7jane's Reviews > 102 Minutes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_T...
(has many of them, but not all, including showing up in Duran Duran’s “Do You Believe In Shame?” video. Youtube has some examples of appearances, at least in movies)

music – (before 1993) David Shire - “Manhattan Skyline” (from Saturday Night Fever soundtrack)
(during, 2001) Tim Hecker - “The Piano Drop”
(after) Bruce Springsteen - “You're Missing” / Tears For Fears - “Start Of A Breakdown”

Personal travel diary entry: 2nd of March, 1992 (in New York) – a little under a year before the 1993 bomb attack:
"...we went to the WTC and up to 107th floor's viewing place [Top Of The World observation deck, South Tower]. Great view, looked for the place Ramones came from [bought a badge - “I live in the past, the rent is cheaper”. My sister got a name plate which shows it's from WTC - now stuck on the door of her former room at my parents’.]. Mother felt a bit dizzy.
Then we went to another building - I think it was the Financial Center - and there to a café.…"

Gripping. One of those books that was so much like that that I had to take it with me when I left home to visit my parents, just so that I could keep reading…

The 102 minutes is the time between the hit of the first plane and the fall of the last tower standing (I was a bit surprised that though South one was hit last, it was the first to go, but when you look at the picture of the plane angle as it hit it (bigger tilt), I’m now less surprised). The writers did hundreds of interviews, got pages of oral history, transcripts of phone, email, and emergency radio messages. At the start there is a list of illustrations within the book, the list of 367 people at WTC who are mentioned in text (and not all survive: at the end is the list of 131 who didn’t – I kept a bookmark in there to see who in the text was not going to make it). My book is the one with 10th Anniversary postscript; there are also notes on sources and some further facts.

This story is from the perspective of the people inside, and also of some outside the buildings (like 911 phone workers): those who worked there – already in the building or just-arriving, visitors that morning, the rescuers (on the ground and in the helicopters). I learned a lot about the building of it all, the buildings, and what sort of influence the 1993 had for the buildings and the people in them (for some, this was a life-saving thing).

Both impacts created earth-shaking power, and again when they came down. Those in North Tower above the impact line (92nd and up) stood pretty much no chance of getting out – the chilling moment when the book says: ‘this was the last elevator out of the Windows Of The World, ever’. In the South Tower, stair A remained open, but not all knew or could go to it. First people (of the about 200) started to fall after 2 minutes from the first hit (most fallers are from the North one); the book really gives a view into the desperation the people on smoky, fiery floors had, including some phone/email transcripts.

What things helped or hindered people’s survival? Some things could be both: disability or health problem didn’t always mean being stuck up there (most elevators had stopped working, and escape was stairs-only). I could count at least four people with this problem who did make it out (blind, in a wheelchair, overweight, fallen foot arches). Also, announcements and direct commands or comments: sometimes obeying saved, sometimes it was better to ignore it (like, going back upstairs or towards the roof). And then there were the many elevators: being stuck in one was deadly but not always impossible to eventually escape from. Sometime stepping in or out of one, while its doors were still open, could save your life.
The time when the people left the building after the first hit – leaving in both buildings – mattered. Some left really soon - as soon as they learned about the first crash even - in the South tower. Some workplaces had a really good emergency plan that made people leave soon (while in others it wasn’t so). Other people’s insistence and help could save lives, especially of those who were stuck in some places. Even a squeegee in a bucket could save lives, helping people get out of a stopped elevator, through bathroom tiles, and out.

Then the hindrances: Of course, sometimes you were in an area where escape routes were blocked thanks to the plane coming through and cutting out any chances of using elevators or stairs. Deciding to stay put and wait for the helpers could also doom you, especially in the South Tower. Obeying the commands to go back to your workplace could also do that, or deciding to go back to get your bag with your child’s baby pictures, or to get your friend/relative… or going back in and up there to help a friend who had called you with a (smaller) problem. Jammed office doors, or pieces of marble pinning you down could also do it. Falling debris could smack you dead.

And going up for the roof was a mistake. No one inside knew it wasn’t an option: the smoke made rescue impossible (and the window-washing machine had stopped in the exactly right place to block the way). And the doors were locked… to keep ‘disturbed’ people out. And the right key/card couldn’t help because the last door had to be unlocked from another place in the building below – and both crashes cut the lines for doing that, among other things cut and made unusable.

There were other failures, too: the fire and police departments had a rivalry that kept communications poor, coordination flawed, and command power low. (Poor communication between FBI and CIA also mattered in failure to prevent, but that’s another story – that improved in later years.) It was pretty much impossible to put the fire out so far up, so the main action was rescuing, which sent some men into their dooms, especially since they needed to rest often with what heavy tools etc. they were carrying. Coordinated disaster drills had been too few. Radio communications didn’t work well enough.
(Wondering: what would we be able to see if this event had happened during today’s selection of technology to record it, or to communicate with others?)
And the building itself was not built for total evacuation. The changes to the 1938 building evacuation system made building cheaper but decreased safety features, like evacuation stairways (who also were bunched too close together), and more vulnerable fireproofing (foam that was dislodged enough to allow metal melt and bend too much). Plus the planes that could fly at the building got larger than the planners could imagine, over time, making the planes’ ability to melt metal much quicker… and so cause the collapse of the buildings. All the fuel in the planes, still on the first moments of their journeys...

And slowly going on towards the moment of collapse(s): first worry was about the elevators, but collapse fear grew, and messages of melting and caving floors started making this reader’s hair raise up (and realise what that melting could cause). And when the South tower went down, the energy release was 1% of a nuclear bomb, showing up on seismograph in Lisbon, Portugal… the North tower’s collapse starts with ‘leaning’… eek. I could almost hear the noise.

Epilogue, afterword, and the newer postscript end the book well: talking about the rescue after, the disputes, the effects in later years (health concerns, people joining the military, helping people after hurricane Katrina), and the finding and killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011.

I have seen a few films and documentaries on 9/11 (including the recent (2021) one), this one adds something more to my knowledge, and it was so worth it. So much sadness, horror (the injuries, the elevator people, the desperation of people being stuck on the top floors), and mistakes... and yet also people helping each other, moments of bravery, and connections lasting beyond that day. It is a very gripping, hard to put down story - firm on facts yet telling stories of people trying to get through it. It really moves you.