Demolition 2

Foreknowledge of building collapses

Interview with an EMT who was at the scene of the explosion of WTC 2 (the first tower to explode):

In an exclusive Killtown interview, Ground Zero EMT Patricia Ondrovic talks about her harrowing day at the WTC on 9/11. Within minutes after the South Tower collapses, she witnessed the WTC 5 blowing up, cars exploding, and explosions inside the lobby of the WTC 6, all the while narrowly escaping with her own life.

Arriving at the Scene

Killtown: Were you one of the Ground Zero rescuers on 9/11?

Patricia Ondrovic: Yes.

Killtown: What was your position and who did you work for?

Patricia Ondrovic: I was an emergency medical technician [EMT] with the Fire Department of New York.

Killtown: How did your day start off on Sept. 11 and when did you get called to the scene at the WTC?

Patricia Ondrovic: It started off like any other. I had dropped a patient off at Bellevue and one of the Doc’s asked if I was going to respond to the WTC. I told him it was out of my area. I asked “why, what’s going on?” He told me they were getting reports that “a helicopter” had crashed into one of the towers. I responded after both planes had hit. I was on scene approx 45 min before the first tower fell.

[The 2nd crash happened at approx 9:03 a.m. and the South tower fell at approx 9:59 a.m.]

Warning of another plane crash minutes before WTC 2 fell

Killtown: Did you basically stay around that area before the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 am?

Patricia Ondrovic: Yes, we were staged waiting for the triage teams to bring us patients when an officer in a white shirt and blue pants (don’t know from what agency) said that there was a radio transmission that stated, “Another plane was headed towards us!” We were told to get to our vehicles and get ready to move fast, but it wasn’t fast enough. All of a sudden there was a lot of activity within the several agencies there and everyone started to scramble to ready their respective vehicles.

Killtown: When you were told another aircraft was approaching, was this right before the South Tower collapsed?

Patricia Ondrovic: Maybe 3 to 5 minutes prior. I don’t know if that estimation is correct, but I remember we all had time to take a minute and look into the skies all around to see if we could see anything.

Killtown: Did you see any planes in the sky?

Patricia Ondrovic: No, there was nothing in the skies at that time.

Killtown: Did you happen to see any helicopters, military or non-military, flying around?

Patricia Ondrovic: I didn’t see any helicopters at the time either.

Killtown: Where did they want you to move your vehicles to, any particular spot, or just “away” from the WTC?

Patricia Ondrovic: “Just get ready to move fast” is the phrase I remember.

Killtown: Did they want you to move away from the area right away, or just get ready to move if another plane was coming in?

Patricia Ondrovic: I don’t know, they just told us to get our equipment, put it back in the vehicles and “get ready to move…fast”. At that point, they seemed to realize it just wasn’t a safe place to be.

Killtown: In retrospect, did it seem a little too coincidental that they told all of the rescuers to get ready to move out of the area minutes before the Tower collapsed?

Patricia Ondrovic: It was a bit eerie at the time as well. In that job, when someone tells you to “just move fast” there’s nothing to question, you just move. We had been on scene for a while before just setting up and waiting for patients and all of a sudden there was so much activity. It did seem odd that after being there for some time all of a sudden everyone had to get ready to get out. I personally never expected the buildings to come down.

Killtown: Did you receive any direct warnings or hear any rumors that any of the towers might be coming down?

Patricia Ondrovic: We were not told the building was possibly going to collapse. I did not hear any rumors about a building collapse. I never heard anyone say anything to the effect that any of the buildings in the area were not stable at the time. We were simply told to get to our vehicles and get ready to move. […]
Killtown: What did you do when the South Tower started coming down?

Patricia Ondrovic: I didn’t know what was happening, but there was a loud “roar” — lots of crashing sounds. I was attempting to put my stretcher back into the vehicle. The ground was shaking and I saw a sea of people, mostly the various agencies on scene, Fire, Police, EMS, all running towards me. I had no idea what they were running from, but I decided I’d be ahead of them and just started running west towards the river. As I was running, parked cars were blowing up and some were on fire, the street was cracking a bit as well. Very shortly after I started running, everything became one big black cloud. I was near the West Side Highway and I couldn’t see around me anymore. [..]

Foreknowledge of WTC 6 collapse

Killtown: You mentioned you were running west on Vesey Street, what happened after that?

Patricia Ondrovic: I just kept running. I was aware there were other people running as well. After passing the cars on fire, I was trying to find someplace safe. I tried to run into the lobby of 6 World Trade, but there were federal police — maybe 4 to 6 of them — standing in the open doorways. As I tried to run in, they wouldn’t let me, waving me out, telling me “you can’t come in here, keep running.” As I turned to start running west again, I saw a series of flashes around the ceiling of the lobby all going off one-by-one like the X-mass lights that “chase” in pattern. I think I started running faster at that point.

Killtown: Did you hear any “popping” sounds when each of these flashes in the WTC 6 lobby were going off?

Patricia Ondrovic: Yes, that part was like a movie. The pops were at the same time as the flashes.

Killtown: Can you estimate either how many flashes you saw or how many of these “pops” you heard inside this lobby?

Patricia Ondrovic: At least 6 before I was turned away.

Killtown: Could you still hear any of these explosions when you turned to run back out, or was the noise outside too loud?

Patricia Ondrovic: I don’t recall hearing any more when I resumed running. It was very chaotic.

Killtown: Now to be clear, were you inside the Lobby of the WTC 6, or were you outside the building when you witnessed these what appeared to be explosions?

Patricia Ondrovic: I was in the doorway, but not inside the lobby. I remember being able to breathe the somewhat cleaner air coming from inside the building. They stopped me as I was trying to get past the threshold.

Killtown: Were the explosions going off as you were entering the lobby area, or did they seem to start going off after the police tried to turn you away?

Patricia Ondrovic: It all happened at the same time. As I got to the doorway, I was told not to come in. As the officer was telling me I couldn’t get in the building the flashes starting going off.

Killtown: Where the police just right at the lobby door, or were some also way inside the building?

Patricia Ondrovic: There were probably 4-5 officers in the doorway. I could see a few others back in the lobby area.

Killtown: You said you saw “federal police.” What exactly do you mean and did you find it strange they were in there and that they wouldn’t let you in?

Patricia Ondrovic: Well, they were in light brown uniforms and “Smokey the bear” hats. I assumed they were federal police because NYC police don’t look like that and I knew there was a lot of federal offices in the WTC as well as the surrounding area, so it wasn’t strange to me to see them there, but I did find it very odd that they wouldn’t let me in to get cover. But like I say, in that profession, someone tells you to go an opposite way you are going, you don’t ask, you just go. I remember hoping they got out as I was watching whatever the small explosions were, because they stayed in the building. They weren’t locking it up after evacuating or anything like that. [….]

Killtown: Did these policemen run out of the WTC 6 lobby after these explosions occurred, or could you tell?

Patricia Ondrovic: It didn’t look like they did. It looked like they were there making sure no one ran in like I tried to do. I remember seeing them in the doorway, but don’t know what happened to them after that. […] To this day, I still wonder if they got out.

Killtown: Did you think these explosions in the lobby were maybe lights popping out as in an electrical surge, or did they seem more like explosives going off in a timed manner?

Patricia Ondrovic: I immediately got the impression they were timed explosives. I have never thought they were anything else, not then, not now.

Killtown: Have you ever seen a building being demolished with explosives on TV and was the flashes and pops similar to that?

Patricia Ondrovic: It did remind me of just that. I had seen something on a Las Vegas casino being demolished and that’s what it reminded me of.

Img: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7508/1605/1600/wtc6-aerial.jpg URL: http://killtown.blogspot.com/2006/02/911-rescuer-saw-explosions-inside-wtc.html URL 2: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/images/wtc-photo-cropped.jpg Caption: Aerial view of the WTC 6 after 9/11. (Photo source: noaa.gov)

Killtown: Can you try to describe what these “pops” you heard sounded like?

Patricia Ondrovic: They sounded like light bulbs popping, but there were no light fixtures where the explosions were coming from. The sound was not all that loud.

Killtown: Do you think these explosions you witnessed were loud enough to be heard on the street?

Patricia Ondrovic: Because of everything going on, I don’t think these “pops” could have been heard from the street. It was definitely louder outside as a whole.

Killtown: At the time, who did you think planted these explosives in there?

Patricia Ondrovic: I didn’t have any notions of where to put blame per se, but I remember thinking that it was possibly the same organization who tried to blow up the building back in 1993. I figured they came back to finish the job. At the time I was running, I remember thinking that “they” wired the whole area. At the time I wasn’t aware that what made the towers catch fire were passenger jets crashing. I thought the buildings had bombs planted to go off that day. The idea of not only one passenger jet, but two took me a while to comprehend — not to mention the pentagon as well.

Killtown: Can you estimate how long after you heard the loud rumbling, which was the South Tower coming down, to when you witnessed these explosives going off in the WTC 6?

Patricia Ondrovic: Well, remember this was all on the same street I was parked. It is very difficult for me to estimate time with so much happening at once, but I want to say maybe 2 to 3 minutes from the rumbling and the ground, and the cars, and the fires, that I tried to run into 6 WTC for cover, which is when I saw those explosions. […]

WTC 5 blowing up at the same time as WTC 6 and WTC 2

Killtown: On the Task Force interview, you said “I was still on Vesey, cause the building that blew up on me was on Vesey.” Which building were you refering to?

Patricia Ondrovic: I don’t know, but that is all WTC property. I’m not sure if that was 6 or just a part of the WTC complex.

Killtown: When you said the building “blew up” on you, are you talking about the explosions you saw in the WTC 6 lobby?

Patricia Ondrovic: No, this was directly behind my vehicle as I was trying to put the stretcher back in. I don’t know if that was part of 6 though. I ran from what was blowing up and that’s when I tried to run into the lobby of 6. The vehicles were parked backed up to the curb, not parallel parked, so the back doors of the ambulance were facing the building [WTC 6] on the south side of Vesey.

Killtown: Do you feel that it was either the WTC 5 or 6 that was blowing up?

Patricia Ondrovic: Yes.

Killtown: Was this before the cars started catching on fire and blowing up, or about at the same time?

Patricia Ondrovic: All at the same time. Everything happened very quickly. I couldn’t say which came first.

Killtown: You mentioned in that interview that you thought one of the lobbies of the building behind you is what blew out. Was this the lobby of WTC 5 or 6?

Patricia Ondrovic: I’m not sure, but it was probably 5 because 6 was west of me and that’s the lobby I tried to run into.

Killtown: Can you describe more about how the building blew up on you? Did you feel the shock wave from the explosion and/or debris falling down near you?

Patricia Ondrovic: Well, one second I was trying to put my stretcher into the ambulance, the next thing I know I am thrown to the ground as the ground was shaking. Debris was flying at me from where the building I was parked in front of. There was a continual loud rumbling, there was just debris flying from every direction and then everything being covered in the black and gray smoke.

Killtown: Let’s recap real quickly; your ambulance was parked backed up against the WTC 6, near the 6’s corner by the alleyway between the WTC 5 and 6. When you were trying to put your stretcher back in, you were knocked down to the ground by an explosion that you thought came from the lobby of WTC 5. When you got back up, you started running west up the sidewalk on Vesey St towards West Side Hwy and then these cars parked along the street started blowing up as you ran by and that’s when you tried to duck into the WTC 6 lobby for cover, but these policemen inside where preventing you from coming in and that’s when you saw the explosions inside the lobby of WTC 6?

Patricia Ondrovic: Yes. […]

http://killtown.blogspot.com/2006/02/911-rescuer-saw-explosions-inside-wtc.html

BBC was told 23 minutes before WTC 7 fell that it would fall

BBC Footage Shows Report On 911 Attack Describing Building #7’s Collapse 23 Minutes Before It Actually Occurred

VIDEO: BBC-BUSTED-WTC7-911 Dailymotion

Building 7 is on the right side of her head, still standing.

“Revealing, shocking video shows reporter talking about collapse with WTC 7 still standing in background, Google removes clip .

An astounding video uncovered from the archives today shows the BBC reporting on the collapse of WTC Building 7 over twenty minutes before it fell at 5:20pm on the afternoon of 9/11. The incredible footage shows BBC reporter Jane Standley talking about the collapse of the Salomon Brothers Building while it remains standing in the live shot behind her head. (as you are looking at the video Building 7 is on the right side of her head.)
Minutes before the actual collapse of the building is due, the feed to the reporter mysteriously dies.

To be clear, the Salomon Brothers Building is just a different name for Building 7 or WTC 7. Skip forward to around the 14:30 minute mark.”

