WORLD TRADE CENTER LOCKED STAIRWELLS / EVACUATION PROBLEMS,
ACCUMULATING COMMENTS ON ...
(c) 2001, Mike Barkley
[last updated 02/06/02 - I use minimal HTML to maximize your download speed]

[ Internet searches on various combinations : WTC World Trade Center stair stairs stairwell stairwells stairway stairways B C D locked pinned jammed shut tower floor down bodies engineer engineers ; yield thousands of hits. Most are irrelevant, many are duplicates but some apparent duplicates, like those of Ms. Gillies, report nuances missed by the others.... ]

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Newsweek Commemorative Issue, Fall 2001, p. 65
Comment from Rudy Giuliani:

"There were people on the 104th floor who walked all the way down, if they were lucky enough to find the stairs."

[ Wow. Escaping certain death was a matter of luck, not public policy as reflected in building codes and safety standards? Tsk, tsk, Rudy....

12/19/01 - Today USA Today identified 4 people who escaped from above the impact point in the South Tower, 3 from the 84th floor and 1 from the 81st, via Stairway A, the farthest stairway from the impact point, see USA Today quotes far below...

Nobody took the initiative to notify 911 callers from above the impact point in Tower 2 that Stairway A though smoky was clear for evacuation if they moved quickly before the sheetrock burned through? ]

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/news/articles/wtc/longestweek3.htm
"I was on the 98th floor," says Kevin Dorrian, a carpenter leaning against a van on Franklin Street around 1:30 with some fellow union members. "I saw a friend of mine get blown out the window. He was right there, three feet from me. He was putting up blinds. I couldn't do nothing. I took the stairs down, past the fires...."
["...of Tower 2",
http://www.thelocalplanet.com/Archives/Cover_Story/Article.asp?ArticleID=2226
, inconsistent Dorrian stories, this other one has him at floor 75 when Tower #2 was hit, unless the 98th floor damage was the collateral damage from the Tower #1 strike as mentioned in the David Frank and similar accounts, below.... ]

http://courant.ctnow.com/news/update/attack_victims.stm
"...south tower...Rooney...told his wife that he was trapped on the 105th floor of the burning building. He had made several attempts to escape first trying to run down the stairs, but he was beaten back around the 76th floor by the heat and smoke. Then he tried to access the observation deck just above his office, but he couldn't because the door was locked. "

[76? Wasn't that below either impact point? and locked?]

[ http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?g=events/ts/091101nydccrash&a=&tmpl=sl&ns=&l=1&e=12&a=0
"Sun Jan 6, 7:06 PM ET
"Beverly Eckert, widow of Aon Co. employee Sean Rooney, who died in the World Trade Center attacks, attends a news conference challenging caps put on the amount of money that will be granted by the federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, Sunday, Jan. 6, 2002, in New York. Families who accept funds from the fund forfeit their right to sue anyone but a terrorist organization over the attacks. (AP Photo/John-Marshall Mantel) ...." ]

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nytic242381668sep24.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
"...Tower One...Leder and Forney...had faced their own ordeal. Heading downstairs, the two had hit a dead end at 72. The stairs just didn't go any farther, they said. Leder and Forney found a door to another stairwell, but it was locked.

"The situation was bad. "There were fires all over" the 72nd floor, Leder said. "No walls, wires everywhere." They found another staircase, but it was packed. Progress was slow. People would walk down five steps and then stop. "We were sweating like crazy," Forney said...." [locked?]

"...Things were tougher for Cary Sheih. When he reached the lower floors water started to pour into the stairwell. A pipe had burst, Sheih guessed. Water was up to his ankles. But he was close now, very close. Fifth floor, fourth.

""Then all of a sudden a loud boom, and the building began to shake unbearably again," he recalled. "People started falling as smoke started to rise. Emergency lights flickered and went out. I could hear the steel buckling. Rescuers below shouted for us to go back upstairs."

"Sheih returned to the sixth or seventh floor. A firefighter led him through the darkness to another stairwell...."

[more Forney stories below ]

http://www.nylawyer.com/news/01/09/091701c.html
[ see also L.A.Times Lipiak/Heinemann story below... ]

"...85th floor of One World Trade Center...As they descended into the breathable but intensely hot stairwells, Heineman's staff was stopped cold seven stories down, at a stairwell door that was locked. Forced out through the 78th floor's "sky lobby," where express elevators go to the main lobby, a building employee "didn't know" any other way down, said Heineman.

"Frantic, he discovered a second stairwell on the building's east side, and continued downward, only to be stopped by yet another locked door. This time, he said, someone had a key...."

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[ Then there's the issue of evacuation of disabled people, which has become of great importance to me since my wife wound up in a wheelchair from multiple sclerosis.

In its 10/01/01 issue People Magazine ran a story, p. 24, about Tina Hansen (or Hanson), who has had rheumatoid arthritis since age 3, uses a power wheelchair, and worked on the 68th floor of Tower 1. After the 1993 bombing, they (WTC?) bought her an evacuation chair, a sort of sling with rigid supports. Two men who apparently did not know her carried her down all 68 floors to safety. (see also,
http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/storyDetail.cfm?ID=371 , about one of the men who rescued her, and http://technicianonline.com/read/tol/news/003517.html about the other).

In Celebrity Worldwide, Inc.'s commemorative-style magazine, "Attack on America", issue 03, 2001, at an un-numbered page in a story "Friends Until The End, A Story of Undying Love," see also numerous web references ],

"...Abe Zelmanowitz and Ed Beyea...best friends...Abe, an Orthodox Jew, refused to leave the side of Ed [42], a Christian and a quadraplegic [sic], when their office on the 27th floor of the North tower....Ed told Abe that he couldn't leave the office. He was paralized [sic] from the neck down, and was struggling to breathe from a panic attack. He also felt that he would not be able to get down the stairs, even with assistance. Abe, 55, assured Ed's nurse that she should leave, and he would stay to help Ed. A fireman was already by their side, offering to lend a hand. The nurse made it out. The fireman, and Abe and Ed (who were both computer programmers for Blue Cross/Blue Shield) did not."

[ And there's the elevators. ]
Newsweek Commemorative Issue, Fall 2001, p. 96,

"The last time Cindy Guan's family spoke to her, she was trapped in an elevator on the 12th floor of Tower 2. She had been on her way up to her office on the 86th floor, where she worked....Guan's brother had phoned her as soon as he saw TV footage of the first plane crashing into tower 1. He called her again after seeing the second plane hit her building, only to find that she was still trapped on the same floor...."

[ and left there to die? see USA Today Elevator Repairman quotes below ]

[ There was some discussion in this bulletin board about various wacko methods to convey those trapped past the target floors,
http://www.DesignCommunity.com/discussion/8530.html ];
11/03/01 Time, 9/24/01, p. 69, [ plus many web sites mentioning his name: ]
"Roko Camaj...Most days, he surveyed the surroundings from indoors, operating a remote-cleaning machine from the rooftop; but the windows on the 107th floor could not accommodate the machine, and he would attend to them manually, suspended from a harness....He called [his wife] at 9:14 a.m. last Tuesday from the 105th floor of the south tower. 'He told my mom he was with about 200 other people, and he was just waiting for the OK to head down,' says [his son] Vincent."

[ Waiting for the OK!?!

In the various web page photos, it looked like he had use of a fairly conventional window-washer's scaffold, as well as the sling, at least for the observation floor, but I would assume the equipment would have lost power by then. There are mentions that the doors to the roof were locked "for security reasons", [ LOCKED!! ] and various photos here and there of the roof showing the TV tower guy wires over the entire roof preventing helicopter landings (should any pilots brave the smoke) and any evacuation except by sling, etc. It also appeared from the videotape progressions that the only safe exterior passage past the impact floor was at the extreme northeast corner but that avenue did not remain open for long before those windows blew out. Did no one think to ensure Mr. Camaj had the tools to help himself and the others trapped to escape: auxiliary power for the equipment, a way to move the equipment to the only corner useable (assuming the equipment wasn't damaged), instructions to unlock the doors to the roof, to assist other trapped victims with helicopter slings, ground center communications that would guide his actions and suggest to him how quickly he'd have to move to save anybody? From the various web pages and other stories, it seems Mr. Camaj was a heroic figure in his own right. Were decisions made that inadvertently cheated him of the opportunity to make those heroic rescues, and save his own life as well? ]

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[ On the water in the stairwells in the lower third of the building, ]
http://www.framerate.net/wtc/john.html , John Labriola:
"WTC1....Around the 35th floor....A few floors lower water was flowing creating rapids down the stairs. This got worse as we got lower down...."

[ Also, Time special issue, without page numbers, week of 9/11, Nancy Gibbs' story, comments from Andy Perry, not a direct quote: ]
"...down 46 flights....The lights stayed on, but the lower stairs were filled with water from burst pipes and sprinklers."

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[ Same story, comments from Architect Bob Shelton, not a direct quote, ]
"...south tower..."You could hear the building cracking. It sounded like when you have a bunch of spaghetti, and you break it in half to boil it." Shelton knew that what he was hearing was bad. "It was structural failure," Shelton says. "Once a building like that is off center, that's it.""

[ Same story, from comments by Michael Otten: ]
"...south tower...44th floor...Otten and other groped through the dust to find a stairway, but the doors were locked. Finally they found a clearer passage, found a stairway they could get into and fled down to the street.

"Even as people streamed down the stairs, the cracks were appearing in the walls as the building shuddered and cringed. Steam pipes burst,...
[ see also,
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,174655-3,00.html ]

and more comment at
http://www.mjbarkl.com/wtc.htm ]

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http://birmingham.bcentral.com/birmingham/stories/2001/10/01/editorial3.html
"The floors where the planes hit were engulfed in flames, fed by a full load of aviation fuel, but The New York Times reported that office workers on higher floors were able to use the stairwells that accessed the infernos. Thanks to city-enforced building codes, extra insulation in the walls kept the flames from the escape routes. "

[accessed !?!
and, by the way, as a State agency the Port Authority and thus the WTC was exempt from building codes, at least until the time of management turnover to Silverstein.... ]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/special/attack/pages/humanimpact_0919_a3.html
"...Pushing frantically on the locked stairwell doors of the World Trade Center, Frank Joseph Doyle made a call to his wife, telling her that he and others were trapped and she should dial 911.

"The trader had made it down two floors from his 89th-floor office after two hijacked airplanes plowed into the twin towers. Now smoke was pouring in, and people were jumping to their deaths....

"...Keege Bruyette and Woods...89th floor of Tower 2... Ms. Chedel told her husband that he had to get out of Tower 2, which hadn't yet been hit, any way he could. She heard a muffled sound, like someone talking in the background, and her husband told her it was the speaker system.

""He told me the speaker said to not go down. Back in 1993, being in the building was the safest place," she said, referring to the terrorist bombing of the tower.

"But then the unthinkable happened again: Tower 2 was struck, and at 9:22 a.m., Mr. Doyle called her again, to tell her he loved her and their children.

""He said he went up to the roof and the doors [to outside] were locked, so he went down to Floor 87 and the doors were locked," she said.

"Trapped, he told her to call 911, which she did, telling the operator that "all these people are trapped."....

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-ielost2365582sep14.story
'...Frank Doyle...Keefe, Bruyette & Woods,...on the 87th floor of Tower Two when the plane hit. He called his wife, Kimmy, after seeing the first plane attack, Yannetti said. "He said it was the most distressing thing he had ever seen in his life," Yannetti said.

Half an hour later, he called his wife again, after the second plane hit. The doors to his floor were locked, he told her. "He said he didn't know what was going to happen, but he said that he loved her and he loved Zoe and he loved Garrett," Yannetti said, breaking into tears. "She wanted to stay on the phone with him, but he said, 'I've got to go now honey.'" - Indrani Sen"

http://www.nycstories.com/places/911/90/92.html
"Vijay...Aon Insurance Company,...103rd floor of the Second World Trade Center Tower.

"Upon hearing of the first plane, Vijay and his colleagues decided to leave their building. They took the stairs from their floor (103rd floor) but the stairs met a dead-end on the 78th floor. They had to head to the 78th floor elevator lobby. While in the lobby waiting for the elevator with a whole bunch of people, the second plane hit their tower. The lights went out on the floor and many people were hurt, some killed. The emergency lights came on and people we checking to see who was OK.

