|
Academic
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
|
This section mainly focuses on the interviews with people who either saw/heard explosions or they associate what they heard to explosions. As well as the other events they were witness to.
Captain Karin DeShore
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110192.PDF
Quote:
|
...I never turned around because of a sound came from somewhere that I never heard before. Some people comared it with an airplane. It was the worst sound of a rolling sound, not a thunder. I can't explain it, what it was. All I know is -- and a force started to come hit me in my back. I can't explain it. You had to be there. All I know is I had to run because I thought there was an explosion...
|
Quote:
|
...I thought it was just a major explosion. I didn't know the building was collapsing...
|
Quote:
|
...I don't know how long it took. All of a sudden it was all over and the silence set in. Nobody cried, nobody talked, nobody made a sound. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. You could open your eyes, it was pitch black...
|
Quote:
|
...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 bout and and down and then all around the building. I went inside and I told everybody that the other building or there was an explosion occurring up there and I said I think we have another major explosion...
|
Quote:
|
...So here these explosions are getting bigger and louder and bigger and louder and I told everybody if this building totally explodes, still unaware that the other building had collapsed, I'm going in the water...
|
Quote:
|
...Again, I didn't see what was happening behind me, but knowing of all the explosions I thought here was another explosion coming and this sound again and this wave of this force again...
|
Quote:
|
...I have a problem with the whole situation still. I wish the Fire Department would come around with professionals and not people that are from a local counseling service or whatever -- excuse me for a moment. My concern really was that noone from the Fire Department made any kind of effort to even find out how we were doing. I didn't get a phone call. I didn't see my Chief until satuday a week after that, which is 10 days later...
|
Deputy Commissioner Thomas Fitzpatrick
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110001.PDF
Quote:
|
...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 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...
|
Quote:
|
...The next thing I was worried about was getting hit by the parts. Various pieces of the plane were falling on the street. As we went down the street you could see parts of the aircraft with stencil numbers on it and things like that. There was a wheel, or like a wheel housing or something else there in the street. There were alot of bodies coming down but I didn't pay much attention to it. For some reason I was more focused on the airplane parts until somebody started pointing out the body parts...
|
Firefighter Kevin Murray
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110020.PDF
Quote:
|
...There was jumpers everywhere, there was bodies everywhere, pieces of plane everywhere...
|
Quote:
|
...We got up to the fifth floor and there was severe damage. The ceilings had come down, the some walls had caved in. Major sprinkler damage, because there wasn't just a sprinkler. It was just like 2 and a half inch hose hitting you in the face when you were walking up there...
|
Quote:
|
...Then we went to the sixth floor and did the same thing. Same sort of damage up there...
|
Quote:
|
...then we got another report that the 65 floor in the north tower had collapsed...
|
Quote:
|
...We made it to the 5th floor and then there was a report of major gas, a gas leak on the 5th floor. So now I'm heading back up the stairs to the 20 something floor and there was some sort of gas leak on the 5th floor. I smelled it, but I couldn't tell if it was a gas leak or anything, but you definately smelled something that wasn't there when we doing the evacuation...
|
Quote:
|
...We saw a guy, I think big Port Authority Police or somebody had a guy locked up in handcuffs right in front of us...
|
Quote:
|
...This guy, they were locking up this guy a little bit from Vesey...
|
Quote:
|
...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 windows domino--you know, dominoeing up and then come down...
|
Assistant Commissioner James Drury
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110098.PDF
Quote:
|
...You could see airplane parts on the ground...
|
Quote:
|
...I now made a left on Vesey and walked down the street on the 7 World Trade Center side, where I could see more airplane debris and building debris on the sidwalk and on the street...
|
Quote:
|
...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...
|
Quote:
|
...As I said I thought the terrorists planted explosives somewhere in the building. That's how loud it was, crackling explosive, a wall...
|
Lieutenant William Ryan
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110117.PDF
Quote:
..Q. What did you think you were responding to at that point?
A. Well, we knew we had a fire. We knew we had partial collapse.
Q. From an explosion or --
A. Yes. Well, we heard a loud boom when we were getting ready to dock the ferry. Probably the jet fuel igniting, I assume...
|
Quote:
|
...Then we found out, I guess around 3:00 o'clock that they thought 7 was going to collapse...
|
Quote:
|
...So it took us awhle and we ended up backing everybody out, and that's when 7 collapsed...
|
EMT David Timothy
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110156.PDF
Quote:
|
...There was one individual, he had glass all over him. He said he just got thrown through some glass...
|
Quote:
|
...I looked up, and the next thing I knew I just saw--I don't know if it was the tail end of the plane or what, but I saw something...
|
Quote:
|
...The next thing I knew, you started hearing more explosions. I guess this is when the second tower started coming down...
|
Quote:
|
...At that point I assumed you can't have two -- it can't be an accident to have two planes. So, I don't know if there's planes or missiles or what but something was hitting this thing. You saw debris was falling down...
|
Quote:
...As I got down a little farther, there was what looked to be a piece of the cabin of the airplane, I guess. It looked like a piece of it about maybe six foot long. It looked like the windows.