“Like the aftermath of a huge bomb”

At 5:05 minute mark, the reporter says:

“I’ve already seen some photographs of … that a man took down in the downtown area and it looks like the aftermath of a huge atom bomb or something … just .. just full of debris, like a white carpeting of snow from all the dust and rubbish that had fallen.”

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/WTC.htm

Comment: Somehow the information got mixed up and BBC interpreted the information received from sources in America wrongly to be that WTC 7 had already collapsed. The reporter probably got told WTC 7 was going to collapse very soon. It is like Chinese whispers, the story gets changed a little by the person who passes it on to the next. All this indicates is that someone KNEW that WTC 7 was going to collapse at 5:30 as it was a timed detonation and decided to warn people. They got the word out to the fire chiefs who then told their men. Somehow the information reached BBC but the reporter was misstold by the person who relayed the information to her or she herself misunderstood the communications.

Foreknowledge of WTC 7 collapse – oral histories

Joseph Cahill — Paramedic (E.M.S.)

The reason we were given for why we were moving was that 7 World Trade Center was going to collapse or was at risk of collapsing. So we must have been somewhere in this area where we would have had a problem with that. But I honestly don’t remember. […]
They wanted us to move the treatment sector because of 7 World Trade Center was imminently to collapse, which, of course, it did.

Interview, 10/15/2001, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110085.PDF)

Edward Kennedy — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.), Engine 44

That was the only Mayday that I remember, and to tell you the truth, the only guy that really stands out in my mind that I remember being on the radio was Chief Visconti. [..]
I remember him screaming about 7, No. 7, that they wanted everybody away from 7 because 7 was definitely going to collapse, they don’t know when, but it’s definitely going to come down, just get the hell out of the way, everybody get away from it, make sure you’re away from it, that’s an order, you know, stuff like that.

Interview, 1/17/2002, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110502.PDF)

Matthew Long — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.), Ladder 43

And at that point they were worried that 7 was coming down so they were calling for everyone to back out.

So I waited for — we waited for the boss, Lieutenant Rohan, in the middle of the rubble and we all walked out together back to the West Side Highway and pretty much hung out by the marina when 7 came down. […]

Because they were just adamant about 7 coming down immediately. I think we probably got out of that rubble and 18 minutes later is when 7 came down.

Interview, 10/9/2001, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110021.PDF)

Decosta Wright — E.M.T. (E.M.S.)

They said — we were like, are you guys going to put that fire out? I was like, you know, they are going to wait for it to burn down and it collapsed. [..]

Yes, so basically they measured out how far the building was going to come, so we knew exactly where we could stand. [..] 5 blocks. 5 blocks away. We still could see. Exactly right on point, the cloud just stopped right there. Then when that building was coming down, the same thing, that same rumbling.

Interview, 10/11/2001, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110054.PDF)

My comment: Same rumbling as was heard with the collapses of WTC 1 and 2 – a smaller nuke though.

More oral histories re foreknowledge of WTC 7’s collapse here:

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/oralhistories/b7foreknowledge.html

Cover-up

Patricia Ondrovic Interview with Killtown – Interview with the Task Force is heavily redacted.

PO: The WTC Task Force was the only group that ever interviewed or debriefed me. They asked me to detail the events that day as well as mark on a map where I was parked and which way I ran.

KT: Who were the people at the WTC Task Force that interviewed you?

PO: I was told one was from the F.B.I., one was from D.O.I. [Dept. of Investigations], one was P.D. I recall there were 4 to 5 people involved. They were writing as well as voice recording.

KT: Do you know why some of the lines on pages 9, 12, 13 of your Task Force interview were blacked out?

PO: No, I never received a copy of my interview and I never read it. All I did was the one interview with them.

http://killtown.blogspot.com/2006/02/911-rescuer-saw-explosions-inside-wtc.html

Additional explosions

Interview with an EMT who was at the scene of the explosion of the first tower

KT: What did you do when the South Tower started coming down?

PO: I didn’t know what was happening, but there was a loud “roar” — lots of crashing sounds. I was attempting to put my stretcher back into the vehicle. The ground was shaking and I saw a sea of people, mostly the various agencies on scene, Fire, Police, EMS, all running towards me. I had no idea what they were running from, but I decided I’d be ahead of them and just started running west towards the river. As I was running, parked cars were blowing up and some were on fire, the street was cracking a bit as well. Very shortly after I started running, everything became one big black cloud. I was near the West Side Highway and I couldn’t see around me anymore. [..]

Explosions Inside WTC 6 Lobby

KT: You mentioned you were running west on Vesey Street, what happened after that?

PO: I just kept running. I was aware there were other people running as well. After passing the cars on fire, I was trying to find someplace safe. I tried to run into the lobby of 6 World Trade, but there were federal police — maybe 4 to 6 of them — standing in the open doorways. As I tried to run in, they wouldn’t let me, waving me out, telling me “you can’t come in here, keep running.” As I turned to start running west again, I saw a series of flashes around the ceiling of the lobby all going off one-by-one like the X-mass lights that “chase” in pattern. I think I started running faster at that point.

KT: Did you hear any “popping” sounds when each of these flashes in the WTC 6 lobby were going off?

PO: Yes, that part was like a movie. The pops were at the same time as the flashes.

KT: Can you estimate either how many flashes you saw or how many of these “pops” you heard inside this lobby?

PO: At least 6 before I was turned away.

KT: Could you still hear any of these explosions when you turned to run back out, or was the noise outside too loud?

PO: I don’t recall hearing any more when I resumed running. It was very chaotic.

KT: Now to be clear, were you inside the Lobby of the WTC 6, or were you outside the building when you witnessed these what appeared to be explosions?

PO: I was in the doorway, but not inside the lobby. I remember being able to breathe the somewhat cleaner air coming from inside the building. They stopped me as I was trying to get past the threshold.

KT: Were the explosions going off as you were entering the lobby area, or did they seem to start going off after the police tried to turn you away?

PO: It all happened at the same time. As I got to the doorway, I was told not to come in. As the officer was telling me I couldn’t get in the building the flashes starting going off.

KT: Where the police just right at the lobby door, or were some also way inside the building?

PO: There were probably 4-5 officers in the doorway. I could see a few others back in the lobby area.

KT: You said you saw “federal police.” What exactly do you mean and did you find it strange they were in there and that they wouldn’t let you in?

PO: Well, they were in light brown uniforms and “Smokey the bear” hats. I assumed they were federal police because NYC police don’t look like that and I knew there was a lot of federal offices in the WTC as well as the surrounding area, so it wasn’t strange to me to see them there, but I did find it very odd that they wouldn’t let me in to get cover. But like I say, in that profession, someone tells you to go an opposite way you are going, you don’t ask, you just go. I remember hoping they got out as I was watching whatever the small explosions were, because they stayed in the building. They weren’t locking it up after evacuating or anything like that. [..]

KT: Did these policemen run out of the WTC 6 lobby after these explosions occurred, or could you tell?

PO: It didn’t look like they did. It looked like they were there making sure no one ran in like I tried to do. I remember seeing them in the doorway, but don’t know what happened to them after that. [..] To this day, I still wonder if they got out.

KT: Did you think these explosions in the lobby were maybe lights popping out as in an electrical surge, or did they seem more like explosives going off in a timed manner?

PO: I immediately got the impression they were timed explosives. I have never thought they were anything else, not then, not now.

KT: Have you ever seen a building being demolished with explosives on TV and was the flashes and pops similar to that?

PO: It did remind me of just that. I had seen something on a Las Vegas casino being demolished and that’s what it reminded me of.

KT: Can you try to describe what these “pops” you heard sounded like?

PO: They sounded like light bulbs popping, but there were no light fixtures where the explosions were coming from. The sound was not all that loud.

KT: Do you think these explosions you witnessed were loud enough to be heard on the street?

PO: Because of everything going on, I don’t think these “pops” could have been heard from the street. It was definitely louder outside as a whole.

KT: At the time, who did you think planted these explosives in there?

PO: I didn’t have any notions of where to put blame per se, but I remember thinking that it was possibly the same organization who tried to blow up the building back in 1993. I figured they came back to finish the job. At the time I was running, I remember thinking that “they” wired the whole area. At the time I wasn’t aware that what made the towers catch fire were passenger jets crashing. I thought the buildings had bombs planted to go off that day. The idea of not only one passenger jet, but two took me a while to comprehend — not to mention the pentagon as well.

KT: Can you estimate how long after you heard the loud rumbling, which was the South Tower coming down, to when you witnessed these explosives going off in the WTC 6?

PO: Well, remember this was all on the same street I was parked. It is very difficult for me to estimate time with so much happening at once, but I want to say maybe 2 to 3 minutes from the rumbling and the ground, and the cars, and the fires, that I tried to run into 6 WTC for cover, which is when I saw those explosions.

KT: Did anybody else besides you and the police witness these explosions in the WTC 6 lobby?

PO: I imagine there must have been others to see, I wasn’t the only one running up the street. I can’t imagine being the only person to try to run for cover. I didn’t see any “civilians” in the lobby of the 6, just the brown uniformed officers. [..]

WTC 5 Blowing Up

KT: On the Task Force interview, you said “I was still on Vesey, cause the building that blew up on me was on Vesey.” Which building were you refering to?

PO: I don’t know, but that is all WTC property. I’m not sure if that was 6 or just a part of the WTC complex.

KT: When you said the building “blew up” on you, are you talking about the explosions you saw in the WTC 6 lobby?

PO: No, this was directly behind my vehicle as I was trying to put the stretcher back in. I don’t know if that was part of 6 though. I ran from what was blowing up and that’s when I tried to run into the lobby of 6. The vehicles were parked backed up to the curb, not parallel parked, so the back doors of the ambulance were facing the building [WTC 6] on the south side of Vesey.

KT: Do you feel that it was either the WTC 5 or 6 that was blowing up?

PO: Yes.

KT: Was this before the cars started catching on fire and blowing up, or about at the same time?

PO: All at the same time. Everything happened very quickly. I couldn’t say which came first.

KT: You mentioned in that interview that you thought one of the lobbies of the building behind you is what blew out. Was this the lobby of WTC 5 or 6?

PO: I’m not sure, but it was probably 5 because 6 was west of me and that’s the lobby I tried to run into.

KT: Can you describe more about how the building blew up on you? Did you feel the shock wave from the explosion and/or debris falling down near you?

PO: Well, one second I was trying to put my stretcher into the ambulance, the next thing I know I am thrown to the ground as the ground was shaking. Debris was flying at me from where the building I was parked in front of. There was a continual loud rumbling, there was just debris flying from every direction and then everything being covered in the black and gray smoke.

KT: Let’s recap real quickly; your ambulance was parked backed up against the WTC 6, near the 6’s corner by the alleyway between the WTC 5 and 6. When you were trying to put your stretcher back in, you were knocked down to the ground by an explosion that you thought came from the lobby of WTC 5. When you got back up, you started running west up the sidewalk on Vesey St towards West Side Hwy and then these cars parked along the street started blowing up as you ran by and that’s when you tried to duck into the WTC 6 lobby for cover, but these policemen inside where preventing you from coming in and that’s when you saw the explosions inside the lobby of WTC 6?

PO: Yes.

http://killtown.blogspot.com/2006/02/911-rescuer-saw-explosions-inside-wtc.html

Video of explosion at the base of WTC 1 as it blows up

VIDEO: Wtc1_split Dailymotion

Video of additional explosions and eyewitness accounts of explosions

VIDEO: 9/11 Ground Zero Part 2 Dailymotion

Comment: This video contains an analysis of the explosion seen at the base of the Twin Tower. However it is unclear when the explosion close to the ground occurred. The person in the video says the explosion occurred before either of the Twin Towers fell, but you can see only WTC 1 standing. WTC 2 seems to have collapsed already and the outline of where it is supposed to be is covered by a big smoke cloud. Either this explosion occurred straight after WTC 2 collapsed or some time after it had collapsed and before WTC 1 collapsed. If we look at Patricia Ondrovic’s account of what she experienced, the explanation that best fits her evidence and the evidence in the video is that what we are seeing is the explosion of either WTC 5 or 6. The extent of the cloud cover over where WTC 2 should be suggests that WTC 2 had just exploded and fallen down when the video was taken.

Inconsistency – why did this building escape collapse while WTC 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 did not?