"Vijay was apparently unhurt, just covered in dust. He then got a fire extinguisher to put out some of the fires that were on the floor but the fire extinguisher didn't work! Some people were then beginning to make their way down another set of stairs to safety but others who were badly hurt could not do so. One of those badly hurt was Vijay's boss and Vijay was trying to help him. Vijay told his colleagues that he would stay and help his boss take the stairs down.

"As a couple of his colleagues left the building having come down the stairwell, the building collapsed behind them. One of them recalled her last image of Vijay was of him placing his glasses into his shirt pocket and then doing the same with his boss's glasses. His willingness to help and his selflessness were evident right till the end...."

http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/092401/24ian.html
"...how close his son Jimmy had come to dying the morning of Sept. 11, when his Engine 5 left the scene of a stove fire to battle the worst inferno in American history. Jimmy fought the beast from the belly up. He was sent into the first tower hit, was slowed by a colleague's chest pains on the climb, and was finally ordered to retreat after Tower 2 collapsed.

"Jimmy figured he was a dead man running. At the fourth floor, with Tower 1 about to surrender and the stairwell exit locked, a dust-covered stranger pointed him toward a free door and - by a 45-second margin - the rest of his life."

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=wtc+locked&start=700&hl=en&scoring=d&as_drrb=b&as_mind=10&as_minm=9&as_miny=2001&as_maxd=3&as_maxm=2&as_maxy=2002&selm=tqc8otjajho938%40corp.supernews.com&rnum=701
From: Silvermoon (magyck@CFforever.net)

"...my brother in law, Paul who worked (yes, past tense) on the 83rd floor of the first building that was hit.... and his co-workers were hanging around waiting for a meeting when the first plane hit their building. The other side of his floor (these floors are HUGE) was blown. He looked at his co-workers and just said GO! They ran to the stairs and made it down to the 70th floor... then the door was locked. (I am not sure what door and why there was one, I am reluctant to pry him for details he is still in shock, but I will ask him at some point). They found a maintenance guy who was able to unlock it and they continued down. Now mind you, even though he is a runner it still takes almost a minute to go from floor to floor...."

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=2ti7rt81l884feqlo47u1vo9t1mfgrggf3%404ax.com&rnum=612&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dwtc%2Blocked%26start%3D600%26hl%3Den%26scoring%3Dd%26as_drrb%3Db%26as_mind%3D10%26as_minm%3D9%26as_miny%3D2001%26as_maxd%3D3%26as_maxm%3D2%26as_maxy%3D2002%26selm%3D2ti7rt81l884feqlo47u1vo9t1mfgrggf3%25404ax.com%26rnum%3D612
"Michael R Weholt (awnbreel@panix.com)

"2001-09-26

"SPORTS ILLUSTRATED today and read about Jimmy Andruzzi and the other Number Fivers. Odd feeling of putting together the story from my view, from up here on 14th Street, and the story of the Number Fivers, as it happened down there at Ground Zero.

"Anyway, in the story, Andruzzi says: "We get to the fourth floor, and the door out of the stairwell to the lobby is locked."..."

http://alumni.udayton.edu/np_story.asp?storyID=612
"...Dan Baumbach ...80th floor of the WTC's North Tower...He and a few others immediately headed to the core of the building, where a stairwell ran near the elevators. "Fire already was spitting out there, so we found another stairwell and started down," he said. "But when we got to the 76th floor, there was a steel door. It was locked and people started to feel trapped. A couple of us tried to ram it in and that's how I dislocated my shoulder."

"When the door wouldn't budge, the group which Baumbach said had grown to 30 people retreated back to the 80th floor, found yet another exit and headed down again.

""This time we got to the 75th floor and we were met by a Port Authority building officer who told us to relax," Baumbach said. "He said he thought a helicopter had hit the building, so we figured, all right, it's not major. He told us we could stay and have water and someone would take care of us. Some people did, but when he said the stairs were open to the ground, the rest of us kept going. A few floors down we had to go through a corridor to another stairwell and that's when we saw the side walls and ceiling on fire. There weren't any sprinklers or alarms going, all we saw was one guy from that floor holding a fire hose, trying to put the blaze out.

""The more we pressed on, the more people were just feeling overwhelmed and they dropped out. They sat on the steps and waited for someone to come get them. It was horrible to see, but there was nothing to do. Smoke was coming in and then someone's cell phone rang. Someone called and told them the other tower had been hit by an airplane - same as ours - and that's when we all knew this was no accident."

"With 20 floors to go, Baumbach saw the first firemen come laboring up the stairs. "They were in all their gear," he said quietly. "They had oxygen tanks and axes and I remember they were all red-faced and sweating, but they just kept pressing on to help the people above . . ."

"When Baumbach and the knot of people behind him made it to ground level, they could not go through the doors because of the smoldering debris that was crashing down. They were sent down a stopped escalator to the underground Plaza Level and the WTC mall and that's where - an hour into their frantic flight - they found themselves wading through pitch black surroundings in a foot of water:..."

http://www.rense.com/general14/afterd.htm
[note that these are all Tower One]

"...Dan Baumbach, 24, a software engineer from Merrick, was stunned to find that building officials in One World Trade Center were telling workers not to evacuate even after the first jet struck.

""You can try it, but it's at your own risk," he quoted one official as telling a group of 100 people on the 75th floor. Many chose to follow that advice; Baumbach continued his descent from the 80th floor and survived, but only after braving the debris that fell when the neighboring tower collapsed....

"Michael Cartier, 24, of Jackson Heights, said his sister Michelle, who worked in Tower One, told him that after the first plane struck, "'People began to evacuate, but an announcement over the intercom said everything was all right, no need to evacuate.'

""If this is true," Michael Cartier said, "they told people to go back to their desks. There should be an investigation."

"Officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the Trade Center, declined to discuss the evacuation. "I have no comment on anything relating to that incident," said Ernesto Butcher, the chief operating officer.

[ citing
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/newyork/ny-nyevac132363609sep13.story ]

http://www.rense.com/general14/afterd.htm
[citing and reproducing story at]

http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/newyork/ny-nyesc132363611sep13.story

"...Dan Baumbach, a software engineer who lives in Merrick, had an 80th-floor office at One World Trade Center, where he saw the flying debris and knew it was time to move.

"But heading down the stairs, he and four other co-workers suddenly came upon 100 others, who were told by a building official, "We'll get you out; be calm, just stay here."

""There was no way we were going to stay there," said Baumbach, 24, who was then warned: "You can try it, but it's at your own risk."

"Many stayed. Baumbach did not.

"At 10-story intervals, he had to walk through burning corridors. Bizarrely, no sprinklers or alarms had been activated. ...."

[ 10-story intervals? other facts on this page seem garbled, maybe this one is as well.... ]

"...Nicholas Scinicariello, 62, of Yorktown Heights, worked for the Port Authority on the 86th floor of Tower One.

""I saw the plane come in. My office faces north. I just finished my coffee and I heard my friend say, 'Oh no, oh no.' This plane was coming right at us, then it went up and hit the upper floors. I opened the door to my office. The fire alarms were all going off, the fire doors were jammed because the building had been wracked. I finally made it to one of the stairwells. The lights started to flicker on and off. The stairwells were flooded. Firemen were passing us on the way up." ...."

http://www.engr.psu.edu/ae/WTC/NYTimes91801.htm
For the people on floors above the crash site, there was another critical factor: an ordinary fire would take two or three hours to burn through the gypsum wallboard around .the stairwells --but projectiles of plane wreckage almost certainly pierced through, letting in the fire and smoke. That trapped people on the upper floors.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A14337-2001Sep11
"...each of the towers had 250 elevators but only three stairwells....

[no, that's 99 elevators and 3 stairwells....]

"...even though the stairwells were quite narrow...."

http://www.ramsezine.com/2001/September/wtcattackjeffm.htm
"...listen to the ordeal of a friend making her way out a building full of smoke, temperatures nothing she has ever felt before (she said it actually felt like her skin was melting), constantly seeing pieces of the building fall as they made their way down the stairwells, hearing screams as they passed the top floors, but too afraid to actually see if anyone needed help...." [ ?? ]

http://www.thortech.com/4b_news.asp?UniqueId=183
"87th floor of One World Trade Center...They began an odyssey down the crowded stairwell. At one point, they had go back upstairs to reach another stairwell because they couldn't get past a locked steel door."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-091201color.story
"At 8:45 a.m., Walter Lipiak had just unlocked the door to Cosmos Service America on the 89th floor of the north tower. . . he gathered them up and herded them toward the stairwell, which was locked. Police arrived, unlocked the exit, and Lipiak's people joined what would become a throng on the route down.

"Four floors below, Geoffrey Heineman, managing partner of a law firm on the 85th floor of the north tower,...

"They tried getting out through the main lobby of the firm, but smoke had already filled it, so Heineman led the group back inside the offices, down a stairway at the other end, through the file room. The door was blocked by files that had fallen to the floor. They cleared them and walked out to the emergency stairs.

"They made it down to the 78th floor, where there's a "sky lobby," the usual point where people get express elevators to the ground floor. "We had to exit to the lobby," Heineman said. "There was smoke, people milling around. Then we switched to the stairwell at the other side of the lobby. And now it was very crowded."

"...Heineman's group continued its descent...

"The lower stairwell was thick with smoke. People labored to breathe and slowed. Others pushed past.

""When we got to the 50s, there were firemen walking up, carrying hoses, pushing past us," Heineman said. "After that, there were times you couldn't move. Nobody was moving. It was like bumper-to-bumper traffic. You would look down and see all the hands in the stairwell.

""Once in a while we would yell down, 'What's going on?' They would yell up, 'It's starting to move.' But often I wondered whether we would make it.

""Eventually, as we got closer, to about the 16th floor, it started to move. The last six floors, there was water pouring down the stairwells. We got to the mezzanine and had to walk down the escalators from there to the main lobby, which had 6 to 8 inches of water....

"It struck Heineman afterward that everything would have been worse an hour later. The offices, like his own, would have been filled. The stairways would have been impassable...."

[ Heineman story, also at www.law.com ]

http://americastandstall.org/stories/sabrina.html
"...Sabrina... I am physically unharmed, except for the bottom of my feet which were all cut up since I lost my shoes. ... 89th Floor of 1 World Trade Center... A few minutes later the entire front of my office, where I was sitting, blew up and the entire building swayed back and forth. Flames, smoke, and debris from the ceiling covered the entrance of the office. There were four other people in my office at that time. Since we could not exit the normal way, the only other option was to use the emergency exit, which was located a few feet away and luckily had not yet gone up in flames.

"There was a problem, though. Because my company had never dreamed of anything of this magnitude happening, we used the narrow room where the exit was located as the Xerox room, in which were kept file cabinets about 9 feet high used to store supplies, etc. In the explosion, the cabinets fell over and the ceiling came down, blocking the exit door. I thought we were trapped and would burn right there.

"One of my co-workers, Frances, was in the Xerox room and was almost crushed by one of the cabinets. In a matter of seconds we were all in the room trying to lift the cabinets and open the exit door enough so that we could crawl through. It's true what they say about superhuman strength when the adrenaline is pumping. We finally did it.

"The entire floor was filled with smoke, and luckily the office two doors down was safe to go into. The five of us, could barely breathe due to all of the smoke we inhaled and were restlessly walking around the office, coughing, cursing, crying, yelling, trying to contact people we loved, holding each other. We had no idea what the hell was going on. We thought that perhaps a pipe had burst or something.

"We dialed for help, but when you dial 911 in the WTC (which, not so coincidentally was yesterday's date 9/11/01, EMERGENCY), you do not get the police, you get the WTC emergency line. They wouldn't tell us what happened. Someone from the office we crawled into had the bright idea of turning on the radio and that is when we learned what had happened.

"A plane intentionally crashed into 1 WTC - it crashed TWO floors above mine. We all stopped in our tracks at that moment, and I believe we all had the same thought: "Oh my god! I'm going to die." Well, I tried to call my mom, her boyfriend, my stepdad, a couple of friends and nothing went through. I called my aunt's job and finally got at least a machine.

