never learned that Stairwell A remained relatively intact above the South Tower impact zone, at least to the 91st floor and possibly higher. No evidence exists that any person who called 9-1-1 from above the impact zone was urged to seek out Stairwell A3 as a potential path to survival. One 9-1-1 operator, besieged by urgent calls for help from people trapped in the towers, vented her frustration to a colleague: “How can you have a big building4 and no way to get out of it? That’s ridiculous.” Emergency operators also weren’t told that rooftop rescues5 wouldn’t be attempted because of smoke, or that exit doors to the roof remained locked, even as some 9-1-1 callers mentioned plans to try to reach the roof. Some of those heading upstairs might have recalled the daring rescues of twenty-eight people from the North Tower roof by a New York Police Department helicopter after the 1993 bombing.

Communication