90 West Street

DAVE PERAZA: Aircraft parts were found on the roof of this 24-story building, which sustained structural damage on its north face and burned for days after the attack. Nevertheless, the steel-framed structure, a landmarked building designed by Cass Gilbert with heavy terra cotta floors, survived remarkably well.

http://www.pbs.org/americarebuilds/engineering/engineering_buildings_04.html

Also this building: 130 Liberty Street/Bankers Trust

DAVE PERAZA: Facade columns from South Tower raked down the north face of this building, gouging a hole from the 22nd floor down to the 8th floor. Remarkably, the columns above the destroyed area did not collapse.

http://www.pbs.org/americarebuilds/engineering/engineering_buildings_05.html

In their own words …

Powderizing and melting of tower before tower hit ground (thermal and blast effect)

Brian Becker — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Engine 28]

So I think that the building was really kind of starting to melt. We were — like, the melt down was beginning. The collapse hadn’t begun,but it was not a fire any more up there. It was like — it was like that — like smoke explosion on a tremendous scale going on up there.

Interview, 10/09/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110019.PDF)

Mark Steffens — Division Chief (E.M.S.)

Then there was another it sounded like an explosion and heavy white powder,papers, flying everywhere. We sat put there for a few minutes. It kind of dissipated. […]
That’s when we heard this massive explosion and I saw this thing rolling towards us. It looked like a fireball and then thick, thick black smoke.

Interview, 10/03/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110003.PDF)

Roar, rumble and shaking

James Drury — Assistant Commissioner (F.D.N.Y.)

We were in the process of getting some rigs moved when I turned, as I heard a tremendous roar, explosion, and saw that the first of the two towers was starting to come down. [..]

When the dust started to settle, I headed back down towards the World Trade Center and I guess I came close to arriving at the corner of Vesey and West again where we started to hear the second roar. That was the north tower now coming down. I should say that people in the street and myself included thought that the roar was so loud that the explosive – bombs were going off inside the building. Obviously we were later proved wrong. […]

The sight of the jumpers was horrible and the turning around and seeing that first tower come down was unbelievable. The sound it made. As I said I thought the terrorists planted explosives somewhere in the building. That’s how loud it was, crackling explosive, a wall. That’s about it. Any questions?

Interview, 10/16/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110098.PDF)

Neil Sweeting — Paramedic (E.M.S.)

You heard a big boom, it was quiet for about ten seconds. Then you could hear another one. Now I realize it was the floors starting to stack on top of each other as they were falling. It was spaced apart in the beginning, but then it got to just a tremendous roar and a rumble that I will never forget.

Interview, 11/01/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110101.PDF)

John Malley — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 22]

Interview, 12/12/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110319.PDF)

Timothy Julian — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 118]

We came out from 90 West, made a left, headed east, and right when we got to the corner of Washington and Albany, that’s when I heard the building collapse.
First I thought it was an explosion. I thought maybe there was bomb on the plane, but delayed type of thing, you know secondary device. [..]

You know, and I just heard like an explosion and then cracking type of noise, and then it sounded like a freight train, rumbling and picking up speed, and I remember I looked up, and I saw it coming down.

Interview, 12/26/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110386.PDF)

Keith Murphy — (F.D.N.Y.)

I had heard right before the lights went out, I had heard a distant boom boom boom, sounded like three explosions. I don’t know what it was. At the time, I would have said they sounded like bombs, but it was boom boom boom and then the lights all go out. I hear someone say oh, s___, that was just for the lights out. I would say about 3, 4 seconds, all of a sudden this tremendous roar. It sounded like being in a tunnel with the train coming at you.

Interview, 12/05/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110238.PDF)

Patrick Scaringello — Lieutenant (E.M.S.)

I started to treat patients on my own when I heard the explosion from up above. I looked up, I saw smoke and flame and then I saw the top tower tilt, start to twist and lean. […]

I was assisting in pulling more people out from debris, when I heard the second tower explode. When I tried to evacuate the area, by running up Fulton, got halfway up.

Interview, 10/10/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110030.PDF)

Angel Rivera — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)

Mike Mullan walked one flight up, and then the most horrendous thing happened. That’s when hell came down. It was like a huge, enormous explosion. I still can hear it. Everything shook.. The wind rushed, very slowly [sound], all the dust, all the — and everything went dark. Everything went black.

Interview, 01/22/02, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110489.PDF)

Michael Ober — E.M.T. (E.M.S.)

Then we heard a rumble, some twisting metal, we looked up in the air, and to be totally honest, at first, I don’t know exactly — but it looked to me just like an explosion. It didn’t look like the building was coming down, it looked like just one floor had blown completely outside of it. I was sitting there looking at it. I just never thought they would ever come down, so I didn’t think they were coming down. I just froze and stood there looking at it.

Interview, 10/16/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110093.PDF)

Wind and concussion (effect of overpressure and blast winds)

Michael Donovan — Captain (F.D.N.Y.)

Anyway, with that I was listening, and there was an incredibly loud rumbling. I never got to look up. People started running for the entrances to the parking garages. They started running for the entrances. I started running without ever looking up. The roar became tremendous. I fell on the way to the parking garages. Debris was starting to fall all around me. I got up, I got into the parking garages, was knocked down by the percussion. I thought there had been an explosion or a bomb that they had blown up there. The Vista International Hotel was my first impression, that they had blown it up. I never got to see the World Trade Center coming down.

Interview, 11/09/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110205.PDF)

John Malley — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 22]

We were walking into darkness. As we walked through those revolving doors, that’s when we felt the rumble. I felt the rumbling, and then I felt the force coming at me. I was like, what the hell is that? In my mind it was a bomb going off. The pressure got so great, I stepped back behind the columns separating the revolving doors. Then the force just blew past me. It blew past me it seemed for a long time.that pressure which I thought was a concussion of an explosion. In my mind I was saying what the hell is this and when is it going to stop? Then it finally stopped, that pressure which I thought was a concussion of an explosion. It turns out it was the down pressure wind of the floors collapsing on top of each other. At that point everything went black, and then the collapse came. It just rained on top of us. Everything came. It rained debris forever.

Interview, 12/12/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110319.PDF)

Thomas Turilli — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)

The door closed, they went up, and it just seemed a couple of seconds and all of a sudden you just heard it, it almost actually that day sounded like bombs going off, like boom, boom, boom, like seven or eight, and then just a huge wind gust just came and my officer just actually took all of us and just threw us down on the ground and kind of just jumped on top of us, laid on top of us. […]

At that point were were kind of standing on the street and I looked to my left and actually I noticed the tower was down. I didn’t even know that it was when we were in there. It just seemed like a huge explosion.

Interview, 01/17/02, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110501.PDF)

Gregg Hansson — Lieutenant (F.D.N.Y.)

That’s basically where we were. Then a large explosion took place. In my estimation that was the tower coming down, but at that time I did not know what that was. I thought some type of bomb had gone off. I was, I believe, ahead of the rest of the firefighters and officers there. I made it to the corner, and I took about four running steps this way when you could feel the rush of the wind coming at you. I believed that that was a huge fireball coming at the time.

Interview, 10/09/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110017.PDF)

Kennith Rogers — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)

Interview, 12/10/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110290.PDF)

Juan Rios — E.M.T. (E.M.S.)

I was in the back waiting, you know, so we could wait for patients and I was hooking up the regulator to the O-2, when I hear people screaming and a loud explosion, and I heard like “sssssssss…” the dust like “sssssssss…” So I come out of the bus, and I look and I see a big cloud of dust and debris coming from the glass…

Interview, 10/10/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110037.PDF)

Preliminary explosions – multiple popping sounds and squibs

Frank Campagna — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 11]

There was nobody in the intersection, nobody in the streets in general, everyone just saying come on, keeping coming, keep coming. That’s when [the North Tower] went. I looked back. You see three explosions and then the whole thing coming down. I turned my head and everybody was scattering. From there I don’t know who was who. I don’t even know where my guys went. None of us knew where each other were at at that point in time.

Interview, 12/04/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110224.PDF)

Craig Carlsen — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 8]

I guess about three minutes later you just heard explosionsten explosions. At the time I didn’t realize what it was. We realized later after talking and finding out that it was the floors collapsing to where the plane had hit. […]

You did hear the explosions [when the North Tower came down]. Of course after the first one — the first one was pretty much looking at in like in awe. You didn’t realize that this was really happening because you kind of just stood there and you didn’t react as fast as you thought you were going to. The second one coming down, you knew the explosions. Now you’re very familiar with it.

Interview, 01/25/02, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110505.PDF)

Kevin Darnowski — Paramedic (E.M.S.)

I started walking back up towards Vesey Street. I heard three explosions, and then we heard like groaning and grinding, and tower two started to come down.

Interview, 11/09/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110202.PDF)

Keith Murphy — (F.D.N.Y.)

I was standing kind of on the edge of where our elevator bank met the big elevator bank. That was when the – I determined that’s when the north tower collapses. We are standing there and the first thing that happened, which I still think is strange to me, the lights went out. Completely pitch black. Since we are in that core little area of the building, there is no natural light. No nothing, I didn’t see a thing.

Interview, 12/05/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110238.PDF)

Janice Olszewski — Captain (E.M.S.)

I thought more could be happening down there. I didn’t know if it was an explosion. I didn’t know it was a collapse at that point. I thought it was an explosion or a secondary device, a bomb, the jet — plane exploding, whatever.

Interview, 11/07/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110193.PDF)

Daniel Rivera — Paramedic (E.M.S.) [Battalion 31]

Then that’s when — I kept on walking close to the south tower, and that’s when that building collapsed. [..]

It was a frigging noise. At first I thought it was — do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear “Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop”? That’s exactly what — because I thought it was that. When I heard that frigging noise, that’s when I saw the building coming down.

Interview, 10/10/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110035.PDF)

Thomas Turilli — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)

Interview, 01/17/02, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110501.PDF)

Stephen Viola — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)

Our guy went in with 13 truck, and he was coming down with the guy from 13 truck to bring the elevator to us, and when he was either going up or coming down the elevator, that’s when the south tower collapsed, and it sounded like a bunch of explosions. You heard like loud booms [..].

Interview, 01/10/02, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110439.PDF)

Kevin Gorman — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 22] North Tower.

John Malley, who was right behind me, I turned around for him, because he was doing something, either putting his coat on or something, and as I was looking at him I heard the explosion, looked up, and saw like three floors explode, saw the antenna coming down, and turned around and ran north.

Interview, 01/09/02, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110434.PDF)

Greg Brady — E.M.T. (E.M.S.) [Battalion 6]

We were standing underneath and Captain Stone was speaking again. We heard — I heard 3 loud explosions. I look up and the north tower is coming down now, 1 World Trade Center. […]

We were standing in a circle in the middle of West Street. They were talking about what was going on. At that time, when I heard the 3 loud explosions, I started running west on Vesey Street towards the water. At that time, I couldn’t run fast enough. The debris caught up with me, knocked my helmet off.

Interview, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110184.PDF)

Preliminary explosions – ring pattern of explosions

Brian Dixon — Battalion Chief (F.D.N.Y.)

I was watching the fire, watching the people jump and hearing a noise and looking up and seeing — it actually looked — the lowest floor of fire in the south tower actually looked like someone had planted explosives around it because the whole bottom I could see — I could see two sides of it and the other side — it just looked like that floor blew out. I looked up and you could actually see everything blew out on the one floor. I thought, geez, this looks like an explosion up there, it blew out. Then I guess in some sense of time we looked at it and realized, no, actually it just collapsed. That’s what blew out the windows, not that there was an explosion there but that windows blew out. The realization hit that it’s going to fall down, the top’s coming off. I was still thinking — there was never a thought that this whole thing is coming down. I thought that that blew out and stuff is starting to fly down. The top is going to topple off there.

Interview, 10/25/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110166.PDF)

Frank Cruthers — Chief (F.D.N.Y.) [Citywide Tour Commander]

And while I was still in that immediate area, the south tower, 2 World Trade Center, there was what appeared to be at first an explosion. It appeared at the very top, simultaneously from all four sides, materials shot out horizontally. And then there seemed to be a momentary delay before you could see the beginning of the collapse.

Interview, 10/31/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110179.PDF)

Thomas Fitzpatrick — Deputy Commissioner for Administration (F.D.N.Y.)

We looked up at the building straight up, we were that close. All we saw was a puff of smoke coming from about 2 thirds of the way up. Some people thought it was an explosion. I don’t think I remember that. I remember seeing it, it looked like sparkling around one specific layer of the building. I assume now that that was either windows starting to collapse like tinsel or something. Then the building started to come down. My initial reaction was that this was exactly the way it looks when they show you those implosions on TV. I would have to say for three or four seconds anyway, maybe longer. I was just watching.

Interview, 10/16/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110001.PDF)

Joseph Meola — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Engine 91]

As we are looking up at the building, what I saw was, it looked like the building was blowing out on all four sides. We actually heard the pops. Didn’t realize it was the falling — you know, you heard the pops of the building. You thought it was just blowing out.

Interview, 12/11/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110287.PDF)

Albert Turi — Deputy Assistant Chief (F.D.N.Y.)