"At that point I was hysterically crying and told her that the building was on fire, that I was going to die and to please tell my mom and sisters that I really love them. I was actually able to hear this message late last night when I got to my aunt's apartment. I couldn't believe the terror in my voice...so close to death.

"Anyway, a few minutes later we heard the radio announcer say that a second plane was heading straight for 2 WTC. A few seconds later our building once again swayed back and forth as the as result of the second plane crashing into 2 WTC. I hear now that it was 18 minutes between crashes. In those 18 minutes we heard no sirens, only the ones in the building when there's a fire, there was not one announcement from authorities at the WTC alerting us that there was an emergency situation and that we should evacuate, nothing. If we hadn't turned the radio on, we would not have known what the hell had happened. I was in such a rage.

"The hallways were filled with smoke and we couldn't find the staircases. Finally, about 5 minutes after the second crash, someone who worked for the Port Authority entered our office and directed us to the stairs with a flashlight. Meanwhile, we were getting soaked because the sprinkler system had turned on, people were falling because the debris from the ceiling was piled high, and a couple of people fainted.

"All five of us clung to each other and made it safely to the stairs. I think that the most terrifying part of this whole experience was the 45 or so minutes we were all walking down those 89 flights of stairs. I really doubted that we would make it out alive. There was a lot of blockage in the stairways. Every couple of minutes everyone would have to stop and move aside to let the firemen go up, someone would become fatigued and have to stop in the middle of going down, some of the stairwells were flooded, making everyone have to go down more slowly. It was a real nightmare. Frances and I became separated from our three co-workers. We were really trying to get down as fast as we possibly could.

"Finally, we got down, drenched. By this time I was shoeless, had to walk over all the broken glass and debris that was on the ground. ..."

http://www.privateequityweek.com/pew/freearticles/ZZZAKSK36SC.html
"[same company/same floor]...Choked on the smoke, the Thor employees left the office. They made their way to a stairwell where a man unsuccessfully tried to put out the blaze with a fire extinguisher. At the time, no one knew a jetliner had plowed into the floors above them. They walked calmly down nine flights of stairs to a door that connected to another stairwell. But that door was locked. "At times like these, people are in survivor mode, and you surpress your emotions," Gillies said.

They eventually found their way to another door and stairwell. Walking slowly - Gillies estimated it took an hour and 10 minutes to get down the stairs - ..."

http://www.cambridge-reporter.com/news/SurvivingTerror.html
[amplification of the Thor Tech stories above....]

"...By Christine Gillies-Dilouie...87th floor of the North Tower

"Our eyes started to burn and we were coughing. I asked Fred to get each of us a bottle of water stocked in the fridge. We placed wet napkins over our mouths to prevent smoke inhalation. The smoke was getting thicker as the fire started to creep further towards us.

""We've got to get out of here. Let's get to the stairwell," yelled Fred.

"All four of us fled the office's side door. Fortunately, the office had an alternate exit as the collapsed ceiling and fire blocked the main entrance. In the hallway, a brave man was fighting the fire with an extinguisher....

"Once in the stairwell, we hurried down the stairs quickly. Both Yvette and I were wearing clunky sandals, which slowed us down somewhat. Then, at the 78th floor we hit a dead end - a locked door.

"We banged on the door and yelled at the top of our lungs: "Open the door. Open the door."

"People behind us were queuing up shouting at us: "Open the door."

""We can't. It's locked," we yelled back.

"A large burly man grabbed a waist-high steel fire extinguisher and started ramming it repeatedly against the door. With all his might, he slammed the steel canister into the door in an attempt to break it down. Foam from the extinguisher sprayed all the people behind him. The door was so robust that he couldn't even make a dent in it. Then, he tried to smash in the wall next to the door so that we could crawl through a hole in the wall, but after a few attempts, it was clear that the concrete wall wasn't going to give either.

[concrete?]

"Just as I started to panic over being trapped, a building maintenance worker with a walkie-talkie shouted: "We've got to go back up to get down."

"Everyone followed behind him, walking up the stairs to the 83rd floor and exiting the stairwell into an office. Half of the corridor was blocked by a caved-in wall and electrical fire. Another brave man was trying to extinguish the flames. As we scurried over the soaked carpet, past the flames, we felt the heat of the fire and the spray from the extinguisher. I remember wishing I hadn't worn a polyester shirt that day.

"Once in the second stairwell, the descent toward the lobby was fairly calm, but very slow. Many times, the line stood completely still. The further we got down, the worse the traffic became as dozens of people evacuated into the stairwell.

"For over an hour, we slowly moved down the stairs. Around the 40th floor, the smoke cleared significantly. People were composed, nervously joking with each other to pass the time and stay upbeat. It was very hot and sweaty.

"A couple of men told us of their experience during the tower's bombing last decade. Another woman from the 89th floor told us that the roof of her floor had also caved in, but all of her colleagues had escaped without harm.

"...We were asked to stand to the side and make way for injured people.

""Clear left. Clear left," shouted the people who escorted a couple of injured folks passed us in the stairwell....

"An abandoned wheelchair was left in the stair well. Down one floor ahead, I could see a woman who was being carried down the stairs by four other men. A man supported each of her four limbs and carried her very slowly; stopping for rests along the way. She told them to go ahead and leave her behind. They refused. I later found out that this woman got out of the building safely.

"We also encountered a couple of very overweight people who had trouble making it down the stairs. One obese man was being carried down the stairs by two strong men. I later learned that these men were from May Davis, the trading firm from our firm's floor.

"I overheard the May Davis guys encouraging the heavy man to keep moving. He was resting on the stairs.

""Aren't we safe here? Can't we just stay here," he puffed.

"Around the 45th floor, the smoke started to clear. The stairwells were hot and clammy, but everyone had removed the handkerchiefs from their faces. We started to feel safer. People entering the stairwell were nonchalantly conducting business and seemed annoyed by the interruption to their tight schedules....

"A lot of people in the stairwell were trying to use their cell phones. I kept trying to call Craig as Yvette tried to reach her sister and parents. We knew that our families would be worried about us and we wanted to let them know that we were OK.

"At the 30th floor, we were instructed to make way for the firefighters who were passing us up the stairs. About 20 firemen, fully dressed in 90-pound fire suits, and carrying tanks on their backs, pulled themselves up the stairs with the handrail. They were exhausted and drenched in sweat. We met eyes with many of them; thanking each one individually as they ascended. People in the stairwell broke into applause and cheered the men up the stairs.

"At the 20-something floor a tall, thin Hispanic man with a mustache, stood at the stairwell entrance, touching each person's shoulder.

""Take care. Be safe, now. God bless. Watch your step," he said to each person passing him. We thanked him and smiled.

""Come on. Why don't you come with us and get out of here," asked a man behind me.

""The Lord put some of us on this earth to watch over others. This is my duty, I guess," he replied with a warm smile.

"I later saw this selfless man's photo on a missing poster in Grand Central Station.

"As we neared the ground floor, the stairs were pooled with water as the sprinkler systems had been operating on the lower floors. The stairs were quite slippery and a couple of people lost their footing and fell down the stairs on their rear end.

"Finally, Yvette and I hoorayed over the sight of daylight at ground level. The stairwell exited at the main plaza where the copper globe fountain had been. I gasped with shock as I caught a glimpse of the unrecognizable area. It looked like a war zone covered in two feet of gray debris and dust.

""What the hell happened down here," I asked under my breath.

"A fireman standing at the top of the narrow escalator, directed us to walk down the stationary escalator and out through the mall. It was a longer route out of the Trade Center, but we trusted it was safer than exiting near the plaza area.

"The World Trade Center lobby was a mess. All of the windows were smashed and the signs hung crookedly from the ceiling. The lobby was floating in four inches of water. The ceiling sprinklers drenched us with cold water causing Yvette and I to scurry a little faster.

"Don't run. Don't run," the police yelled at everyone who was rushing along.

"Yvette and I held hands and walked quickly through the showering mall. We were soaked.

""Hey Christine," yelled my colleague Fred from over my left shoulder, "Looks like we made it."

"But before I could reply, a huge thunder and cracking erupted from behind us. Then, a strong wind swept toward us. People started to scream and run. Within seconds, the roof collapsed and debris fell all around us. Then blackness.

""Get down," I yelled at Yvette pulling her hand to the ground.

"We curled together in a fetal position, clinging to each other. I covered my head. Store windows smashed, roof chunks dropped and debris crashed around us. It felt like a tornado.

""This is it," I thought to myself, "This is where it ends for me. Is this all I get? 27 years? No fair."

"The first tower was collapsing, although we didn't know what was happening at the time.

"I prayed. I never pray. I pleaded with God to either take me quickly or let me survive unharmed. I didn't want any in-betweens. I feared being pinned down by a falling beam or getting badly injured and unable to move.

"It seemed like an eternity before the crashing stopped. When it did, there was dead silence followed by coughing and cries for help. I couldn't see anything. The smoke was so thick - it was difficult to breathe. I spat the dry grit from my mouth. It was pitch black. We sat in the cold water in the blackness and I could feel the cold water on my rear end.

""Are you OK," I asked Yvette.

""I think so. Are you," she said.

""Yes," I replied.

"I wondered how long we would wait before being rescued. Then I wondered if we would be rescued. Did anyone know to look for us?

""Help me. Hello? Help me. Is there anybody there," cried a woman in front of us.

""Yes. We're here, we're right next to you," I told her.

""Reach out to me. Where are you? Can you reach out to me," she yelled.

"We fumbled around with our hands extended until our arms touched. She crawled closer to us tripping over the debris that surrounded us.

"Many people were shouting to each other: "Hello? . . . Help . . . Hello?"

"In the darkness, the people responded to each other's cries, while panic, confusion and chaos grew with each second that passed. Everyone waited for the voice of authority, the voice of direction, someone who was coming to save us.

"A man next to us lit his cigarette lighter so that he could see. At least three people shouted simultaneously: "No. No. Put that out. There could be gas in here."

""Yvette, we've got to get out of here," I said, "Let's crawl."

"Determined not to lose each other in the dark, we formed a human chain on the ground with each person clutching the ankle of the person ahead. We crawled over the glass and debris toward a faint light that turned out to be the 1/9 subway entrance.

"We stood up, but were unsure of how much clearance we had to stand. A few people stood in the doorway looking for help. The smoke and dust was so thick that I couldn't see the faces of the people standing right in front of me - only featureless figures.

"When we realized that there was no exit through the subway, we turned to move in the opposite direction. We started walking very slowing, tripping over broken debris.

""My feet. Ouch. I can't walk, I have no shoes," cried Yvette.

"I heard a man in front of us and asked if he could carry my friend who had lost her shoes. He whipped off his laptop and tossed it to the ground. I felt the thud as it hit the ground and reached down to pick up his bag. He lifted Yvette to give her a piggyback.

""Girl, what have you been eatin'," he joked with her.

"A cluster of six or seven of us moved around in the dark. I don't think any of us knew where we were going. A few seconds later we heard a man's voice in the darkness . . . "Follow my voice. There is an exit over here. Follow my voice."

"We moved toward the man's voice; toward a hazy faint light. At the bottom on a small stairwell, two firefighters argued with each other over whether the exit was safe and clear or not.

""I just took a dozen people out this way five minutes ago," one fireman insisted as he gathered us together.

""Come on. Let's move," he shouted.