The next thing I heard was Pete say what the f___ is this? And as my eyes traveled up the building, and I was looking at the south tower, somewhere about halfway up, my initial reaction was there was a secondary explosion, and the entire floor area, a ring right around the building blew out. I later realized that the building had started to collapse already and this was the air being compressed and that is the floor that let go.

Interview, 10/23/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110501.PDF)

Rich Banaciski — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 22]

We were there I don’t know, maybe 10, 15 minutes and then I just remember there was just an explosion. It seemed like on television they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions.

Interview, 12/06/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110253.PDF)

Preliminary explosions – timed, synchronized explosions

Dominick Derubbio — Battalion Chief (F.D.N.Y.) [Division 8]

After a while we were looking up at the tower, and all of a sudden someone said it’s starting to come down.[..]

This would be the first one. [..]

This one here. It was weird how it started to come down. It looked like it was a timed explosion, but I guess it was just the floors starting to pancake one on top of the other.

Interview, 10/12/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110064.PDF)

Ed Cachia — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Engine 53]

It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit, because we originally had thought there was like an internal detonation explosives because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down. With that everybody was just stunned for a second or two, looking at the tower coming down.

Interview, 12/06/05, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110251.PDF)

Kevin Murray — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 18]

When the tower started — there was a big explosion that I heard and someone screamed that it was coming down and I looked away and I saw all the the windows domino — you know, dominoeing up and then come down. We were right in front of 6, so we started running and how are you going to outrun the World Trade Center? So we threw our tools and I dove under a rig.

Interview, 10/09/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110020.PDF)

Kennith Rogers — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)

Meanwhile we were standing there with about five companies and we were just waiting for our assignment and then there was an explosion in the south tower, which, according to this map, this exposure just blew out the flames. A lot of guys left at that point. I kept watching. Floor after floor after floor. One floor under another after another and when it hit about the fifth floor, I figured it was a bomb, because it looked like a synchronized deliberate kind of thing. I was there in ’93.

Interview, 12/10/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110290.PDF)

James Curran — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)

A guy started scremaing to run. When I got underneath the north bridge I looked back and you heard it, I heard like every floor went chu-chu-chu. Looked back and from the pressure everything was getting blown out of the floors before it actually collapsed.

Interview, 12/30/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110412.PDF)

Preliminary explosions – lower floors blowing out

Timothy Burke — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Engine 202]

Then the building popped, lower than the fire, which I learned was I guess, the aviation fuel fell into the pit, and whatever floor it fell on heated up really bad and that’s why it popped at that floor. That’s the rumor I heard. But it seemed like I was going oh, my god, there is a secondary device because the way the building popped. I thought it was an explosion.

Interview, 01/22/02, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110488.PDF)

Ed Cachia — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Engine 53]

It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit ..

Interview, 12/06/05, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110251.PDF)

Stephen Gregory — Assistant Commissioner (F.D.N.Y.)

I know about the explosion on the upper floors. This was like at eye level. I didn’t have to go like this. Because I was looking this way. I’m not going to say it was on the first floor or the second floor, but somewhere in that area I saw to me what appeared to be flashes. low-level flashes

Interview, 10/03/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110008.PDF)

Jason Charles — E.M.T. (E.M.S.)

I grabbed her and the Lieutenant picked her up by the legs and we start walking over slowly to the curb, and then I heard an explosion from up, from up above, and I froze and I was like, oh, s___, I’m dead because I thought the debris was going to hit me in the head and that was it.

Then everybody stops and looks at the building and they they take off. The Lieutenant dropped her legs and ran. The triage center, everybody who was sitting there hurt and, oh, you know, help me, they got up and and everybody together got up and ran. I looked at them like why are they running? I look over my shoulder and I says, oh, s___, and then I turned around and looked up and that’s when I saw the tower coming down. [..]

North Tower:

We start walking back there and then I heard a ground level explosion and I’m like holy s___, and then you heard that twisting metal wreckage again. Then I said s___ and everybody started running and I started running behind them, and we get to the door.

Interview, 01/23/02, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110486.PDF)

Preliminary explosions – flashing, sparkling

Karin Deshore — Captain (E.M.S.)

Somewhere around the middle of the World Trade Center, there was this orange and red flash coming out. Initially it was just one flash. Then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode. The popping sound, and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then a red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides as far as I could see. These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building.

Interview, 11/07/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110192.PDF)

Thomas Fitzpatrick — Deputy Commissioner for Administration (F.D.N.Y.)

Interview, 10/16/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110001.PDF)

Stephen Gregory — Assistant Commissioner (F.D.N.Y.)

We both for whatever reason — again, I don’t know how valid this is with everything that was going on at that particular point in time, but for some reason I thought that when I looked in the direction of the Trade Center before it came down, before No. 2 came down, that I saw. In my conversation with Lieutenant Evangelista, never mentioning this to him, he questioned me and asked me if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him because I thought — at that time I didn’t know what it was. I mean, it could have been as a result of the building collapsing, things exploding, but I saw a flash flash flash and then it looked like the building came down. [..]

[It was at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That’s what I thought I saw. [..]

He said did you see anything by the building? And I said what do you mean by see anything? He said did you see flashes? I said, yes, well, I thought it was just me. He said no, I saw them too […] low-level flashes.

Interview, 10/03/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110008.PDF)

Black cloud and darkness

Angel Rivera — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)

Interview, 01/22/02, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110489.PDF)

Thomas Fitzpatrick — Deputy Commissioner for Administration (F.D.N.Y.)

It was interesting to watch, but the thing that woke everybody up was the cloud of black material. It reminded me of the 10 commandments when the green clouds come down on the street. The black cloud was coming down faster than the building, so whatever was coming down was going to hit the street and it was pretty far out. You knew it wasn’t coming right down. Judging from where people were jumping before that, this cloud was much further.

Interview, 10/16/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110001.PDF)

William Wall — Lieutenant (F.D.N.Y.) [Engine 47]

You couldn’t see it. It was just cloudy. And we found out later it was the military jets. That was an eerie sound. You couldn’t see it and all you heard was like a “boom” and it just kept going. We couldn’t see 50 feet above our head because of the dust. So we didn’t know if it was bombs going off or whatever, but we didn’t want to stay there.

Interview, 12/10/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110285.PDF)

John Malley — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 22]

At that point everything went black, and then the collapse came. It just rained on top of us. Everything came. It rained debris forever.

Interview, 12/12/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110319.PDF)

Stephen Viola — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)

[And] then we got covered with rubble and dust, and I thought we’d actually fallen through the floor into like the PATH tubes, because it was so dark you couldn’t see anything, and from there it was a little hazy from there on.

Interview, 01/10/02, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110439.PDF)

James McKinley — E.M.T. (E.M.S.)

After that I heard this huge explosion, I thought it was a boiler exploding or something. Next thing you know this huge cloud of smoke is coming at us, so we’re running. Everyone is, firemen, PD, everyone is running away from the World Trade Center, up Vessey Street. This is North End, we was running around Vessey and around North end to get away from the first smoke.

Interview, 10/12/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110072.PDF)

Juan Rios — E.M.T. (E.M.S.)

Interview, 10/10/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110037.PDF)

Dust clouds

Timothy Julian — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Ladder 118]

I made it right to the corner, and there’s a column right there, and I was with my guys. We all made it to like the column, and I remember it was plate glass behind me, and I’m thinking I’m going to get hit by this glass and like a porcupine. I’m going to get it, you know, but nonetheless, it rumbled.

It was the loudest rumbling I ever heard. The ground shook, and I got thrown down, and I remember it just got black, and I got knocked down. I remember getting buried. I think I ducked more or less, you know, pieces of metal — something hit me, not that heavy, though. Wasn’t an I beam or else I wouldn’t be talking to you, and I remember that being on me, and I kind of — I was able to stand up and push everything off me, but now I felt like I was in the street or the sidewalk, and it was hot, smoky. I felt like I was in a fire, and I remember digging my way out. A lot of cementation, powdery insulation, whatever you want to call it. Almost like being in a blizzard with some metal debris right on me. Fortunately nothing heavy hit me.

Interview, 12/26/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110386.PDF)

Discuss this person’s account:

This person’s experience of the WTC collapse shows all the hallmarks of a nuclear explosion. There is the high velocity wind that blows out plate glass windows of buildings within a wise radius of the explosion (2 psi). There is the rumbling – the noise and groundshaking of the explosion. He says it is the loudest rumbling he has ever heard. Then he gets knocked down by the overpressure (5 psi), by the blast force. The explosion expels debris which covers him. He feels heat from the fireball and the thermal radiation of the nuclear explosion. And then there is the dustification and there is a blizzard of powder which fills the air.

Frank Cruthers — Chief (F.D.N.Y.) [Citywide Tour Commander]

[Following the North Tower collapse:] So I took a look around in that lobby, grade level lobby to see if there was access to continue more directly to get through the building and out the north side to get to the command post. While I was doing that, I heard more rumbling. I took refuge on the west side of the escalator corner. Once again there was a tremendous cloud. It was pitch black. I waited again until the cloud began to lift.

Interview, 10/31/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110179.PDF)

Peter Cachia — E.M.T. (E.M.S.) [Battalion 4]

I went under the truck while the tower came down and the ground was shaking and the truck was shaking and I thought that was it for me. I thought I was done. I stayed under there until I guess everything was over. I remember opening my eyes and looking out and it was just pitch black.

Interview, 10/15/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110082.PDF)

Ed Cachia — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Engine 53]

We were just kind of blown into the garage with all the dust and the debris material from the building. It came up rapidly right up the street. As I remember turning, if you were out in the street somewhat, a good amount out in the street, you were kind of blown down the street, where we were kind of forced into the garage. [..]

We were encapsulated in this garage for quite some time, maybe 15 minutes or so. You couldn’t see. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t even hear because all the residue and material was in your ears and your nose and your mouth. Then as a few minutes went by, you heard some voices. It was dead silence at first. Just different emotions: How are we going to get out of here? I can’t see. I can’t breathe. My chest. It was still completely black. You couldn’t see an inch in front of your face.

Interview, 12/06/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110251.PDF)

Timothy Burke — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)

All of a sudden the noises stopped, the sound of the building falling stopped. We all turned around and it was dark now. We really couldn’t see. We got back to there — we went back to the garage as far in it as we were, we were all full of the cloud. The cloud was in [the garage]. All eating the cloud, whatever it was like, very thick. I kept saying it was like a 3 dimensional object. It wasn’t smoke. It was like everything. It was like a sand storm. [..] but it was very silent after the building fell. Then all the Maydays started happening, the guys were screaming.

Interview, 01/22/02, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110488.PDF)

Eric Berntsen — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)

Then I looked up and I saw a dark cloud and I grabbed my helmet. The force knocked me down, blew me. I don’t know how far I went, but I went forward pretty far. It knocked the wind out of me. I got covered with debris and just kept my hands on my helmet. Something pretty big hit me and knocked my helmet off. I felt a blast and just a lot of pressure when it hit me. So I had no helmet. I put my hands back on top of my head and I felt debris hit me. I felt weight piling up on my back, and I figured I was going to be under what I thought was about 10 feet of rubble.

Interview, 12/04/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110221.PDF)

David Blacksberg — E.M.T. (E.M.S.)

I looked — I ran, and a whole lot of people, we were all running together. I looked back, and it was like it was this cloud of smoke, but it was like an avalanche, because you could see the smoke and everything tumbling right at you. You couldn’t see up, you couldn’t see back, and no matter how fast you ran, you couldn’t out run it, and it overtook us, and finally I found my partner.

Interview, 10/23/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110134.PDF)

Robert Browne — Deputy Chief (E.M.S.)

At that point, it was like — it got totally pitch black. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t breathe. There was a wave that was — I don’t know if you’re a beach person, but if you’re a beach person and you ever been in the ocean, and you have a large wave come over you, and you can just feel it keep coming and coming. It’s like the debris just kept coming and piling up and piling up, and when it finally did stop, I wasn’t sure if I was alive or if I was dead. It was pitch black. [..]

I can remember reaching for my radio and calling out a Mayday for the corner of Liberty and West, and nobody answered. There was no answer. It was just dead quiet, and I just assumed at that point that everybody was gone, and I wasn’t — I couldn’t — you know, I didn’t call out any more. Then as the thick black, black smoke and blackness around me started to clear a little bit, and it started to get a little bit grayer, kind of like got to a dark gray, and then it got like a lighter gray, I could hear — as it started to get lighter, I could hear people from the distance yelling for help.

Interview, 10/24/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110155.PDF)

Thomas J. Bendick — Civilian (E.M.S.) [Division 1]

Then in a couple of seconds, the roar stopped and I guess like in a split second it was just pure black.

Interview, 10/11/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110083.PDF)

Richard Battista — Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.) [Engine 76]

When I saw that, Lieutenant Farrington told us to move back so we were sort of underneath a garage area when we first heard reports or guys yelling that one of the towers was coming down. I was able to stick my head out and look up a bit and once I saw that I just immediately turned around and ran into the building. Within seconds everything was pitch dark.

Interview, 12/06/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110254.PDF)

James Bastile– Division Commander (E.M.S.) [Division 2]

We were operating in the lobby, and all of a sudden we heard the roar of a jet engine, is what it sounded like. We thought that there was another plane coming into the building. We went from the lobby area into an elevator bank area — escalators that led into the concourse area. So essentially a wall that we went around from the command post area to the escalator area. Not two seconds later debris and dust started to come in, and essentially we were just shut down. Everything was dark, pitch-black. [..]

It went down, got filled with this dust and dirt, debris, again, this cloud. I opened up my eyes. It was total darkness I guess for about two, three minutes. I thought I guess this is what it’s like to be dead.

Interview, 10/17/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110105.PDF)

Anthony Bartolomey– E.M.T. (E.M.S.) [Battalion 4]

So I’m not sure if I was still in the church when the second tower came down because we were in there for quite a while before you could see outside enough to step out because the soot and the dust, the black in the sky to the point where it looked like it was nighttime outside.

Interview, 10/09/05, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110013.PDF)

Christopher Attanasio– E.M.T. (E.M.S.)

So we proceeded to the ambulance, put on our turnout gear, helmet and turnout coat, and as we were taking the equipment out of the ambulance, the second tower — the second tower, started to come down. As the tower was coming down, we ran. I ran, I guess it was west to the West Side Highway. The tower came down. I grabbed my partner, we ran. When the tower finally came down, there was a white cloud of smoke that hit us, knocked us to our feet. It was very hard to breathe. We inhaled a lot of white powder, whatever it was, dust, concrete, whatever it was.

Interview, 11/09/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110204.PDF)

Glenn Asaeda– Civilian (E.M.S.) [M.D., Deputy Medical Director]

[And] the next thing I noticed, that jet engine sound and then a loud crash and then pitch black. [..]

After I realized that we actually made it through this initial whatever it was, it was so dark that I actually thought they had closed the loading bay doors as a security measure for us, but it turns out it was just the debris and the smoke and whatnot that made it pitch black. [..]

But really, it was so dark, you couldn’t see the hand in front of your face. [..]

So we turned around and ran north, at which point the plume of the smoke, again, kind of a warm feeling came by us, luckily no debris, almost kind of lifting us and then kind of surrounding us again.

Interview, 10/11/01, New York Times

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110062.PDF)

Staircase B Survivors

Story of 14 Stairway “B” Survivors

Only 20 people were pulled alive from the debris after the towers’ collapse:

Fourteen people, including a dozen firefighters, one police officer (a Port Authority policeman), and civilian secretary Josephine Harris, 59, were in Stairway “B” on the 1st through 6th floors of the North Tower when it collapsed. The firemen had stopped to help escort Josephine from the building at the time of the collapse. They crawled out and were then escorted alive from an air pocket in the debris.

http://genealogytrails.com/main/sept11.html

Stairway “B” Survivors

CBS Sept 11, 2006

Only 20 people who were still inside the Twin Towers when they collapsed made it out alive, including six New York City firefighters from Ladder Company 6 in the city’s Chinatown section.

Three of them remembered the events of the day on The Early Show Monday for co-anchor Harry Smith, who was reporting from ground zero.

They explained how assisting an elderly woman who worked in the north tower of the World Trade Center happened to put them in the right place at a very wrong time: a section a stairway that survived as the tower crumbled.

Capt. Jay Jonas, who has since been promoted to battalion chief, and five other firefighters from Ladder 6 responded to the attacks at the trade center immediately, arriving minutes after the first plane hit.

As they entered the lobby of the north tower, the south tower was hit.

Carrying 100 pounds of gear, the group started climbing the stairs in the north tower to help.

When they reached the 28th floor, the building shook, and Jonas ordered his men to evacuate.

On the 19th floor, they came across an older woman, Josephine Harris, who had walked down from the 73rd floor. She was exhausted, and not sure she could continue.

Bill Butler, now a lieutenant, the strongest man in the unit, put his arm around her and guided her.

But Harris was slow, and when they reached the fourth floor, she stopped, protesting she couldn’t go on.

Capt. Jonas feared for his men, but they would never leave Harris behind.

Then the rumbling started, and the north tower collapsed all around them. Miraculously, the area of the stairway they were in, Stairway B, remained intact.

Hours later, with Mayday calls and major efforts from their fellow firefighters, the group was found and rescued.

Jonas told Smith on Monday that his men were in the stairs to begin with because the elevators were broken, and, “That’s where people needed help, so that’s where we hadda be.”

Butler said carrying all that gear up all those steps was “a tough trek. We were running into a lot of people, some that were severely injured and burned, but they were being cared for so, while we wouldn’t normally pass people who were injured, we had to that day for the people above that we had to get to.”

When did they know it was time to get out?

“For us,” firefighter Sal D’Agostino told Smith, “it was when the south tower had collapsed and the captain went over to the window and saw that the south tower was no longer there, and then he came over to us and told us it was time for us to evacuate.”

When they came upon Harris, she was worn out and moving very slowly the men agreed.

“We made it to the fourth floor (with her) and she was so tired, she couldn’t support her own weight anymore, and she fell to the ground and she was telling us to leave her,” Jonas said. “We weren’t gonna leave her.”

“As (the building) came down,” Butler added, “there was this tremendous roar, like the same shaking as when the south tower collapsed, but at the same time the roar — I liken it to two trains coming in different directions — and you’re standing in between them.”

But, said D’Agostino, the fact that Harris had to stop, and the firefighters stopped with them, saved all their lives: “That’s the key to the whole thing, when she can’t go anymore and she’s telling us to stop (helping her), we stayed together, and we stuck with her and then a couple of seconds later, you could hear the floors pancaking one on top of the other.”

What does the fifth anniversary of that day mean to Jonas?

“(Sept. 11 was) a very solemn day,” he said, “but it was also a day that we saw the worst in people and also saw the best in people. We had a tremendous amount of courage and compassion and heroism shown that day. And sometimes that gets overshadowed by the grief. But these people were incredible heroes (even before) these buildings came down.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/11/earlyshow/main1993155.shtml

Other Survivors

Story of post-collapse survivors

First Union Bank employee Tom Canavan, 42, and an unidentified young man were in the underground shopping mall beneath the South Tower when it collapsed. They were able to climb to the surface.

Police officers Sgt. John McLoughlin, 48, and Will Jimeno, 33, were in the underground shopping mall beneath the North Tower when it collapsed. They were pulled out by rescue workers.

Pasquale Buzzelli, 32, a structural engineer at the Port Authority, was in Stairway “B” on the 13th floor of the North Tower when it collapsed. After losing consciousness, he awoke on the surface, on top of a pile of rubble, and was carried away with minor injuries.

Genelle Guzman McMillan, 30, a secretary at the Port Authority, was in Stairway “B” on the 13th floor of the North Tower when it collapsed. She survived in an air pocket for 27 hours before she was rescued. She is famous for being the last person pulled alive from the rubble.

Five people, some of whom were firefighters, were reported to have been rescued on September 13, 2001, 50 hours after being trapped under debris in an SUV. However, they had in fact been trapped that day

http://genealogytrails.com/main/sept11.html

Engine 9 Fireman’s Story

From the April 2002 Firehouse Magazine

Firefighter Peter Blaich
Ladder 123 – 2 years
(was at Engine 9 on 9/11)

I came in for the day tour, so I got there about 8 o’clock and relieved the guy on the backup on the engine. A fireman, Ray Hayden, was actually standing in front of quarters and he saw what he thought was a small plane and then an explosion right into north tower. You could just make out the tips of the towers from the firehouse on Canal Street, so he got everybody in the house on standby and we were waiting to be dispatched, which we never were. Then, at that moment, it flashed on the news that the north tower was on fire. We weren’t dispatched yet, but Hayden turned everybody out. We took the satellite because we had the satellite with us. 6 Truck went. 9 Engine went and Satellite 1 went.

You could see the top of the north tower still, a lot of fire and a lot of smoke. As we got closer towards the towers, I lost the view I had from the cab of the engine. It was blocked out by the other buildings. Engine 9 pulled up on Vesey and West Street, and the satellite was behind Engine 9 and in front of 9 Engine was 6 Truck.

As soon as we pulled up, I remember getting off the rig and Lieutenant Foti from the engine said everybody grab an extra bottle along with our rollups. He’s a captain now, he was promoted after 9/11. Then he turned to me and he said if I can, take the life-saving rope and try to keep that with me as long as I could because we had jumpers at that point.

So I had the rollup, I had an extra bottle, I had the life-saving rope and then I remember looking up and seeing the first body hit one of the lower towers in the complex. And then I saw another body land not too far in front of us, right on the hood of a car. I had never imagined seeing anything like that, ever.

We proceeded into the north tower and at that point Chief Pfiefer was just setting up the command post in the north tower. It was us, 1 Truck, 7 Engine, 6 Engine, 55 Engine was there. Chief Pfiefer told us and 6 Truck to stay together and to start making our way up the B stairway, which was the attack stairway. And I heard that over the radio too B is the attack stairway. I had a radio because in 9 Engine they have the satellite, so the backup man has a radio also.

We started going up the B stairway. As we got to the third floor of the B stairway, we forced open an elevator door which was burnt on all three sides. The only thing that was remaining was the hoistway door. And inside the elevator were about – I didn’t recognize them initially, but a guy from 1 Truck said oh my God, those are people. They were pretty incinerated. And I remember the overpowering smell of kerosene. That’s when Lieutenant Foti said oh, that’s the jet fuel. I remember it smelled like if you’re camping and you drop a kerosene lamp.

The same thing happened to the elevators in the main lobby. They were basically blown out. I don’t recall if I actually saw people in there.

What got me initially in the lobby was that as soon as we went in, all the windows were blown out, and there were one or two burning cars outside. And there were burn victims on the street there, walking around. We walked through this giant blown-out window into the lobby.

There was a lady there screaming that she didn’t know how she got burnt. She was just in the lobby and then next thing she knew she was on fire. She was burnt bad. And somebody came over with a fire extinguisher and was putting water on her.

That’s the first thing that got me. That and in front of one of the big elevator banks in the lobby was a desk and I definitely made out one of the corpses to be a security guard because he had a security label on his jacket. I’m assuming that maybe he was at a table still in a chair and almost completely incinerated, charred all over his body, definitely dead. And you could make out like a security tag on his jacket. And I remember seeing the table was melted, but he was still fused in the chair and that elevator bank was melted, so I imagine the jet fuel must have blown right down the elevator shaft and I guess caught the security guard at a table, I guess at some type of checkpoint.

We figured by the time we got to the fifth or sixth floor, that’s when the south tower was hit. I had no idea the south tower was hit, and I don’t think that Chief Jonas – Captain Jonas at the time – or Lieutenant Foti knew at that point either. I remember the whole north tower literally vibrated. The only way I can explain it is if you were at the edge of a subway platform and the train was coming in, you felt that wind and the sound, but with an added effect like the floor vibrated. Everybody just cringed and really was not sure what was going on. I just assumed that it was something above us. I had no idea that the south tower was hit.

From the sixth floor, we went to the 12th. At the 12th floor there was a bottleneck of civilians still evacuating the tower. We also needed a little rest from the climb up. Lieutenant Foti had us take the people from the B staircase and lead them over to the A staircase because we wanted to clear the B staircase for us. He wanted to make the A the evacuation staircase. We took our gear, our tanks and everything off, tried to cool down, and then we just led people over to the A staircase. It was a distance, I would say 30, 40 feet.

Then from that point we proceeded up and we went up to as far as the 25th floor. When we got to the 25th floor, it was that same effect, like being on the subway platform, but you could tell like that something was really wrong because we heard windows blowing out on our floor. I remember looking at the top of the door, it crimped in. I remember looking at it and going oh, man, that can’t be structurally good, it was almost like at that moment the door wanted to get sucked out, actually get blown out of the building.

That was the first time also that we encountered a smoke condition. We had to force open the door on the 25th floor from the B staircase. It was crushed and we had to force it open to get onto the floor just to see what was going on. There was a very decent smoke condition. You could stay low enough and be all right, but it was to the point if you stayed in there for a while, you’re going to have to mask up.