"Once we were outside,...

http://www.nycstories.com/places/911/50/index.html
"...Yvette...87th floor to my office...a noise, It sounded like I was on the platform of a subway station and the train was coming full speed ahead. I remember thinking "What the hell is that" It was then that I heard a crash, the ceiling came down, and fire consumed parts of the office and the entire hallway. I was terrified. My boss Christine said "Yvette, get under the desk" to avoid the ceiling coming down on me, so I did. The fire was unreal and the smoke was getting thick...I could hardly breathe. I crawled over to my boss's cubicle to grab onto her and reached for my cell phone so I could call my sister. Christine grabbed a phone and called 911, she waited on hold then hung up. We could hear the sirens of the fire engine instantly after the crash. I looked out the window and saw streams of what I thought was water coming down, I later found out it was jet fuel. I was scared...I was confused. It felt like a dream, as if I was not even there. The service on my phone was down and Fred was calling out "who is here?" Christine answered for the both of us "Yvette and Christine are here, what do we do?" Fred came for us, grabbed bottled water out of the fridge, paper towels to cover our faces and led us out the side door to the stairs. We ran around the hallways looking for the stairwell...now sure where it was we followed some other people, some brave enough to stay behind and fight the fire. We made it to the stairs and proceeded down as fast as we could without panicking...after all we still had no clue what was going on. We reached the 78th floor stairwell and it was locked, a man tried to break it down with a fire extinguisher and failed, the door was metal and was impossible to break down, he then tried to bash in the wall next to the door to create a passageway to crawl through...again it wasn't going to happen. People yelled "Open the door" unaware that it was locked. We then had to be re-routed upstairs a level and find another stairwell. We were finally steadily moving down the stairs, and we were all calm. We joked and laughed, a man from the 88th floor told us that a plane had hit the building...we just assumed it was a small plane and that everything was going to be all right. We eventually got down about 40 flights of stairs and saw firefighters sweating carrying all their equipment and wearing their heavy coats. It was another relief to us. It was still a little smoky but we knew it was smokier upstairs so we gave them our bottled water and wished them well. They were all young, good-looking and so unbelievably brave. They smiled at us and looked so focused. They are my heroes! As they were going up, the last thing on our minds was that they may never come back down, but I don't believe they ever did. We talked some more on the stairs about the bomb in 1993, and conspiracy theorist on the stairs had there own conclusions about what was happening...but no one took it seriously. As we were approaching the plaza level of One World Trade Center, the firemen said "Just keep walking" and advised us not too look out the windows, and continue down the escalator...but of course we did. It was completely gray, glass was broken and debris was scattered through the plaza, what was usually filled with employee's, vendors, and tourists was completely empty and look like it had been deserted. The firemen insisted that we keep walking and we all cheered as we got to the mall level. The sprinklers sprayed us from above, "we made it" I remember Christine saying, with tears in her eyes...and we finally met up with Fred again, whom we had lost on the stairs. It was then that I heard that same terrible rumble, what a horrifying. Christine and I ran, the lights went out and you could not see a thing, Fred later said that he thought he had gone blind. We hit the floor. We held on to each other in a fetal position as a tidal wave of concrete dust, debris, and shattered glass, came flying all at once from behind, rolling over our backs for what seem like forever. I screamed "PLEASE GOD...PLEASE GOD" repeatedly. It was over, my shoes were gone, one of my shoes was blown off and I just sort of ditched the other. You could hear people calling for each other "Is anyone near me? Please reach for me" Christine then answered her "Yes! We're here, we're right next to you." and we reached for her...no one wanted to leave anyone behind...we were a team that had a mission to help and to survive. Two World Trade Center had collapsed. We grabbed onto each other's ankles and crawled through the darkness, over the glass and debris. We didn't know where to go or what to do. It was impossible to breathe because of the concrete dust and we still could not see. I could hear a man calling out "over here" we crawled over to him toward a faint light that turned out to be the 1/9 subway entrance. We stood up. A few people stood in the doorway looking for help. We heard a fireman call out to us "Is anyone down here?" "Follow the light and I'll lead you out" we saw a faint light but it was difficult to see, it was like putting on your brights on an incredibly foggy day. You couldn't make out faces, you could just see figures and hear voices. I couldn't walk; I had no shoes on. A man, like an angel came over to us and offered to carry me on his back. Without complaint, without hesitation...only he did say "Damn girl, whatcha been eatin'" I responded by hitting him a number of times in the shoulder and laughing...he made me feel better. We reached the street level, ..."

http://users.rcn.com/lundissimo/wtc/mayblum.html
[and on a whole bunch of other web sites....]

"...Adam Mayblum...[May Davis] 87th floor of 1 World Trade Center, AKA: Tower 1, AKA: the North Tower...when the first plane hit just a few stories above us...The building lurched violently and shook as if it were an earthquake. People screamed. I watched out my window as the building seemed to move 10 to 20 feet in each direction. It rumbled and shook long enough for me to get my wits about myself and grab a co-worker and seek shelter under a doorway. Light fixtures and parts of the ceiling collapsed. The kitchen was destroyed. We were certain that it was a bomb. We looked out the windows. Reams of paper were flying everywhere, like a ticker tape parade. I looked down at the street. I could see people in Battery Park City looking up. Smoke started billowing in through the holes in the ceiling. I believe that there were 13 of us.

"We did not panic. I can only assume that we thought that the worst was over. The building was standing and we were shaken but alive. We checked the halls. The smoke was thick and white and did not smell like I imagined smoke should smell. Not like your BBQ or your fireplace or even a bonfire. The phones were working...and on my way out. I grabbed my laptop. Took off my tee shirt and ripped it into 3 pieces. Soaked it in water. Gave 2 pieces to my friends. Tied my piece around my face to act as an air filter. And we all started moving to the staircase. One of my dearest friends said that he was staying until the police or firemen came to get him. In the halls there were tiny fires and sparks. The ceiling had collapsed in the men's bathroom. It was gone along with anyone who may have been in there. We did not go in to look. We missed the staircase on the first run and had to double back. Once in the staircase we picked up fire extinguishers just incase. On the 85th floor a brave associate of mine and I headed back up to our office to drag out my partner who stayed behind. There was no air, just white smoke. We made the rounds through the office calling his name. No response. He must have succumbed to the smoke. We left defeated in our efforts and made our way back to the stairwell. We proceeded to the 78th floor where we had to change over to a different stairwell. 78 is the main junction to switch to the upper floors. I expected to see more people. There were some 50 to 60 more. Not enough. Wires and fires all over the place. Smoke too. A brave man was fighting a fire with the emergency hose. I stopped with to friends to make sure that everyone from our office was accounted for. We ushered them and confused people into the stairwell. In retrospect, I recall seeing Harry, my head trader, doing the same several yards behind me. I am only 35. I have known him for over 14 years. I headed into the stairwell with 2 friends.

"We were moving down very orderly in Stair Case A. very slowly. No panic. At least not overt panic. My legs could not stop shaking. My heart was pounding. Some nervous jokes and laughter. I made a crack about ruining a brand new pair of Merrells. Even still, they were right, my feet felt great. We all laughed. We checked our cell phones. Surprisingly, there was a very good signal, but the Sprint network was jammed. I heard that the Blackberry 2 way email devices worked perfectly. On the phones, 1 out of 20 dial attempts got through. I knew I could not reach my wife so I called my parents. I told them what happened and that we were all okay and on the way down. Soon, my sister in law reached me. I told her we were fine and moving down. I believe that was about the 65th floor. We were bored and nervous. I called my friend Angel in San Francisco. I knew he would be watching. He was amazed I was on the phone. He told me to get out that there was another plane on its way. I did not know what he was talking about. By now the second plane had struck Tower 2. We were so deep into the middle of our building that we did not hear or feel anything. We had no idea what was really going on. We kept making way for wounded to go down ahead of us. Not many of them, just a few. No one seemed seriously wounded. Just some cuts and scrapes. Everyone cooperated. Everyone was a hero yesterday. No questions asked. I had co-workers in another office on the 77th floor. I tried dozens of times to get them on their cell phones or office lines. It was futile. Later I found that they were alive. One of the many miracles on a day of tragedy.

"On the 53rd floor we came across a very heavyset man sitting on the stairs. I asked if he needed help or was he just resting. He needed help. I knew I would have trouble carrying him because I have a very bad back. But my friend and I offered anyway. We told him he could lean on us. He hesitated, I don't know why. I said do you want to come or do you want us to send help for you. He chose for help. I told him he was on the 53rd floor in Stairwell A and that's what I would tell the rescue workers. He said okay and we left.

"On the 44th floor my phone rang again. It was my parents. They were hysterical. I said relax, I'm fine. My father said get out, there is third plane coming. I still did not understand. I was kind of angry. What did my parents think? Like I needed some other reason to get going? I couldn't move the thousand people in front of me any faster. I know they love me, but no one inside understood what the situation really was. My parents did. Starting around this floor the firemen, policemen, WTC K-9 units without the dogs, anyone with a badge, started coming up as we were heading down. I stopped a lot of t hem and told them about the man on 53 and my friend on 87. I later felt terrible about this. They headed up to find those people and met death instead.

"On the 33rd floor I spoke with a man who somehow new most of the details....

"On the 3r floor the lights went out and we heard & felt this rumbling coming towards us from above. I thought the staircase was collapsing upon itself. It was 10am now and that was Tower 2 collapsing next door. We did not know that. Someone had a flashlight. We passed it forward and left the stairwell and headed down a dark and cramped corridor to an exit. We could not see at all. I recommended that everyone place a hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them and call out if they hit an obstacle so others would know to avoid it. They did. It worked perfectly. We reached another stairwell and saw a female officer emerge soaking wet and covered in soot. She said we could not go that way it was blocked. Go up to 4 and use the other exit. Just as we started up she said it was ok to go down instead. There was water everywhere. I called out for hands on shoulders again and she said that was a great idea. She stayed behind instructing people to do that. I do not know what happened to her.

"We emerged into an enormous room. It was light but filled with smoke. I commented to a friend that it must be under construction. Then we realized where we were. It was the second floor. The one that overlooks the lobby. We were ushered out into the courtyard, the one where the fountain used to be....

"...we heard a rumble. We looked up and our building, Tower 1 collapsed. I did not note the time but I am told it was 10:30am. We had been out less than 15 minutes.

"...As it turns out my partner, the one who I thought had stayed behind was behind us with Harry Ramos, our head trader. This is now second hand information. They came upon Victor, the heavyset man on the 53rd floor. They helped him. He could barely move. My partner bravely/stupidly tested the elevator on the 52nd floor. He rode it down to the sky lobby on 44. The doors opened, it was fine. He rode it back up and got Harry and Victor. I don't yet know if anyone else joined them. Once on 44 they made their way back into the stairwell. Someplace around the 39th to 36th floors they felt the same rumble I felt on the 3rd floor. It was 10am and Tower 2 was coming down. They had about 30 minutes to get out. Victor said he could no longer move. They offered to have him lead on them. He said he couldn't do it. My partner hollered at him to sit on his butt and schooch down the steps. He said he was not capable of doing it. Harry told my partner to go ahead of them. Harry had once had a heart attack and was worried about this mans heart. It was his nature to be this way. He was/is one of the kindest people I know. He would not leave a man behind. My partner went ahead and made it out. He said he was out maybe 10 minutes before the building came down. This means that Harry had maybe 25 minutes to move Victor 36 floors.

"I guess they moved 1 floor every 1.5 minutes. Just a guess. This means Harry wad around the 20th floor when the building collapsed. As of now 12 of 13 people are accounted for. As of 6pm yesterday his wife had not heard from him. I fear that Harry is lost...."
[See also http://www.maydavis.com/hero.html ]
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-091601escape.story
[Mayblum explained....]

"Adam Mayblum enjoyed the storms that rumbled off the Atlantic.... 87th floor ...During the worst storms, the cords on his window shades would appear to sway a few inches, but it was an illusion. They actually hung straight, held steady by gravity. It was the tower that swayed, to absorb the weather.

"When Adam felt the first rumble Tuesday morning, he glanced at the cords. They were oscillating like a pendulum, 3 feet in either direction....Outside, pieces of paper fluttered through the air, "gently," he would say later, "on a breeze." He looked down at the tiny people staring up at him from 876 feet below and offered them a New York retort:

""What're you looking at?"

"They were looking at terrorists ripping apart the World Trade Center.....The confusion inside Adam's office at May Davis, where he is the managing director, lasted just seconds. He knew he needed to get out....He took off his Van Heusen dress shirt, then ripped his T-shirt into pieces, soaked the pieces in water and gave them to some of his 13 colleagues to cover their faces. Among them: Harry Ramos,... Adam....put his shirt back on, grabbed his laptop and raced for the stairs through bright white smoke. Sparks bit at his ankles. He missed the stairs on his first pass. It was the World Trade Center. No one took the stairs.

"After bolting two flights down, he realized that his partner and close friend, 46-year-old Hong Zhu, had been left behind. Adam went back upstairs and reached the office, now filled with smoke and burning jet fuel.

"There was no sign of Hong,... He didn't make it out through the smoke, Adam thought.

"He raced back down and made it to the 78th floor, a transfer lobby where one set of elevators and stairs ended and another began. He saw a stranger bravely staving off a wall of flames with a fire hose.

"People were collapsing from the stress. Others tried to give comfort, stuffing a shirt under the head of the fallen before racing for the stairs.

"Adam found Harry, wading into the pandemonium to help panicked workers into a safe stairwell. It was a reassuring sight, and a typical one....there is not one person, Adam said, who has ever said a bad thing about Harry...

"Adam found another stairwell and began walking down again. His heart was beating faster and faster, and the muscles in his calves were contracting in spasms.

"On the 53rd floor, Adam came across a heavyset man whose legs just wouldn't move anymore. The man was sitting on the stairs and said he needed help. Adam knew his bad back would make it hard to carry him, but he offered anyway. The man hesitated.

""Do you want to come, or do you want us to send help?" Adam shouted.

"The man asked Adam to send help. Adam said he would.

"The hijackers did not strike either tower with their wings level. Instead, they hit at an angle.

"Twelve employees of the American Bureau of Shipping, ..........were on the 91st floor of the north tower when the first plane hit almost exactly at their level.

"But they were on the northwest corner of the building. The bulk of the plane's fuselage entered the building about 100 feet south of them. The plane's left wing, banked toward the ground, wiped out the east side of the floor. But the plane's right wing, banked toward the sky, sliced through the office above them.

"George Sleigh ..."I heard this unusual sound. A roaring sound," he said. "As I looked up I saw the plane. I thought: 'This guy is really low.' "

"A wing flashed past his eyes, followed by the plane's smooth belly. Then the world caved in. Down the hall from ABS, an office was obliterated. Above them, Marsh USA Inc., an insurance and risk management firm that occupied the 93rd through 100th floors, was hit badly. It would later report as many as 400 workers missing.

"Sleigh, who occupied the easternmost desk in the ABS office, was buried under a pile of ceiling tiles and bookshelves. His colleagues were fine, as surprised they were still alive as they were that a plane had just crashed into their building. They dug Sleigh out, and they all escaped...

"Hong was alive.

"He had been behind Adam in the stairwell the whole time, but in the noise and the smoke and the sparks, Adam didn't know. They had apparently passed each other on stairwell A, Hong running down, Adam running up to rescue him.

"When Hong got to the 53rd floor, he came across Harry Ramos. Harry had stopped to help the heavyset man--the same man Adam met earlier. "I'll give you a hand," Hong said.

"Together, Harry and Hong helped the man down one more flight. They found an office, a securities firm, where the air-conditioning was working. While they tried to get a dose of cool air into the heavyset man's lungs, Hong found an elevator.

""No! No!" a Port Authority official screamed. "Don't take it!"

"Hong and Harry tried to send a magazine down in the elevator. In the confusion of the moment, they reasoned that if the elevator came back, and the magazine was still inside, it would be safe. That was what passed for logic at the time. They pressed the "down" button, but the doors didn't close. So Hong decided that he would be the guinea pig instead.

He stepped inside, and the doors closed behind him.

"In the center of each floor of the twin, 110-story towers at the World Trade Center, the hallways converged in a spot employees called the crossroads.

"The path down began at that spot. In many cases, escape depended on choices--left or right, up or down, stairwell A or B, stay or go.

"Roko Camaj, 61, had cleaned the windows of the World Trade Center since it opened in 1973. He was on the roof when the first plane struck, hanging the rigging for the machines that scrubbed the windows.

[Did he lock the doors behind him?]

He began racing down the stairs but was told on the 105th that he should return to the roof.

"He called his wife on his cell phone and told her he was heading up to wait for a helicopter. Then she heard a scream. The line went dead. She wouldn't hear from him again.

"Arlene Charles...American Building Maintenance employee, she had started her shift at 5:45 a.m., turning on the elevators that had been shut down for the night.

"Then, filling in for a vacationing co-worker, she headed to her assignment on the 78th-floor sky lobby and began saying "Good morning," in her Grenadan drawl, .......... The plane struck the north tower, just above her, about 15 minutes later.

"I squeezed between the desk, put my head down and put my jacket over my face," Charles said. "I was so scared to look up, but when I started peeking, I heard a lady screaming."

"It was Carmen Griffith. They had worked together for 20 ..........Griffith, who had been standing nearby when a glob of burning jet fuel burst through the elevator shafts, was crawling toward her. Charles looked at Griffith's hands pawing at the floor. Skin was peeling from her fingers.

"People sprinted past toward safety, but Charles refused to leave without her friend. With the help of an executive who stopped, she soaked Griffith with water from a nearby office, then picked her up and began a slow walk down 78 flights of stairs.

""She was crying," Charles said. "She was burning."

"Charles' walkie-talkie crackled with static and voices all the way down as other workers with radios urged them on.

""I'd say: 'I'm on the fortysomething floor, on the twentysomething floor,' " Charles said. "They said: 'Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!' But I said: 'I can't hurry. I have to help Carmen.' "

"Around the mid-40s, two men sprinted past them, then doubled back to help. Together, they made it out after 90 minutes, 15 minutes before the collapse, Griffith alive but with burns on 60% of her body.

"Adam was progressing steadily toward freedom, stopping occasionally to counsel people from his office, to usher a few of them into the line ahead of him.

"His cell phone rang. It was his parents, calling from Delray Beach, Fla. Adam was nervous but betrayed little of his fear. They were hysterical.

""Get out," his father said sternly.

""Relax," Adam said. "I'm fine."

"And he was, in a way. He wasn't hurt. He was making good progress. He felt oddly bored. He couldn't believe it himself. But he was.

"Harry and Hong, meanwhile, were in trouble.

"Hong took the elevator down to the 44th floor, the next transfer lobby. So far, so good. He pressed "52," went back up and collected Harry and the heavyset man.

"On 44--halfway down--Hong, Harry and the heavyset man got off the elevator and stumbled across the lobby toward the last bank of elevators that would take them all the way down.

"Hong pressed the "down" button again. Nothing. They would have to take the stairs.

"Harry and Hong each took an arm of the heavyset man and draped them over their shoulders. "One floor at a time," Hong said. "One step at a time."

"They had been trying to get out for an hour and five minutes. They were on the 39th floor when they felt the south tower collapse.

""We really have to move," Hong said.

"The rumbles of the collapsing tower next door seemed to sap the heavyset man of his last gasps of energy. He sat down again.

""I can't move my legs," he said. "I can't do it anymore."

"In both towers, the stairs were a lifeline that grew increasingly frayed as time passed.

"It takes a long time to walk down 90 flights of stairs.

""It was not designed for quick evacuation," said Thomas A. Humphreys, a Brown & Wood attorney who escaped once from the firm's 57th-floor offices after the 1993 car-bombing at the trade center, and then again Tuesday. "You had to get everyone in our building out in 90 minutes. That's tough."

"At first, even in the upper floors, the exodus was calm and orderly. Someone had time to break into a vending machine and pass out grape sodas. Someone made a joke about how the water from sprinklers and fire hoses was ruining their shoes.

""I was at the tail end of the crowd," said Humphreys. "You wait. People are orderly. It's crowded and it's slow. You go down a few steps and it would stop. Some of the stops were five minutes. You don't know why."

"As time passed, the stairs became increasingly crowded. Heat began to build, dust poured into the stairwells and the water was around their ankles.

"All the while, the building was coming apart. Walls creaked and then cracked.

""It seemed we were walking down very calm, very orderly . . and all of a sudden you felt like the ground was falling out from under you," said Claiborne Johnston, who escaped from the 64th floor of the south tower.

""You knew the structure had been altered severely, and the rest of the way down you could feel that."

"Veterans of the 1993 bombing knew that stairwell B--there were three in all, A, B and C--was the widest and could accommodate the most people.

"On most passes of most staircases, there was room for two people to stand side by side, but that didn't last long. From the top, the injured were being carried out, and those who could walk were forced to step aside.....

"Hong was screaming at the heavyset man to move.

""You don't have to move your legs!" Hong shouted, as Harry waited with him. "Just move your butt. Slide down, one at a time. He moved two steps, and that was it. He couldn't go on. 'Let's go!' I shouted."

"A firefighter ran up to them. Hong expected that he would join in to get the heavy man to move. Instead, the firefighter turned to Hong. The firefighter knew what they could not: For the stragglers, it was too late.

""Who the [expletive] are you, screaming at him to get out?" the firefighter shouted. "You get out!"

""I wanted to help," Hong said. "But at that moment, I didn't see how we could."

"Hong looked at Harry, who was still standing with the heavyset man.

""I'm coming down with you," Harry told the man. "I'm not going to leave."

""I left," Hong said. "Alone."

"Adam was nearing the bottom. Still trudging down the stairs, he told everyone around him to link hands. They ended up at a courtyard where a pleasant fountain had been just an hour earlier. Now it was a pile of ash, dust, gnarled metal and body parts....Adam, like many survivors, had grown weary of telling his story to his friends and relatives. So he sent them an e-mail describing the ordeal. And they sent the e-mail to their friends and relatives, who sent it to their friends and relatives.

[and it wound up being the most widely copied WTC survival story on the internet....]

"At 2:50 a.m. Saturday, his phone rang. The e-mail had made it to San Francisco, where it was read by someone who knew a woman in New York named Rebecca Ward--and knew that Rebecca's husband, a heavyset man, was missing. The San Francisco man got in touch with Rebecca Ward, who called Adam. The heavyset man was her husband, Victor.

"On Saturday afternoon, Rebecca Ward came to Owen May's house to learn how Victor was comforted in his last moments, how Harry refused to leave him behind.

"Harry's wife was walking around with a floor plan of the World Trade Center.

"She questioned everyone who had been inside the north tower, convinced that somehow, Harry--the only May Davis employee still missing--is alive.

"She developed a picture of his escape, learned that Harry was on 87 when the plane hit, that he stopped to help on 78, that he met up with Hong on 53.

"But as hard as she pushed, as many questions as she asked, the picture began to fade after that.

"And finally, on stairwell A of the 36th floor, it went dark..."

http://www.theledger.com/attack/16choi.htm
"... John Paul DeVito ...Harry Ramos...1 World Trade Center, lurched violently, like a ship in high seas. DeVito was nearly knocked off his chair. Ramos braced himself in a doorway.

"Lighting fixtures pulled loose from the ceiling, crashing on the floor. Papers flew. Smoke poured in through holes that suddenly opened overhead. Several employees screamed.

"DeVito and Ramos had no idea what had happened. A bomb, everybody guessed. One man rushed to the firm's south-facing windows and looked out, only to see a crowd gathering 87 floors below in Battery Park City, staring up at the tower.

"...their office at the May Davis Group, a small investment bank, was filling with smoke.

"...DeVito was trying to corral his 12 frightened employees, shouting that they had to walk down.

"Some thought they should stay. Others agreed to leave but wanted to gather their things. But which things? What to take down 87 floors?

"Some grabbed fire extinguishers. Some tried to pack up their desktop computers. Some ripped up their shirts to make face masks. DeVito found a gallon jug of water and helped people wet their makeshift bandannas. Then he decided to bring along the jug.

"Everybody made for the stairs except for Hong Zhu, an investment banker, who was frozen with fear. He told the others he would wait for help. Ramos cajoled him to the stairwell door.

"...He decided to take the lead in going down. The others formed a human chain behind him, each putting a hand on the shoulder of the person in front, and descended into the gathering smoke.

"Nine floors down, the stairwell ended. Emerging into a hallway to look for the next flight of stairs, the group saw wires dangling from cracked ceilings. Sparks popped. Small fires burned everywhere. Office workers were milling in confusion. The smoke was thickening.

"DeVito's...decided to herd his employees into the next stairwell. But some straggled, and Ramos was staying behind, directing confused strangers into the stairwell.

"More people were crowding into the stairwell, though they stopped to let burn victims pass. In the crush, the May Davis employees let go of each other, and DeVito soon realized he couldn't see everybody any more.....

"Below the 50th floor, the May Davis group spotted the first firefighters, rushing up the stairs lugging oxygen tanks and other heavy equipment....