At that point, 6 Truck came down from 27 to 25. I remember Captain Jonas and two other firefighters came running back into the B stairway. It was us, 1 Truck, a couple of other companies – 9 Engine, 7 Engine. And I remember him saying, oh my God, the second tower is down, if that can come down, being that this is burning longer than the south tower, we definitely have to get out of the north tower now.

We got a rush of air just flying out of the north tower, it was almost like you were getting wind in there, just whoosh, it came rushing out. At that point, Captain Jonas came running back in and said the south tower’s down. I don’t know how he did it. He was as calm as a cucumber, but he was saying we’ve got to start getting out of here now. He went up a couple of floors and made sure that he notified whoever was above him. He transmitted over the radio what he observed and that we were getting out, and at that point we started our descent. I heard Maydays after the collapse, there were Maydays all over the place.

As we were going down, we were trying to stop and double-check the floors that we got to. We did still encounter some civilians on the 20th floor on the way down. There was one guy downloading stuff off his computer and we just told him you got to go now. He really didn’t want to leave, but we basically forced him out of the building at that point. I would say most of the civilians were out at that point.

We tried to check the floors as quickly as we could. Some floors had smoke conditions on them and some floors didn’t. It was weird. I don’t know if that’s because maybe debris from the tower landed in certain floors and maybe lit certain floors on fire. I don’t know. But there was definitely heavy smoke on one floor and then the next floor you’d go to there would be no smoke.

The lights were out. The emergency lights were on in the north tower at that point. The alarm was going off the whole time we were there. It was a deafening alarm sound to get out.

We got down to the third floor. It was us, it was 9 Engine, 6 Truck and there were about six civilians at that point and one lady, Josephine, who was not ambulatory. She couldn’t walk. We were staying with 6 Truck to help them and a chief told 9 Engine, I want you to take these approximately six other people and get them out and I’ll stay with 6 Truck. We didn’t want to leave, but that’s what we were told, so we did it.

We got down to the lobby and my first thought was when we did encounter Josephine and the six other people that looked like they could walk, our first thought was why the hell are you still in the building? And one of the women told me we can’t go down there, there’s smoke and we can’t get out. So I said oh, what the heck is this now? Then we took them with us down to the lobby and when we got to the lobby, it was nothing but debris, heavy smoke and fire.

I masked up. Lieutenant Foti said to me and Sean O’Sullivan, see if you can still find the way we came in. So we had our masks on and we went out, me and Sean together, and we went over one pile of debris and we found one firemen that was definitely deceased at that point. I don’t know who he was or what company he was from. He was in the lobby towards I guess the south tower side. We tried to drag him back with us, but Lieutenant Foti said listen, we can’t do anything for this guy now and we got to get out of here. We didn’t want to, but we had to leave him and we knew we had the other people to try to get out who were still alive.

And with that, Lieutenant Foti knew that if we dropped down into the loading dock area, we could get across a loading dock and come up on Vesey Street because he didn’t want to take these people through this thick smoke condition and sheared steel and rubble. I didn’t think we were going to get out of the lobby. But we dropped down and the smoke went from bad to tolerable and we were able to take the people across the loading dock out towards Vesey Street.

We were out now on Vesey Street and we were going to head back in and make sure that 6 Truck knew that they could come out this way because we knew that they had Josephine. And we turned to walk back down the loading dock and the whole thing just started coming down, the whole north tower. There wasn’t even time to run. I got hit with some huge debris. I still had my mask on at the time and I guess that might have saved me too. I got hit with a huge piece of debris in the back of my air cylinder, which took the wind out of me and knocked me flat on the ground.

At that point, I was ready to curl up. I figured this is it, the whole thing is going to land right on my head. A firefighter, Michael Price in 9 Engine, pulled me under a Port Authority tow truck, one of the big ones that they would tow trucks with. He pulled me under that thing and it just went black as night. I thought I was going to suffocate under this truck now because a force came – I could have sworn the truck, if it didn’t get lifted up, it definitely got moved to the side.

My helmet came blowing right off my head and the next thing I knew there was nothing but debris and dirt and that plume of crushed concrete all around us. You could hardly breathe. I just remember sticking my head in my coat and trying to conserve as much air as I could, figuring I’m probably going to suffocate because I know this whole thing came down around us and I have no idea if anybody’s going to get us out of here.

We stayed in there. We talked to each other for it seemed like an eternity, me, Mike Price. And then eventually it did clear enough that we could see each other. We couldn’t come out of the truck even the same way we came in. We had to back ourselves up out of the truck. I remember the whole top of the tow truck looked like somebody took a can opener and just peeled it right off. Maybe 10 feet from the truck was the biggest piece of steel I-beam I’ve every seen, and there was a dead Port Authority cop right there. We tried to get his body away from the steel beam, but we weren’t moving the steel beam.

Maybe 30 minutes went by by the time the company found each other. At that point, we definitely knew that 6 Truck, if they were alive, they were probably still stuck in there somehow. Lieutenant Foti said let’s just try to find all our guys first and let people know where 6 Truck is because we knew we probably couldn’t get to them by ourselves. We had no tools or anything.

Then we heard a Mayday from 6 Truck – we couldn’t believe they were still alive and we knew that we had a shot to go back in and get them at this point. We got back to where Engine 9 was, the satellite and 6 Truck was. Off-duty members from 6 Truck and 9 Engine were there now.

I remember my father was on the radio trying to locate me because he came with my uncle on the relocation. One of the lieutenants, Lieutenant Chin from 9 Engine, told me your father’s over by the subway, just go tell him that you’re alive. So I ran over there and then the first thing he did when he got me is he said do you remember how you got back in, you know, how you got out because we can get back in that way.

Lieutenant Foti and me and a couple of other firemen from other companies, in the dirt we drew the best way we thought to get in there, we made a little map in the dirt. We were trying to figure out if we went by the loading dock, we knew that we could get up to that B stairway again. And that’s what we did.

It was pretty big down there. It was huge. And there were trucks on fire down there – the trucks were roaring. There was a good smoke condition.

We wound up getting hose off of another engine company. There was a building across the street on Vesey Street. We hooked up to a standpipe there and we ran a hose out because we needed to extinguish the truck fires in the subbasement because that was really just black smoke.

So we stretched a line from there, put out the truck fires, which cleared up the visibility pretty good, but then we could see that there was no way to get from the subbasement any more into the B stairway. It was just completely destroyed, caved in, rubble, everything.

We could still hear them talking and I said we’re never going to get to these guys, there’s no way we can get anything to get up there. It was completely sealed. It was like they were entombed. We stayed in there trying to figure things out. Other supervisors came at that point, other chiefs, and we knew that they were right above us, but we just could not reach them.

We stayed in there as long as we could and then there were other collapses starting now – small debris started coming down all around us. And that’s when my father said that’s it, we got to get out of here now, so we backed out. And thank God, at the same time, that’s when 6 Truck radioed that they found a way out. We still really didn’t know where they were. I went back after and realized what they did. They were basically entombed from the top and the bottom, so it was great that they got out. I couldn’t believe that they walked out of there.

As soon as we got back and 6 Truck was out, we went back to trying to get water because now we had all this fire and no water – 9 Engine was completely blown out. It was burnt. It looked like it got hit with a blow torch. All the windows were blown out in it. So that was useless, but believe it or not the satellite – besides some debris on it – was fine in all other aspects.

We took nine lengths of satellite hose down to the water. We hooked up to a fireboat down there and we operated the monitor at that point into the seven-story building in front of Tower 1. It pretty much put that out, reached great. We had good water pressure. We were augmented by another engine company from the water to the satellite. They put another engine company in there which augmented us. And the stream was even good enough to almost reach Tower 7. And then what happened was, we heard this rumbling sound and my father pulled us all back and then with that Tower 7 came down. We were still operating the satellite at that point. We ran. It really didn’t come up to where the satellite was, but it came close enough.

At that point, they lined up all the firemen on Vesey Street west of West Street down towards the water. Then they said all the firemen on one side, all the officers on another. And they had a meeting, all the chiefs, and then chiefs came over and grabbed an officer and they teamed the officer up with five firemen.

And 6 Truck all went to the hospital after that. They had to be treated. But 9 Engine, the off-duty members and the on-duty members, and the off-duty members of 6 Truck, we stayed together and we just stayed there trying to pull people out.

Me with only two years on this job, I just feel like I was so naive going in there because I had no idea what I was really walking into. I looked up and tried to get things into focus, but there was so much going on. The bodies – it was overwhelming.

At one point in the B stairway, there were still civilians coming down and we were going up, and I couldn’t believe how small the stairways were. I thought in the Trade Center, you’d have these huge stairways that you could fit a truck or up there or something, but you couldn’t. Every time a civilian came down, with the rollups and whatever extra tools you were carrying, you always had to turn to the side so they could pass you, and a lot of them needed help down so you would put your stuff down and help them down to a floor or two to another fireman, and then you’d go back, try to catch up with your company and make the walk up.

When we stopped on the 12th floor and moved, there was like a mass of civilians coming down now. Now, when we moved them over to the A stairway out of the B stairway, that definitely helped because after that point it flowed for us going up because there were no more civilians at that point coming down. And it had to definitely help the civilians get out of the building faster. […]

http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/magazine/gz/blaich.html

Subbasement explosions and other explosions close to time of impact

William Rodriguez, a 9-11 Survivor
August 25, 2005 06:13 AM EST

This past week I had the great pleasure of meeting William Rodriguez, a humble man from Puerto Rico who worked at the World Trade Center. He looked healthy in spite of suffering from many 9-11 related toxic diseases.

The occasion was at a special meeting at the Schaumburg, Illinois Township Library in the Chicago suburbs. This informative presentation served as a memorial for the many victims as we approach the fourth year anniversary of 9-11. In addition to William other knowledgeable and well qualified individuals presented their thoughts: Phil Jayhan, Dave VonKleist and Christopher Bollyn, a journalist with the American Free Press. This event, which should have been standing room only, was sponsored in part by the American Free Press as well as Jimmy Walter and Eric Hufschmid, a physicist and author of Painful Questions.

A press release was sent to all of the print media in the Chicago area about a month in advance of this event. There was a very tiny isolated notice about the event in one of the Chicago papers. Surely the local newspapers would wish to interview the participants on such an important subject as 9-11. But, only one Hispanic television station sent a journalist and a camera. So we must assume that the other Chicago news organizations have already determined exactly what they desire their readers to believe about 9-11. Let’s not deviate from the government version and confuse people with the truth!

William Rodriquez gave an outstanding, sensitive discourse of his experiences on that fateful morning. He appears to be a genuinely warm, gentle caring human being and it is easy to believe that his relationship with his many fellow employees was much more – they were also his long time friends. Daily, he met with them for breakfast in the Windows on the World Restaurant on the 106th floor. Nearly two hundred people, most of William’s friends, were in the restaurant that morning. None of them survived. Not only did he lose his job on 11 September 2001, he lost most of his friends. William would have also perished had he been in the restaurant that morning but he arrived at work at 8:30 a.m. rather than his usual time of 8:00 a.m.

William had worked for the New York Port Authority for about twenty years. He was in charge of the three stairwells – A, B and C. They were narrow and without windows. There were also 150 elevators in the building. He knew the building well. His job included the maintenance of the three narrow stairwells in the class “A” building – WTC1, the north tower. On a typical morning, he would have breakfast then begin at the top of the building and methodically work his way down. Arriving at 8:30 on the morning of 9-11 he went to the maintenance office located on the first sublevel, one of six sub-basements beneath ground level. There were a total of fourteen people in the office at this time. As he was talking with others, there was a very loud massive explosion which seemed to emanate from between sub-basement B2 and B3. There were twenty-two people on B2 sub-basement who also felt and heard that first explosion.

At first he thought it was a generator that had exploded. But the cement walls in the office cracked from the explosion. “When I heard the sound of the explosion, the floor beneath my feet vibrated, the walls started cracking and everything started shaking.” said Rodriguez, who was crowded together with fourteen other people in the office including Anthony Saltamachia, supervisor for the American Maintenance Company.

Just seconds later there was another explosion way above which made the building oscillate momentarily. This, he was later told, was a plane hitting the 90th floor. Upon hearing about the plane, he immediately thought of the people up in the restaurant. Then there were other explosions just above B1 and individuals started heading for the loading dock to escape the explosion’s resulting rampant fire. When asked later about those first explosions he said: “I would know if an explosion was from the bottom or the top of the building.” He heard explosions both before and after the plane hit the tower.