""Do you want some water?" he asked, offering his jug.

""I don't need no water," one answered and kept going.

"Braunstein touched DeVito's arm. "John," he said, "this is a good sign. They wouldn't be sending these men up if it wasn't safe."

"Back on the 53rd floor, Zhu was trailing far behind. He saw his firm's head trader, Ramos, leaning over a very heavy man, named Victor, who seemed unable to move. Zhu stopped, wanting to help.

"Why don't you lean on both of our shoulders?" Zhu suggested. They helped Victor to his feet and struggled with him down one flight. Then Zhu saw that the elevator appeared to be working. They descended to the 44th floor. But there it stopped.

"They started struggling down the stairs again. When Ramos went ahead to scout, Victor cried out in fear. "Harry, please help," he begged.

""Don't worry, we're not leaving you," Ramos said. On the 39th floor, Ramos spotted an open door -- a credit union. They decided to go in and rest.

"...In the days since,...calling the city's hospitals and checking the lists of Trade Center survivors, trying to find Ramos."

http://www.guideposts.com/weekly_feature.asp?date=11/24/2001
"...John DeVito... eighty-seventh floor of Tower One ...May Davis...

"The room lurched right. I nearly fell off my chair, then clutched the desk as the room jolted left. An earthquake? A ceiling tile clattered onto my desk. Light fixtures dangled, wires spitting. "It's a bomb!" someone yelled.

"For a stunned moment we stared at one another. "I'll go check!" I ran into the corridor. Smoke. People peering from office doorways. I groped my way through the haze, past the elevators, down the hall to . . . I stopped.

"The rest of the corridor was gone. Where a row of doors had been, I found myself staring down into a hellhole of fire and twisted steel.

"Burning debris cascaded around me. Without thinking, I snatched a broken piece of wallboard and beat at the flames. It was a moment before sanity returned. I rushed back to my office, where others were doing futile things too: collecting files, packing up big desktop computers. Outside the window where I'd stood sipping coffee, things were falling. Papers, hunks of metal.

"Dust and smoke seeped from the ceiling. As chief operating officer I knew I should give some kind of direction, but what? Where to turn? I was a churchgoing man, but at that moment of fear and mounting chaos God seemed awfully far away. Was my duty to stay and safeguard company property? Strange how slow the mind is to grasp enormity . . .

"Adam Mayblum had kept his head and was ripping up his shirt, passing out strips to use as face masks. At last reality got through to me: Get your people out of this building...

"I grabbed a half-gallon bottle of water, got people to moisten their makeshift masks. Some of the staff still looked undecided. "Joanne! Sam! Everybody! Let's go! Leave everything!"

"In the corridor the smoke had grown thicker. "Not the elevators!" I shouted. Pressing the wet cloth over my nose, I led the way . . . right . . . then left . . . Where was the exit sign? I'd passed it a thousand times, scarcely seeing it—who takes stairs from the eighty-seventh floor? We were almost at the chasm where the hallway ended when I saw the sign glowing redly through the gloom. If the floor had fallen in a few yards nearer, there would have been no exit.

"The stairwell was filled with acrid smoke and fleeing people. Narrow . . . stay together . . . go single file. "Put your hand on my shoulder," I told Jason. "Everyone hold onto the one in front." The 14 of us formed a chain and started down. Eighty-sixth floor . . . eighty-fifth . . . Around us people were saying an airplane had struck the tower. It was incomprehensible. Yet there we were, struggling through the smoke, the ordinariness of the day torn asunder.

"At the seventy-eighth floor the stairway suddenly ended. Seventy-eight was a transfer floor. The stairway continued somewhere on the other side of an open area around the elevator banks. We stepped into a scene of pandemonium. In the choking dust hundreds of people milled, looking for an exit. From the ceiling exposed wires sent showers of sparks into the crowd. Small fires crept along the floor. There were screams, people crying, people praying....

"Thirty-fifth floor . . . thirty-fourth. I began to notice something I'd seen without taking it in. In that stairwell jammed with terrified people, there'd been no shoving. Wedged together in a narrow stairway of a burning building, no one pushed ahead of the slow movers. Over and over I'd witnessed just the opposite! The handicapped given precedence. Men stepping aside for women. The young giving place to the gray-haired. As injured and burn victims were carried past, everyone flattened against the wall, called encouragement, waited. Same too as the firefighters climbed up."..."

http://www.engr.psu.edu/ae/WTC/AmericanBureauofShipping.htm
"Steve McIntyre...office was on the 91st floor of World Trade Center One....

"He says, "it was then that I heard the roar of jet engines coming right at us. I have a vague recollection of a shadow crossing the blinds. And then one or two seconds after the roar came the impact. The whole building shook, moved, and oscillated. The interior wall and the ceiling at the east end of the office came in.

""My perception was that it came in at about the 93rd floor, right smack in the center of the north face. I knew it was a jet engine. I thought, ‘Oh s**t, someone’s lost control of a private Lear jet and crashed into us’. I had no idea of the size of the thing." It was 08.48.

"...on the 91st floor, Steve says, the 11 ABS employees had no idea what was going on outside. He thinks now it was one of the things that saved them. The mood was definitely not calm, but it was orderly, perhaps also because some had been through the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 when ABS had occupied a sparkling office on the 102nd floor of Two World Trade Center. "We started our routine, started checking who’s here...." ...

""People were getting fire extinguishers. Someone had the presence of mind to soak a big roll of paper towels." Everyone was safe, though George Sleigh, a phlegmatic Briton who is manager of ABS’ Technical Consistency Department, was "encased" in debris and had to be extricated from his cubicle. Steve went to check the fire exits. There were three of them. "The first, on the left, had a lot of water and debris. I went down the hall and turned right to the second fire stair. It was dark, worse than the first. And I have a clear feeling now that the two closest stairs were blocked above our floor. I thought ‘where the hell is the third fire stair’.

""The corridors to the east were impassable, and there was a lot of smoke. I finally found my way to the third fire stair. But I tripped on some gypsum board and fell. I slid down to the first landing and then round the corner and down to the second landing. Then I realized ‘it’s better here’." He went back to get the others.

""We started down. I remember very few people coming down from other floors. We stopped at around the 85th floor to take stock and to calm each other. That was much better. We realized the fire was above us and that it was clear below.We just had to get down."

"From then on, they moved quickly, their minds focussed entirely on getting out rather than on whatever might be happening above them. All the same, he says that emotionally he was "up and down like a yo-yo". "We were completely encased in tunnels. And then we would open a door onto a floor and there would be guys fighting a fire, and then we would open another door and there would be people just milling around. It frightened me, all these people just standing around. Maybe they had seen what happened to the second tower."

"They continued their way down, crossing floors to find new fire exits when the clog of people became too thick and the pace of descent too slow for comfort or when, as on the 78th floor, they ran into a locked fire door and had to retreat. By the 40s, they met the first firemen moving slowly up against the current.

""They were already beat after climbing 44 floors with heavy equipment. People were giving them water and encouragement. And those poor guys kept climbing up to do what they could do." Many would never make it out again. Steve and his companions kept going down, counting the floors until they reached what they imagined the sanctuary of the mezzanine. He still had no idea what had happened outside. It did not cross his mind that his ordeal might just be beginning.

""I was thinking ‘okay, great, we’re safe’. But outside I could see all this falling debris flying around. I thought ‘we’ve being coming down for an hour, what the hell is this’." By now, he had been paired with Ruth, who had sprained her ankle and had trouble getting down. They were ordered down to the lobby floor and directed across the plaza to an exit on the eastern side of the complex, Steve helping Ruth along under the drenching rain of the fire sprinklers. Seconds later, at 9.58, Two World Trade Center imploded.

""We were about 50 feet from the escalator up to Church St and I was saying to Ruth ‘we’re okay, we get up this escalator and we’re okay’, and then there was a big rumble and a huge roar and everybody shouted ‘run’ and then a huge wind came through there. I remember distinctly being lifted off my feet and blown down the hall,..."

"...Claire McIntyre - no relation - was checking her e-mail when she first heard the plane, writes Alison Bate.

""I was working at my computer and first heard this horrendous roar of a jet engine," she recalls. "I thought it couldn’t possibly be here this close. Then I saw the wing and tail of a plane." She jumped up screaming and ran out her office to alert the rest of the staff. “I thought: ‘Oh my God, all my people’. I ran out into the hallway and just screamed: ‘Everyone, get out now’."

"Then American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the building two story’s above her head, wiping out the 93rd floor offices of the world’s largest insurance broker Marsh & McLennan. At the end of last week there were still 700 Marsh employees missing. Claire had no idea at the time that it was a terrorist attack. "I thought it was an accident," she says.

"As all her 11 colleagues working in the office that day gathered in the reception area Claire had the presence of mind to grab her pocketbook and a flashlight before they started their long escape down 91 floors. "The first two flights were dark, with no emergency lights, and water was pouring down the stairs," says Claire. "We could barely see and I put my flashlight on. Then the emergency lights came on, and water was still flowing down."

"Fellow office worker Emma ‘Georgia’ Barnett slipped and slid down three flights of stairs. She got up but then tripped over a hose, damaging her knee, but carried on. Claire and four others crossed over to another stairwell that was moving faster and worked their way down floor by floor.

""In the 60s I was thinking: ‘How much more to go?’" says Claire. "I remember getting to 22 and saying: ‘Oh my God, we’re almost there’." When they emerged from the stairwell at the mezzanine level, and were greeted by emergency services people, who were rushing everybody out.

"Then came the worst part...."

http://www.gmnews.com/Suburban/news/2001/1004/Front_Page/009.html
Chess, now a Jersey City resident, was on the 85th floor around 8:45 a.m. when a hijacked plane struck the tower a couple floors above his office.
...... . . .
He and others from his office would soon discover, however, that the floor by the elevator bank had collapsed. The workers went scurrying for the stairwell, but it was pitch dark.

"The floor was on fire, pipes had burst, water was flowing all over the place, and there were fires in the walls. I grabbed a trading jacket to put over my mouth. It was pitch dark, but eventually we found the stairwell," Chess said.

It was probably best for the workers that they didn’t realize the extent of the damage, because it kept them fairly calm during their escape. In fact, it wasn’t until Chess was about 30 floors down the stairs when the real panic set in.

"The first 30 floors (down), it wasn’t bad," he said. "None of the floors above (the 85th floor) were getting out because there was no way down. That’s why people were jumping out windows."

"Older people were having a hard time getting down the stairs, and firefighters were busy racing up the stairwells with full gear, he said...."

http://www.sptimes.com/News/091201/Worldandnation/Experts__Impact__fire.shtml
"He said that the two towers have staircases in all four corners and were designed to be evacuated in an hour, but it appeared that since the planes crashed into the corners, escape was cut off for those on the floors above."

[4 corners??? is this uninformed pontificating ? all diagrams show the stairwells only in the core, see floor diagram references on http://www.mjbarkl.com/wtc.htm ]

http://www.ocregister.com/breakingnews/attack/09132001/13nyreconstructcci.shtml
"People on floors as high as the 88th at the north tower, stepping over rubble, made the full trip to safety. In the packed stairwells, people stepped aside to let burn victims speed past. Firefighters rushed upward, assisting as they climbed.

...... . . .

At the north tower, the evacuation began after an explosion and rain of debris as low as the 88th floor, just below where the first jet slammed into the tower.

"Dorene Smith, a Port Authority executive assistant, had been standing at her desk with a colleague when parts of the ceiling caved in.

""We're going to be fine," they told each other as they grabbed their pocketbooks and moved through the rubble to the stairway.

"Confusion reigned for a few moments, and Smith called home to say she was trapped. Then someone led the way to an open stairway, and she sped through the stairwell.

...... . . .

Bill Saffran of Aon Corp. says his colleagues faithfully carried out the fire drills held every few months to plan their escape from the 103rd floor in the south tower. "They show us where the exit is, and you assume it goes down," he says.

"Saffran was not at the trade center Tuesday. But later, a woman who escaped told him that the plan developed a horrific problem. The designated exit stairwell came to a dead end on the 78th floor, where she and three other Aon employees were forced to exit into a lobby.

""There were tons of people," he quoted the woman as saying. "The elevators were still running, but they were overloaded, and then the second plane hit. Many people were thrown to the floor, injured."

"Saffran said only two of the four employees found the stairwell that continued down. Two did not. "One was badly injured," he says. "The other for some reason did not want to go down."

"Those two, he says, are now among the missing and presumed dead...."

http://www.greatdreams.com/trade_day2.htm
"...Arturo Domingo of Morgan Stanley. The descent had been calm and orderly, much better than after the 1993 blast, he said. But when he reached the 44th floor, he said, a man with a megaphone told people there was no problem.

""His exact words were, `Our building is secure. You can go back to your floor. If you're a little winded, you can get a drink of water or coffee in the cafeteria,' " said Mr. Domingo. He and a group of other Morgan Stanley employees rode an elevator back up to the 60th floor and returned to their desks. "How stupid were we," he says.

"When the second plane smashed into his tower right above his floor, throwing a filing cabinet into his back, he headed for the exit again and passed the same man with the megaphone, now assuring people they would get out alive.

"Others who went back up or simply stayed were not so lucky. On a floor above where the plane hit, only a handful of workers had decided to leave before the building was struck, and dozens who stayed are believed to have perished.

"Bill Saffran of Aon Corp., says his colleagues faithfully carried out the fire drills held every few months to plan their escape from the 103rd floor in the south tower. "They show us where the exit is, and you assume it goes down," he says.

"Mr. Saffran was not at the trade center on Tuesday. But later, a woman who escaped told him that the plan developed a horrific problem. The designated exit stairwell came to a dead end on the 78th floor, where she and three other Aon employees were forced to exit into a lobby.

""There were tons of people," he said she told him. "The elevators were still running, but they were overloaded, and then the second plane hit. Many people were thrown to the floor, injured."

"Mr. Saffran said only two of the four employees found the stairwell that continued down. Two did not. "One was badly injured," he said. "The other for some reason did not want to go down."

"Those two, he says, are now among the missing and presumed dead. ..."

http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010916colferap9.asp
"Judy Colfer...55th floor of One World Trade Center....

""Get out! Get out! Get out now!" someone screamed.

"WTC guards escorted people to a door leading to a stairwell. It took a while to get the door open, but eventually Colfer and a couple dozen others huddled on a stairwell landing on the 55th floor....

"WTC guards told Colfer's group they had to move people on lower floors out first before they could get them down. Time seemed to stand still. So did they. They'd move three or four steps, then stop for five minutes. They were in the stairwell single file because police, firefighters and emergency technicians were heading up.

"The firefighters -- exhausted, sweating and breathing hard -- carried heavy gear including air tanks, sledgehammers and thermal imaging cameras, which Colfer's company happen to make. One firefighter, a lieutenant whose name she never learned, reached out and touched her arm.

""Lady, what floor did you come from?"

"She had moved one story at that point and was only on the 54th floor....

"Some 15 to 20 mintues later, though she admits time was difficult to gauge, Colfer made it to the 40th floor, still thinking: "I'm not getting out of here."...

"Colfer and others in the stairwell heard firefighters smashing steel doors floors below them. Doors to each floor were locked and firefighters needed to check each floor. They broke through one door, then smashed open the vending machine to get bottled water, which they handed to people in the stairwell.

""Pass it. Pass it. Pass it," the firefighters said.

"They gave them paper towels, too, and told them to wet the paper towels thenput them over their faces so they could breath amidst the smoke. The procession stopped for a time on the 40th floor as firefighters, police and emergency technicians carried down injured people -- a blind man with his seeing-eye dog, a pregnant woman, and two other bleeding and badly burned people. Single file, they continued to inch along.

""I thought I was never getting out of there," she said. "Finally, I got to the 10th level and I was thinking, 'I've made it this far!' "

"When the group reached the third floor, rescuers told them to be careful of the water. The sprinkler systems had been activated and gone haywire. Water was flowing out underneath the door into the stairwell and there weren't any safety strips on the painted steel stairs.

""When I got to the bottom, where the subway ran through the building, there was five inches of water on the floor," she said.

"Rescuers told Colfer and the others they were going to open a set of doors and then guide them through.

""They threw open the doors and it was dark, but you saw one small light," she said.

"Once her eyes were acclimated to the darkness, she saw concrete slabs where the walls were on the floor and that the concrete ceiling above had collapsed.

""It was like a bomb had exploded," she said. "I thought, this structure has this much damage and I'm on the bottom. What does the rest of the building look like?"

"Colfer and the others felt their way up a ramp, which brought them back up into the shopping mall level of the WTC building. At that point, the time for calm and order was over.

""We're going to throw these doors open and we want you to run!" rescuers told Colfer and the others.

""They threw open the doors and it was all this brightness and we did," she said. "We just ran."

"Colfer ran as fast as she could. She wasn't out of the building five minutes when One World Trade Center collapsed.... "

http://www.servenyc.org/survivor_stories.htm
"My name is Roz;...One WTC, ... 88th floor....Silverstein Properties, Inc.,an explosion of great magnitude blew off the entrance door through which I had just previously walked. It knocked us both down in her cubicle. Sylvia tries to get up, because she is confused, and wants to see what is happening. I reached up and grab her clothes or hand (I’m not sure which), to pull her back down. Suddenly it calms. Everyone on the north side gathers. The room is now gray and dusty, dimly lit - most of the lights are destroyed. We gather to make sure everyone from our side is with us and okay, we turned to get the others, and we see Elaine walking toward us, her arms are spread, and she’s walking mummy-like. As she nears, we see that she is badly burned, from head to toe, her clothes are completely shredded around her, someone lets out a loud gasp, another takes his coat off and wraps it around Elaine, no words are being exchanged at the moment.

"We walk over to the south side to gather more individuals; they are walking toward us. I see John Griffin, you cannot miss him, since he is 6’6 - in height. He is passing out wet tissues for us to place over our noses. By the time everyone gathers, we are about 30 in number. We try to find an exit, but we are not sure where to go, it’s now about five minutes later. I took this opportunity to call my headquarters, ... I got Janet on the line, I say - Jan, we just had an explosion, tell Mr. Silverstein to get us out of here! - Janet tells me a plane hit the building, and asks me to hold the line. I say, "HOLD?!" I disconnect the line and yelled that a plane hit the building. By this time some are on their radios finding out what had happened, or how to proceed. I am beginning to feel panicked because they are taking too long to make a decision as to which direction to go out.

"Finally, we exit where the explosion blew off the door. There is glass everywhere, so we have to be very careful as we proceed and approach stairwell "B." Fortunately, the lights are intact, but there is water gushing down so we must be careful and hold on. As we descend, everyone is amazingly calm; some are holding each other’s hand when necessary. Sometimes people are crying, so you look up and let them know it’s going to be okay. As we come halfway into the forties, some can no longer go, the trek is too long; some are tired, old, asthmatic or over-weight. They opt to sit and wait. I look at them and keep going. The stairwell begins to get backed-up -- too many people coming from other offices. Our group decides to head over to stairwell "C". The door to exit stairwell "B" is locked. We now must go back up one flight of stairs and that door is unlocked, Thank God. As we descend stairwell "C", we see the firemen coming up in their heavy uniforms carrying oxygen tanks and other equipment. They ask us to stand on the right of the steps to allow them through, we oblige.

"We can start walking again, and we come upon a stairwell landing where someone has left bottled water, we pick them up, but as more firemen come we give it to them figuring they need it more. They thank us, they stop to drink the water, and some of them are sharing the water with their comrades,...They thank us for the water, and tell us to put our shoes on when we get to the Mezzanine...."

http://users.rcn.com/lundissimo/wtc/richard.html
"...she hears an extremely loud crashing sound and the ceiling collapses right next to her in the kitchen. Turning around thinking it was the start of an earthquake, she starts screaming. She climbs over the remains of the ceiling and peers into the rest of the office. The office is completely destroyed, covered in massive clouds of smoke and dust; the building had just been hit by an airplane. The branch manager yelled at the top of his lungs, "Grab the evacuation kits and the fire extinguisher!! We are getting the hell out of here!!"

"In the few moments of panic, the group together to leave the office, the branch manager extinguishing the flames that lay between the front door and the door to the emergency staircase. They entered and started the long trek down the stairs to the lobby. The people in the staircase were unexplainably calm and orderly, steadfastly climbing down the 90 flights of stairs. After what seemed like 2 hours of walking, they finally reach the lobby. Totally oblivious to what was going on outside and at the sight of the blue skies outside the lobby, everyone let out a sigh of relief. Emergency staff started to direct everyone to the basement of the building when suddenly people started to scream, "RUN! RUN!"

Sheer panic and terror filled the people on the stairs as the blue outside was overcome by horrific clouds of pitch black. Yukiko and her co-workers started to race down the stairs, when a fireman directed them to a flight of stairs to exit the building. They reached the door to find it locked and started to pound on it. A person on the other side responded and opened the door and to their horror, it was another staircase. Miraculously, they were able to find an exit and had just escaped death by a matter of minutes. They were covered from head to toe with dust; in their ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. Outside, rescuers gave them bottles of water to rinse themselves off. Later, reviewing the timeline of events, apparently the moment they escaped, it was not Two WTC, but One WTC that had collapsed. We cannot even begin to fathom the outcome if she had arrived to the lobby just minutes later than she did.

http://www.fredonia.edu/leader/09172001/news.html
"Hanna,...said he and his fellow co-workers thought the terrorist act was a bomb explosion at first and saw debris falling by the windows.

"He said they made their way to the stairwell and found a door at floor 76 or 77 was locked. They then went back upstairs to an office that had clean air. From that office Hanna called his parents and said he had survived the crash and was trying to get out.

""You could see the fire right next to you," he said. "It was kind of nerve-racking. The mood was calm but upset. I saw not only the worst in people but the best in people. People were looking out for each other."

"Hanna and others eventually found a stairwell and began the hour long descent from the building.

"The media and other people have told Hanna that "right where we were was the cutoff. I didn't see too many people coming down behind us."

""80th floor," Dinse said. "I can't get over that. He wasn't supposed to make it out." [Tower 2 ?]

http://www.nylawyer.com/news/01/09/091301c.html
"At the office of Harris Beach, located on the 85th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center, evacuation began as soon as a commercial airliner slammed into the building, about 15 minutes after the North Tower was hit with an identical attack.

"Hal M. Hirsch, a partner at Harris Beach since it merged with Gainsburg & Hirsch last month, said the most heroic escape was that of a firm secretary who has asthma.

""She passed out about 10 floors down," Mr. Hirsch said. "A construction worker picked her up and carried her all the way down the stairs."

"The yet-to-be-identified construction worker was one of a crew that had been remodeling the firm’s World Trade Center office space."

http://www.miraclebridge.com/wtcescape.html
"Yin Liang...working for Lehman Brother's equities e-commerce website...on the 40th Floor in One World Trade Center...

"One guy starts walking fast to the fire emergency exit, we are trained in the building on how to respond to emergency situations like this, we all immediately started walking toward the fire emergency exits, I was in a hurry, not even picking up my bag. My teammates also started walking. Some people are still confused, they are still asking "What's going on ? What happened ? " We shouted back "Get out of the building NOW! ", At the time, there was no alarms, no flash lights. But we do feel something deadly wrong are happening to the building. This building sometime swings during heavy wind, but never like this.