A fellow worker Felipe David came into the office. “He had been standing in front of a freight elevator on sub-level 1 about 400 feet from the office when fire burst out of the elevator shaft, causing his injuries.” The skin on his face had been peeled away by the heat of the blast and he was horribly burned on thirty-three percent of his body. “He was burned so badly from the basement explosion that flesh was hanging from his face and both arms.” William asks: “How could a jetliner hit 90 floors above and burn a man’s arms and face to a crisp in the basement below within seconds of impact?” William led Felipe David outside to safety. William continued to hear people screaming and returned to the building in spite of police orders. There were people encased in elevators. There were people who needed help.

There was a swooshing sound coming from the freight elevators on B2 and B3. Water from the fire sprinklers from all of the floors had gone into the elevator shaft. There were two individuals trapped below who were in danger of drowning. Rodriguez was able to secure a long enough ladder to extend into the shaft to facilitate their escape from a watery grave.

He had possession of just one of the five master keys that opened all of the stairwell doors at each of the floors in the 110 story building. The other four key holders were trained for emergencies. They had already left the building. Firemen from New York City Unit Six arrived. Each fireman, in addition to protective clothing, had about 70 pounds of equipment. William, who now had the only key, led the firemen up stairwell B. Firemen were going up as victims were coming down. The stairwells were narrow with no windows.

The firemen made it up to the 27th floor but were exhausted from the burden of their equipment. As William had ascended up the stairwell he, as well as the firemen, had heard explosions from the 20th through the 30th floor. Chunks of the building were falling down all around them and they could literally hear the building coming down. Yet, the firemen continued to climb and give aid. After all, they assumed the fire was isolated at the location where the plane entered.

On the 33rd floor, William was able to procure some dust masks from a maintenance office. The air was thick with smoke. On the 33rd floor he found a woman laying on the floor in a fetal position. She didn’t know where to go or what to do. They had fire drills twice a year but because of employee turnover, not everyone had a clear view of emergency procedures. While some individuals intuitively respond appropriately in an emergency, others are absolutely paralyzed by their fears.

Strangely, while William was on the 33rd floor he heard lots of very loud noise as if someone was moving heavy equipment and furniture around on the 34th floor. The reason this is interesting is that the 34th floor was completely empty. Elevators did not stop at the 34th floor. It was off limits due to a construction project. He said that this was the first time that he felt fear.

They continued to ascend to the 39th floor. This is as far as William got before he was turned back by the firefighters. As he began his descent he heard the plane hit the south tower.

He made it back down to the hole where the front doors used to be before they were blown out. The bottoms of the elevator doors were blown partially open. He couldn’t breath, his eyes burned, his leg was burned. Someone yelled: “Don’t look back!” William looked back momentarily then raced for the first cover he saw – a fire truck. That is where he was found. Pulverized concrete mixed with asbestos and smoke created a dark cloud of doom. Flashlights were necessary. William received temporary medical assistance and then went to work trying to find survivors.

The mangled bloodied bodies of the jumpers blanketed the ground. William will never forget the anguish he felt or the sight of this senseless horrific carnage. This was evidence of desperation – people desperate to escape possible death by suffocation or by fire chose death by jumping. The fires were contained and isolated. Much of the flame actually burned outside of the building upon impact. The fire was out – even at the giant gaping hole where the plane breached the building where people worked, talked with friends and felt relatively safe.

William Rodriguez saved lives that day. Currently he is attempting to alert the public to what actually happened. He is a courageous witness to those terrible events. The controlled censored media doesn’t really appear willing to report the real news but rather they promote whatever the propaganda ministry wants the masses to believe. It takes continuous courage to go against such opposition but that is the kind of man he is. He says that he owes it to his friends – those that were slaughtered for some covert political agenda.

William spent hours testifying before the 9-11 Commission behind closed doors. His testimony as an eye witness does not appear anywhere in the 576 page report. But after all, Bush told us who did it, so why bother to examine the evidence or talk with the witnesses. The only agency that was allowed to investigate the circumstances of the event was FEMA.

The National Institute of Safety and Technology (NIST), an independent investigative group ignored his plea to tell his story. He contacted them four times but never got a response. NIST was funded by the government which gives you a pretty good idea of just how subjective their findings were. They were paid $35 million dollars and the investigation lasted two years. The taxpayers certainly did not get their money’s worth.

William Rodriguez also contacted the FBI who never followed up. The media was not interested. CNN spent a day filming and interviewing him at his home but when it was shown the following day it was thoroughly edited. Some reporters have subtly warned Rodriguez to keep quiet as he could jeopardize his life. They said “You do not know who you are dealing with!” He already looked death in the face and he will probably continue to courageously tell his story. He is speaking the truth and he is speaking it for his friends. He says: “I am living on borrowed time since I probably should be dead anyway.”

William Rodriguez is the lead plaintiff in a RICO lawsuit filed against George W. (warmonger) Bush and others. He is alleging conspiracy to commit murder and other crimes. So not only is he speaking for his friends but he is seeking justice for all of the victims, both those who died and those who were injured.

The World Trade Center twin towers were built from 1968 to 1972. To fireproof the building a mixture of asbestos and cement was sprayed during the construction. However, this fireproofing technique was banned in 1971 by the New York City Council. By then there was already hundreds of tons of this material in the building. Later, some of this material was removed yet there was still about 100 tons of asbestos remaining. Asbestos was used in other areas that would not leave the harmful residue unless there were extraordinary circumstances such as those that occurred on 9-11.

William Rodriguez says: “I have tried to tell my story to everybody, but nobody wants to listen. It is very strange what is going on here in supposedly the most democratic country in the world. In my home country of Puerto Rico and all the other Latin American countries, I have been allowed to tell my story uncensored. But here, I can’t even say a word.” Thank goodness for the alternative media where one may still discover the truth.

On 11 September 2001 our defense systems failed, NORAD failed, our president, intent on a goat story, failed to immediately respond; the twin towers failed – they collapsed – the only known steel frame buildings in history claimed to have failed because of fire. Other steel frame buildings have been known to burn for hours and hours yet they did not collapse. Of course, we do not know the cause of their failure as the evidence was rendered unavailable for investigation – either immediately sold or otherwise withheld. There was also the failure of the local authorities to warn the people about the toxic air that burned their lungs and blanketed their homes and would create life long health problems. They were told that there was no problem.

After 9-11 there was a failure to discover exactly who made millions on all of the put options on American Airlines and United Airlines. That was another failure. So many failures and I haven’t heard of one person reprimanded for inefficiency. However, there are those who were promoted.

However, there were also great successes:

The firemen who gave their lives – crushed in the totally unexpected and unusual building collapses. There were medical people who tenderly treated the trauma struck victims. The policemen did not fail and the thousands of volunteers who searched for the dead and dying did not fail. There were search and rescue dogs who did not fail – many of whom have since died of cancer. And William Rodriguez did not fail. He acted appropriately -just like a man of integrity and courage should act. He did not hesitate. Unlike others who should have responded immediately, he sprang into action and made selfless sacrifices for others.

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/articles/article.html?id=7762

These explosions were set off by Mossad to stimulate fire balls from the plane crash spreading throughout the building at the moment of the crash or soon after. Hence the timing of the explosions.

The small bombs were detonated at the moment of impact, as well as the one that went off seconds before the crash. That one was a mistake because people (Rodriguez) were in the area at the time and noticed it.

Also bombs were set off to go in the minutes of the attack on different levels of the floor to start fires, supposed to be petrol and fireballs spreading fire everywhere throughout the tower.

This was to be the reason why the whole tower collapsed and disintegrated. These fires were supposed to spread throughout most of the building and then the building collapses by nuke demolition.

Of course that’s not what happens, pictures show major fires only on half a dozen floors before its collapse. The fire from the explosions in various spots throughout the WTC including the basement did not engulf the building as the fire did in the burning of a skyscraper in Madrid or a tower in Venezuela.

And there weren’t supposed to be witnesses like Rodriguez giving the show away.

Subbasement explosions

Witness at WTC 1

Mike Pecoraro, who was working in the SIXTH SUBBASEMENT of the North Tower when the first plane hit. His eyewitness account is of the moments after the first plane crash (WTC1 struck at 95th floor by unknown plane around 8:46 a.m.), and describes evidence of large explosions in the lobby, parking garage and subbasement levels of WTC-1 at the time of the crash. [or rather, timed to coincide with the crash.] “…the room they were working in began to fill with a white smoke. “We smelled kerosene,” Mike recalled, “I was thinking maybe a car fire was upstairs”, referring to the parking garage located below grade in the tower but above the deep space where they were working. The two decided to ascend the stairs to the C level, to a small machine shop where Vito Deleo and David Williams were supposed to be working. When the two arrived at the C level, they found the machine shop gone.”

Comment: Bombs contained kerosene or were exploded near containers of jet fuel. This was to simulate a plane crash spilling kerosene and starting fires throughout the building. Then when the buildings collapsed people would think the collapse was due to jet fuel.

Witness at WTC1/WTC 2

Construction worker Phillip Morelli describes being “thrown to the ground” by “two explosions” while in the FOURTH SUBBASEMENT of the North Tower [WTC 1]. “The first, which threw him to the ground and seemed to coincide with the plane crash, was followed by a larger [third] blast that again threw him to the ground and this time blew out walls. He then made his way to the South Tower and was in the [WTC2] subbasement there when the second plane hit [9:03 a.m], again associated with a powerful underground blast. This is one of a series of interviews with WTC survivors…”

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/12/304905.shtml

Price of Liberty: Bombs in the WTC Buildings Proves Nothing to Racist-Fascist Bigots

By Ed Ward, MD

“We’re talking about a 50 ton hydraulic press–gone!”

Fireman Lou Cacchioli was the first to grab me by the heart, mind and soul with his isolated courage by simply telling the truth about what he experienced to the only media that cared to ask about his eyewitness account of 9/11 on July 19, 2005. In the Arctic Beacon article, by Greg Szymanski, he related his observations during the efforts to save as many as he could with little regard for personal safety: “…there were bombs…elevator doors completely blown out… we heard this huge explosion that sounded like a bomb… another huge explosion like the first one hits…. Oh. My God, these bastards put bombs in here like they did in 1993! Then as soon as we get in the stairwell, I hear another huge explosion like the other two. Then I heard bang, bang, bang – huge bangs…”

For the first time, this article finally allows Lou to tell his story, the way he wanted to tell it – truthfully and to the best of his knowledge. The article gives more than just the facts as he lived them. It gives insight into the fate of all the heroes present on that despicable day. A fate that awaits other eyewitnesses of the clean up crews and city inhabitants that had inadequate or no protection because the EPA had stated the air was safe to breathe.

Damning testimony to the fact that there were bombs in the WTC, but it was only one man’s eyewitness. How valid can one brave and seemingly honest man’s visions be when there were many others that also had to have eyewitness testimony and managed to survive. Distinguished author and professor emeritus of the Claremont Graduate University, David Ray Griffin, exposes those virtually unreported eyewitness experiences in “Explosive Testimony:”

Examples of a few of those accounts follow:

“There was just an explosion [in the south tower]. It seemed like on television [when] they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions.” –Firefighter Richard Banaciski

Engineer Mike Pecoraro, who was working in the sixth subbasement of the north tower, said that after an explosion he and a coworker went up to the C level, where there was a small machine shop. “There was nothing there but rubble,” said Pecoraro. “We’re talking about a 50 ton hydraulic press–gone!” They then went to the parking garage, but found that it was also gone. Then on the B level, they found that a steel-and-concrete fire door, which weighed about 300 pounds, was wrinkled up “like a piece of aluminum foil.” Having seen similar things after the terrorist attack in 1993, Pecoraro was convinced that a bomb had gone off.

Officer NJFD Sue Keane, “It sounded like bombs going off. That’s when the explosions happened. . . . I knew something was going to happen. . . . It started to get dark, then all of a sudden there was this massive explosion.” “[There was] another explosion. That sent me and the two firefighters down the stairs. . . . I can’t tell you how many times I got banged around. Each one of those explosions picked me up and threw me. . . . There was another explosion, and I got thrown with two firefighters out onto the street.”

2002 Pulitzer Prize winner John Bussey reported: “I heard metallic crashes and looked up out of the office window to see what seemed like perfectly synchronized explosions coming from each floor, spewing glass and metal outward. One after the other, from top to bottom, with a fraction of a second between, the floors blew to pieces.”

Again, these are but a few of the eyewitness accounts listed in the brief, concise, recount of selected live experiences of our heroes and victims by Professor Griffin. The examples only give a glimpse to the depth of the many first hand statements of explosions in the WTC buildings. Indeed even Professor Griffin can not relate in his short article the extent of all the statements made by a Google search of – “world trade center task force interview” explosions – which produces 213 individual listings. The few statements Professor Griffin makes are not even all inclusive for the evidence presented in those statements and citings. Example follows:

In Explosive Testimony’s citing, We Will Not Forget, regarding engineer Mike Pecoraro, not included in the WTCTFI reports, Joe Shearin states, “About 50 feet down the hallway, he heard a loud explosion and was lifted into the air. I can’t even tell you how far I traveled.” This is not included in Griffin’s article either.

There are many significant statements regarding information other than explosions in the WTCTFI testimonials.

Paramedic Manuel Delgado’s quote “In fact, you could see the fan. I remember that because I could see — now, it wasn’t the whole engine because the engine is big, but I know the front part of it, it looked like the whole engine because I could see the fan, and that’s what stood out in my mind. There was an airplane tire also there and then these bodies and luggage from the thing because there were shoes everywhere also. Some shoes had what looked like blood in it, other shoes didn’t, other shoes were burnt…” Here we have part of the plane’s engine broken by impact with the building and made it no further than shoes.

Auxiliary Lieutenant Fireman Paul Isaac: “There were definitely bombs in those buildings…” Isaac added: “…many other firemen know there were bombs in the buildings, but they’re afraid for their jobs to admit it because the ‘higher-ups’ forbid discussion of this fact.” Isaac further broke the gag order by acknowledging it’s existence, “It’s amazing how many people are afraid to talk for fear of retaliation or losing their jobs,” regarding the FBI gag order placed on law enforcement and fire department officials, preventing them from openly talking about any inside knowledge of 9-11.

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/06/08/21/ward.htm

Lobby of WTC 1

http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/2006/11/wtc1-debris.html

Firefighters’ recording

Excerpts From Firefighters’ WTC Tape on 9/11

For well over a year, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey refused to release the audiotape of firefighters’ communications from the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks. In early November 2002, the tape was released to the New York Times, then to other unspecified “news outlets” (according to the Associated Press). To my knowledge, the NYT is the only outlet to post excerpts from the tape; no one has yet posted the entire thing.

Below are transcripts of all portions that have been released. You can listen to them at the NYT’s site by going to this page (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/nyregion/09TAPE.html). [Tapes audio have been removed]

“9/11 Tape Raised Added Questions on Radio Failures”

(http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/nyregion/9-11-tape-raises-added-questions-on-radio-failures.html?src=pm)

“Fire Department Tape Reveals No Awareness of Imminent Doom”

(http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/nyregion/09TOWE.html)

9:25 a.m.

Ladder 15: “Go ahead, Irons.”
Ladder 15 Irons:

“Just got a report from the director of Morgan Stanley. 78 seems to have taken the brunt of this stuff, there’s a lot of bodies, they say the stairway is clear all the way up, though.”

Ladder 15: “Alright, ten-four Scott. What, what floor are you on?”
Ladder 15 Irons: “Forty-eight right now.”
Ladder 15: “Alright, we’re coming up behind you.”

9:31 a.m.

Battalion Seven Aide: “Battalion Seven, you want me to relay?”
Ladder 15: “Yeah, Steve tell Chief Palmer they got reports that there’s more planes in the area, we may have to back down here.”
Battalion Seven Aide: “Ten-four.” “Seven Alpha to Seven.”
Battalion Seven: “Steve. Seven to Seven Alpha.”
Ladder 15: “Fifteen to 15 Roof.” “Fifteen Roof.”
Ladder 15: “We got reports of another incoming plane. We may have to take cover. Stay in the stairwell.”
Ladder 15 Roof: “Ten-four.”
Ladder 15: “Fifteen to 15 Roof. That plane’s ours. I repeat. It’s ours. What floor are you on, Scotty?”
Ladder 15 Roof: “Fifty-four.”
Ladder 15: “Alright. Keep making your way up. We’re behind you.”
Ladder 15 Roof: “Ten-four.”

9:37 a.m.

Ladder 15 Lieutenant: “Tommy, listen carefully. I’m sending all the injured down to you on 40. You’re going to have to get ’em down to the elevator. There’s about 10 to 15 people coming down to you.”
Ladder 15 Firefighter: “Okay.”
Ladder 15 Lieutenant: “Ten civilians coming down. Fifteen to OV.”
Ladder 15 Firefighter: “Got that, I’m on 40 right now, Lieu.”

9:39 a.m.

Ladder 15 Lieutenant: “Alright Tommy, when you take people down to the lobby, try to get an EMS crew back.”
Ladder 15 Firefighter: “Definitely.”

9:43 a.m.

Battalion Seven Chief: “Battalion Seven to Ladder 15 Roof, what’s your progress?”
Ladder 15 Roof: “Sixty-three, Battalion.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “Ten-four.”
Battalion Nine Chief: “Battalion Nine to Battalion Seven.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “Go ahead Battaltion Nine.”
Battalion Nine Chief: “Orio, I couldn’t find a bank to bring you up any highter. I’m on the 40th floor, what can I do for you?”
Battalion Seven Chief: “We’re going to have to hoof it. I’m on 69 now, but we need a higher bank, kay.”
Battalion Nine Chief: “What stairway you in Orio?”
Battalion Seven Chief: “The center of the building, boy, boy.” “Tac One to Tac One Alpha.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “Battalion Seven to Ladder 15 Roof, what floor?”
Battalion Nine Chief: “Battalion Nine to Battalion Seven.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “…Battalion Nine.”
Battalion Nine Chief: “Orio, I’m going to try and get a couple of CFRD engines on the 40th floor so send any victims down here, I’ll start up a staging area.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “…find a fireman service elevator close to 40, if we get some more cars in that bank, we’ll be alright.”

9:48 a.m.

Ladder 15: “Battalion Fifteen to Battalion Seven.”
Battalion Seven: “Go Ladder 15.”
Ladder 15: “What do you got up there, Chief?”
Battalion Seven Chief: “I’m still in boy stair 74th floor. No smoke or fire problems, walls are breached, so be careful.”
Ladder 15: “Yeah Ten-Four, I saw that on 68. Alright, we’re on 71 we’re coming up behind you.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “Ten-four. Six more to go.”
Ladder 15: “Let me know when you see more fire.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “I found a marshall on 75.”

9:49 a.m.

Ladder 15: “Fifteen to 15 OV. Fifteen to 15 OV. “Fifteen OV.”
Ladder 15: “Tommy, have you made it back down to the lobbby yet?”
Ladder 15 OV: “The elevator’s screwed up.”
Ladder 15: “You can’t move it?”
Ladder 15 OV: “I don’t want to get stuck in the shaft.”

9:50 a.m.

Ladder 15: “Alright Tommy. It’s imperative that you go down to the lobby command post and get some people up to 40. We got injured people up here on 70. If you make it to the lobby command post see if they can somehow get elevators past the 40th floor. We got people injured all the way up here.”
Battalion Seven Aide: “Battaltion Seven Alpha to Seven.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “Go Steve.”
Battalion Seven Aide: “Yeah Chief, I’m on 55, I got to rest. I’ll try to get up there as soon as possible.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “Ten-four.”

9:50 a.m.

“Anybody see the highway one car? Highway one car we need it for an escort to the hospital for a fireman.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “Battalion Seven to Ladder 15.” “15 Irons.”
Ladder 15: “Fifteen to 15 Roof and Irons.”
Battalion Six Chief: “Battalion Six to command post.”

9:52 a.m.

Battalion Seven Chief: “Battalion Seven to Battalion Seven Alpha.” “Freddie, come on over. Freddie, come on over by us.”
Battalion Seven Chief:

“Battalion Seven … Ladder 15, we’ve got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines. Radio that, 78th floor numerous 10-45 Code Ones.”

Ladder 15: “What stair are you in, Orio?”
Battalion Seven Aide: “Seven Alpha to lobby command post.”
Ladder 15: “Fifteen to Battalion Seven.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “… Ladder 15.”
Ladder 15: “Chief, what stair you in?”
Battalion Seven Chief: “South stairway Adam, South Tower.”
Ladder 15: “Floor 78?”
Battalion Seven Chief: “Ten-four, numerous civilians, we gonna need two engines up here.”
Ladder 15: “Alright ten-four, we’re on our way.”

9:52 a.m.

Battalion Seven Aide: “Seven Alpha for Battalion Seven.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “South tower, Steve, south tower, tell them…Tower one. Battalion
Seven to Ladder 15: “Fifteen.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “I’m going to need two of your firefighters Adam stairway to knock down two fires. We have a house line stretched we could use some water on it, knock it down, kay.”
Ladder 15: “Alright ten-four, we’re coming up the stairs. We’re on 77 now in the B stair, I’ll be right to you.”
Ladder 15 Roof: “Fifteen Roof to 15. We’re on 71. We’re coming right up.”

9:57 a.m.

“Division 3 … lobby command, to the Fieldcom command post.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “Operations Tower One to floor above Battalion Nine.”
Battalion Nine Chief: “Battalion Nine to command post.”
Battalion Seven Operations Tower One:

“Battalion Seven Operations Tower One to Battalion Nine, need you on floor above 79. We have access stairs going up to 79, kay.”

Battalion Nine: “Alright, I’m on my way up Orio.”
Ladder 15 OV: “Fifteen OV to Fifteen.”
Ladder 15: “Go ahead Fifteen OV, Battalion Seven Operations Tower One.”
Ladder 15 OV: “Stuck in the elevator, in the elevator shaft, you’re going to have to get a difference elevator. We’re chopping through the wall to get out.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “Radio lobby command with that Tower One.”

9:58 a.m.

Battalion Seven Chief: “Battalion Seven to Ladder 15.”

(END OF TAPE)

http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/firefighter-tape-excerpts.htm [dead link]

http://guardian.150m.com/wtc/why-south-tower-first.htm

http://patriot-american.com/documents/75.html

http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/wtc/firefighters.htm

Rick Siegel video of firefighters’ tape

VIDEO: 9-11 Eyewitness Hoboken Segment 1 of 7

Dailymotion | Youtube

Hoboken Highlights Segment 1

Go to 3:11 min for the firefighters’ conversation.

Rick Siegel says:

“While the brave firemen prepare to extinguish the isolated pockets of fire with 2 hoselines, the evildoers must move up the timetable. If the fires are put out, there will be no reason for the towers to fall.”

Comment: This shows there must have been an inside connection within the Port Authority, most likely Silverstein, who organized for the command control center to be located within WTC5. He knew then that he could give Mossad total control of the operation. They would be able to eavesdrop and know what was going on with rescue operations within the tower. This was realized when the ‘evildoers’ detonated the tower on the intelligence they received from listening in to the firefighters’ conversation.

6:39 min

The chopper moves away from the tower just before it collapses. It looks like it had been warned. Rick Siegel makes a remarkable observation that FEMA had started a TRIPOD 2 wargames exercise which ran from the Port Authority command and control headquarters from Pier 92 on SEPTEMBER 10th.

12:00 min

Edna Cintron

13:30 min

Mosquito screen netting

Previous Fire at the WTC

On February 13, 1975, the WTC North Tower was beset by a fire, which “burned at temperatures in excess of 700°C (1,292°F) for over three hours and spread over some 65 percent of the 11th floor, including the core, caused no serious structural damage to the steel structure” (New York Times, Saturday 15th February 1975)

http://genealogytrails.com/main/sept11.html

Demolition 2

Foreknowledge of building collapses

Interview with an EMT who was at the scene of the explosion of WTC 2 (the first tower to explode):

BBC was told 23 minutes before WTC 7 fell that it would fall

Foreknowledge of WTC 7 collapse – oral histories

More oral histories re foreknowledge of WTC 7’s collapse here:

Cover-up

Patricia Ondrovic Interview with Killtown – Interview with the Task Force is heavily redacted.

Additional explosions

Interview with an EMT who was at the scene of the explosion of the first tower

Video of explosion at the base of WTC 1 as it blows up

Video of additional explosions and eyewitness accounts of explosions

Inconsistency – why did this building escape collapse while WTC 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 did not?

In their own words …

Powderizing and melting of tower before tower hit ground (thermal and blast effect)

Roar, rumble and shaking

Wind and concussion (effect of overpressure and blast winds)

Preliminary explosions – multiple popping sounds and squibs

Preliminary explosions – ring pattern of explosions

Preliminary explosions – timed, synchronized explosions

Preliminary explosions – lower floors blowing out

Preliminary explosions – flashing, sparkling

Black cloud and darkness

Dust clouds

Staircase B Survivors

Story of 14 Stairway “B” Survivors

Stairway “B” Survivors

Other Survivors

Story of post-collapse survivors

Engine 9 Fireman’s Story

Subbasement explosions and other explosions close to time of impact

Subbasement explosions

Price of Liberty: Bombs in the WTC Buildings Proves Nothing to Racist-Fascist Bigots

Firefighters’ recording

Rick Siegel video of firefighters’ tape

Previous Fire at the WTC

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