"The Long walk down WTC

"We get into the emergency stairs, I didn't see lots of people, and the building stopped shaking, we proceed calmly down the stairs, talking to each other, try to guess what had just happened, we behaved just like when we are having an ordinary "fire-drill", (thank GOD, we do get lots of "fire-drill" exercise once we moved to this building half year ago). Lots of people joined us from other floors. There are heavy smokes coming in from the 33-34th floor, we hesitated for a while, wandering if we should keep going down in the smoke, then we moved on, I covered my mouth and nose with a piece of facial tissue, we keep talking to each other, I guess there must be a fire going on at certain floors, we kept walking down the stairs, the smoke became more and more dense , one guy carried a coffee pot full of water and also have some paper towels in it, he give the wet towels to others, I also asked and got one wet paper towel, I used it to cover my mouth and nose again, at the time, I am thinking this man must be very calm and trained in handling emergencies, he not only carry his big backpack, also find time to go to the rest area, take the coffee pot and put the towels in it, then take the pot with him. The wet paper towel does make breathing a little bit easier, we continued walking down, fearing for the unknown. There are more and more people coming in from various floors, so the place became more crowed, we are walking down slower and slower but still very orderly and peacefully. I want to call my wife to tell her that we are in trouble and also want her to find out what had just happened, but there are no cell signals at all, so I stopped trying to call. Everyone is very curious on what just happened. Some people said it's a Boeing that hit the building, then later we got email messages via Blackberry pager informing us that a Boeing airplane just hit our building. We could not believe it, but it does make sense. We started guessing it must be some stupid navigational error made by an airplane. My regular pager still shows no news relating to this airplane hit. On the stair, We saw one man resting on the stairs, his cloth wet, he is sweaty, wet and unable to breathe, two of his female co-workers are trying to encourage him to keep walking down, ( Later I realized they must come from the upper floors, running very fast downstairs after the plane hits). On the way down, I tried again to call my wife via cell phone , but there is still no signal at all. More and more people joined us, the place is very crowed. When we reached around the 20th floor, people in the front are shouting back, "Stay on the right side, the firefighters are coming up", so we stopped, stayed on the right side, waiting for the fireman to come by. There are around 7-8 fireman came up, every fireman are fully loaded, carrying heavy steel equipment, water pipes and gas tanks, their face is very grim and serious, they are not young. Once the firemen passed by, we resumed walking, after another 2-3 minutes, More firemen coming up, they all carry heavy steel hammer and various heavy tools. They are sweaty, their breathing is very heavy. One lady asked which floor they are going, they are heading up to the 80th floor, She told them good luck. Every time when a batch of firemen coming up, one of us will shout to let the rest know they are coming up, so we can stay on the right hand side to let the firemen pass, Some firemen are unable to keep walking due to the extreme heavy load on their back. I heard one fireman telling another to slow down and come up when he catches his breath, Their face is deadly serious and brave, with lots of perspiration.

"We kept walking, on the 10th or 11th floor, a lots more people are coming into the stairs, we saw smokes coming in, the line is still very orderly, on the 3rd or 4th floor, we see water running on the stairs, some people in front of us took their shoes off, My shoes get wet and squeaky, so I took my shoe and sock off also, we kept walking, the movement is still very calm and orderly, once we reached the basement floor, there are more waters on the ground, more firemen are coming in, police officers are also standing near the stairs, asking every body to remain calm and walk orderly toward the building exit. We do remain very calm and orderly. The water are now almost one inch deep, they do not appear dirty, then I found out all the waters are coming from the ceiling sprinkers. I saw all the sprinklers on the basement ceiling are working, so we get pretty wet. There are lots of police officers directing us inside the world trade center basement, they asked us to walk orderly to exit the building. we reached the front gate of One World Trade Center ( where every morning I would swipe my WTC Access Card to go inside the building) are damaged, the ceilings are cracked and one piece of ceiling is down on the side already, the gates are broken apart, We pass the gate, the revolving doors are not damaged in the front are not damaged,they consists of three doors, now two door are being switched to the side, so we do not have to push the revolving door to go through it). We are now outside the One World Trade Center tower, but we are still inside the huge WTC Basement Complex.

"On the way out from the stair, I also hear the walls are cracking, pieces of walls are falling on my far right side, around 40-50 feet away, there is an escalator right in front of us, during a "regular day", we normally use that escalator to go up to the street level concourse, then go through the revolving door to go outside. So naturally some people turned to take that escalator, but the police officers directed us to keep going forward, ( Later from the TV, I understand if we were using that escalator, we will be hit by the falling debris once we reached outside the tower). so we walked passed the basement hallway, on the left side, there is a big GAP store, I looked inside the store, no one is there, the I saw and realized the entire basement is empty, there is an eerie calm, a deadly silence in the basement, except the police loud speaker, I paused, put my shoe back, the socks are wet, so I put them inside my pant pocket. There are nobody except ten or twenty police personnel and streams of people coming out from the building. We walked orderly, turning right to reach another escalator, the one that is near the HSBC Bank/Borders bookstore, the police officers then asked us to start running outside as fast as we can, I realized it must be a very serious situation, so I walked faster, then starts running. I saw there are lines of people waiting to get onto the escalator, Some of us decided to take the stairs along the escalator, we run upstairs, then one police officer, using a loud speaker, is telling us "Please walk up on Broadway, going north, please try to find a partner to stay together". I exited the building complex through the HSBC/Borders front gate,..."

http://www.magicalcheese.com/uploads/sept11.txt
"...11 September 2001 My name is John doe..." [is this fiction?]

"...a woman who sounded slightly hysterical. It was a black woman in a dark purple business suit, completely drenched, with no shoes and a large tear in one sleeve. She was explaining - in shrieks - to the leader of a fire company that was standing nearby that she had just come down from the 84th floor of 2[??] WTC. She worked for MetLife and had narrowly made it down the stairway alive. She’d had to change stairways at the 44th floor, and the stair she took down from there was completely dark, filled with smoke, and had water cascading down the shaft in such great quantities that she and the others descending with her more fell down the 44 floors of stairs than walked. Above 44 [84?] she said, it was an inferno, and no one could survive it...."

http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/it/people/02-20010912.jsp
"...Craig Trykowski...working with 75 tradespersons and colleagues on interior construction for Lehman Brothers on the 34th floor of the north tower...

""We hit the stairwell; it was a mass panic." They headed down the stairs under seemingly normal conditions but when they got to about the 20th floor, a strong gas smell hit them and by the 17th floor the water pipes had broken and people were tripping on the stairs. "We didn't know what the gas smell was; I told people to put their hands over their mouths," he says. "When we got down was when we saw the smoke. All the glass was blown out in the building.""

http://www.webscope.com/~larrygc/gra/wtc/sep11wtcdisaster.htm
Memories of the terrorist attack on the morning of September 11, 2001 from multiple sources known and unknown [is this fiction?]

Escape From The 80th Floor September 11, 2001

"80th floor of One World Trade Center...The doors slid open onto the 78th floor lobby and I along with other passengers moved onto the next level of elevator banks to get to floors 80 to 107. Those going to the 79th floor took an escalator.

"...when we heard the almost silent swoosh of wind, followed by a loud thunderous ka-boom, and the building shaking under our feet as if an earthquake had rippled by. Ceiling tiles fell....

"But the alarm didn’t go off immediately. Other than our own voices, it was amazingly quiet. We heard no screams or further explosions. The office did fill with smoke within a minute or two and our personnel headed for exits. A hallway wall that had been pushed in blocked the way out from the northeast hallway that led from the front door of our office. We believe now it may have been part of the plane that pushed the wall in. It would also account for why the elevators would have filled with flame and smoke so quickly....

"We exited into a stairwell and started what we thought was a long climb down 80 flights of stairs. We got only as far as the 77th floor when we came up against a locked door. As we discussed options, the smoke started to get thicker. I was incredulous and frustrated. How could a damn door be locked in what was meant to be an escape route? I used my scarf to cover my mouth and nose. I heard a commotion behind me and heard people saying someone with a key was coming through. We stepped aside our hopes rising. The key made no difference, the door was jammed shut.

"We were ushered into the Port Authority office on the 78th floor. There was no smoke here and we could breathe. We were told they were looking for another way out and we should go into any one of the empty conference rooms along the south west side of the building. We asked if we could turn on the TV and use the phones. I turned to look at the television to see the exterior of our building. I could hear that our building had been hit by a plane. No mention of a terrorist attack. As I turned to watch some of my fellow co-workers making phone calls, there was a second ka-boom, the building shook again and debris started hitting the windows.

"I thought some part of the plane or some part of the building that had been hit by the plane had exploded and debris was sliding down from the floors above us. I would later learn it was a second airplane diving into the other tower and it was debris from that explosion hitting the windows. I advised people to move back into the interior of the office and away from the windows. Thank God they never shattered. We left the TV and so never saw or heard any more about what was happening. It struck me later that at that moment I only had one fleeting thought that perhaps we were stuck on the 78th floor and I might not get out. I immediately dismissed that thought and just knew I wasn’t going to die there.

"Within 5 or 10 minutes we were advised that another route out had been found. I would learn later that another coincidence of the day was ending up in the Port Authority office as they had all the keys to all the stairwell doors. One of them would lead us out. We moved to the opposite side of the office forming a single file line....I expected to move immediately into a stairwell and was surprised that it was a hallway. As we turned the corner we entered a second hallway where one of the employees from the office we had just left was hosing down the ceiling above our heads. You could see where they had put out a fire and where it was starting up again. Ceiling tiles lay at our feet and smoke was still filtering through the gaping ceiling as we ducked down to get under wires hanging loosely from the ceiling and then ducked under the hose and sloshed our way to the stairwell. This is what I mean by the spirit of New Yorkers. It is because of the initiative of these Port Authority employees that we got out....

"We didn’t pass any other building personnel, firefighters or police. I assumed that the flames and smoke shooting down the shafts from the explosion of the plane’s fuel on impact had immediately knocked out all the elevators. I knew that the only method for getting up or down now was the stairs and 80 flights is a long way whether you’re going up or down.

"The calm of the people around us as we walked down was amazing. People who had been hurt or were having a problem getting down were being assisted at every point. When congestion slowed us to a stop no one shoved or made a scene we all waited patiently until we could move again. People passed information up and down the line to try and keep people informed about what was happening and those with blackberries sent as many emails as they could for folks around them as none of our cell phones worked.

"I was about a third of the way down and we had come to a point where we were stopped for a few minutes when I heard my name called out....I reached a stairwell landing and stepped aside to wait for Jo and Peter to catch up. I would later suspect that doing this saved my life.

"...We finally got out of the smoke when we hit the 35th floor. It felt great to breathe fresh air and lifted everyone's spirits. We had been walking down for a little over ½ an hour at this point.... We could feel the heat in the stairwell....

"At this time, we also started running into building personnel. One young black man standing at the back of a stairwell landing advising everyone to be careful, hang onto the handrail, don’t slip because an injury would mean you’d have to be carried out. He told us that; "God loved us and would see us through this. He was with us and we would get out." We shared a smile....

"Around the 27th floor we ran into firefighters climbing up. I can't imagine what it must have been like to walk up that many flights with all the gear they had. They looked so winded at that point. I doubt that they made it out before the building collapsed and my prayers and thoughts are with them and their families now.

"By the 7th floor, the stairwells were flooding with water from what we assumed were the firefighting efforts or maybe building sprinklers that had gone off. I looked down at my feet and the water was ankle deep. The stairs became even more slippery and we clung to the handrails. I felt one moment of panic when I thought, "would these stairs hold up under all this human and water weight?"...

"We were feeling buoyant when we hit 3 and thought we're almost out of here. It had taken us a little over an hour to get this far. But the adventure it seems was far from over. At that point, as we learned later, building 2 collapsed and hit our building. Once again it felt like a bomb had gone off as the building shook again and there was this tremendous whoosh of air that almost knocked us off our feet. At that point the lights went out. We were pulled into some sort of vestibule until the air had calmed. Jo and I clung to each other until the noise from debris falling had stopped. Jo always reassuring me that we’d be ok, we’d get out. I believed her. I knew that by waiting for Jo and Pete I had just missed being on one of the lower floors now covered in debris.

"There was so much debris that our way out was blocked. I remember thinking there is no way I walked down 77 flights to die 3 floors from safety. There was a fireman on this floor with us. He advised us that he was going to look for another way out. Someone passed up a flashlight and he and another person moved through the vestibule and down a hallway. We heard there was no way out we’d have to go up.

"We formed a human chain each person hanging onto the person in front of them and in back of them. We climbed back up to 4. No way out. We were advised to climb another flight. I hung back and said no, it’s the wrong way, we have to go down not up. Then the news came up the line to turn around, come back to 3, a firefighter has found a way out. We clung to each other as we followed the person in front of us and moved toward the flashlight we could see ahead of us. The firefighter had punched a hole in the wall to get us out. We made our way out into the 3rd floor rotunda in the dark. We got our first glimpse of what looked like a war zone.

"We walked through ankle deep dust...

"We followed the directions of rescuers telling us to hug the w