Q. This is on Liberty?
A. This is on Liberty and just west of 10 and 10, whatever that next building is there. Now that I think back, I guess it could have been -- I don't know if it was the windows. It actually looked like the rounded cutout of the windows of the cabin of a plane...
|
Quote:
|
...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 see everything blew out on the one floor. I thought, geez, this looks lika 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. Thats's what blew out the windows, not that there was an explosion there but that windows blew out...
|
Quote:
|
...As I just got in under the entrance there, I got just a little ways back and it was just like -- you hear the noise, a boom, and then a blast of air...
|
Quote:
|
...I look and what I see is about 20 stories left of a building and jagged edges on the south side. It was like 20 stories, maybe, or so and on the north side of that tower down to about maybe 10 or 15 stories on the south side of it...
|
Father John Delendick
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110230.PDF
Quote:
|
...We saw the plane but I never saw it hit. I remember saying to myself, boy, that guy is awful low in the pattern...
|
Quote:
|
...We heard a rumbling noise, and it appeared that that first tower, the south tower, had exploded, the top of it. That's what I saw, what a lot of us saw...
|
Quote:
...I remember asking Ray Downey was it the jet fuel that blew up. He said at that point he thought there were bombs up there because it was too even. As we've since learned, it was the jet fuel that was dropping down that caused all this. But he said it was too even.
Q. Symmetrical?
A. So his original thought was that he thought it was a bomb up there as well...
|
Quote:
...Also I ran into a bunch of guys from the Secret Service, about 25 or 30 of them, all in their suits. I don't know the name of the street that's behind the World Financial Center.
Q. It might be North End or --
A. It must be North Avenue. They were walking along North, crossing Vesey, and they were going down further. I stopped one of them and I said where are you going? He said one of our members is in the building and we have to go find him. I remember saying to him I don't think it's a good idea going down there right now. He said no, we've got to find him. I said fine, go right ahead, do what you have to do...
|
Firefighter Richard Banaciski
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110253.PDF
Quote:
|
...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...
|
Captain Jay Swithers
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110172.PDF
Quote:
|
...But one thing that did happen was an ambulance pulled up which was very clean. So I assumed that the vehicle had not been in the - what I thought was an explosion at the time, but was the first collapse...
|
EMT Joseph Fortis
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110200.PDF
Quote:
It was just coming too fast. We couldn't get away from that cloud per se, and we ducked into the lobby of a building there. I believe it was between -- it might have even been the American Express building on the corner there.
Q. At this point it's the collapse of the first building now?
A. No, no. This is just when the second plane.
Q. Okay.
A. The buildings were still up. So it was just a blast from I guess the second plane, I think, came in, and the dust cloud just came. We were on the corner there, and you just felt the heat. Our back and all our eyebrows were all singed and everything. We had a little flash burn because we were right -- I guess when it were came were we right on West off the corner of I guess where six was.....
|
Rosario Terranova
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110168.PDF
Quote:
|
...About this time we heard like a little bit of an explosion. I guess it was secondary to the crash that had occurred...
|
Quote:
|
...the second building had yet to be affected, and there was some question about this. There was a video that I was privy to see, which is being kept confidential in nature, held by the chief of safety, and it was taken by an amateur photographer who was doing some training with the first battalion...
|
Quote:
|
...Anyway, we began to establish our situation now, and we heard a little -- all of a sudden we hear a huge explosion, you know, and in looking up, you could see the second tower being hit by this second plane...
|
Quote:
|
...I mean, it's as simple as that. If you could imagine you had two cards in your hand, and you just clapped your hands, and they just closed on each other. That's what it looked like, like a toy, and we began to see the pancake, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, one floor after another, as quick as you can imagine it...
|
Quote:
|
...Then I thought to myself -- I thought of the thing about the '93 incident when they had this Ryder truck full of explosives, and now I realized how strange it was that this white van was parked in this loading dock...
|
Quote:
...I hope my information has been informative to you.
Q. It certainly has been, and just keep in mind that -- actually think about in 30 or 50 years from now when somebody wants to look back on this and get more of the personal stories...
|
Firefighter Edward Sheehey
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110226.PDF
Quote:
|
...We were probably just at West Street, just at the street. Then the south tower -- we heard an explosion, looked up, and the building started to collapse...
|
Firefighter Lance Lizzul
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110253.PDF
Quote:
|
...After a while just standing there, waiting to see what was going on, we heard some bangs. That made us look up, and that's when the first Trade Center came down...
|
Quote:
|
...Then when we came out, we walked up Vesey Street. The radios were silent. There was no talking on the radios. Then I got to the corner of Vesey and West, and the radio communication started again...
|
Fire Patrolman Paul Curran
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110369.PDF
Quote:
|
...We proceeded down to Vesey. Walking down Vesey, we noticed large pieces of what looked like possibly the fuselage from the plane.. There was a caravan of motorcycle police coming up. We stopped them and we cleared the path of big O rings and pieces of fueslage of the plane....
|
Quote:
|
...With that, all a sudden the tower went completely -- a horrendous noise, a very, very, tremendous explosion...
|
Quote:
|
...With that, the building was shaking. It got very dark, we had our lights on. It got very, very thick with dust...
|
Quote:
|
...Our radio communications at the time was like non-existant. The radios went completely haywire. It was all static. You couldn't hear nothing...
|
Quote:
...Q. Everybody tells me all these vehicles were on fire. What do you attribute all these vehicles being on fire to?
A. I believe it must have been from the debris falling and the heat or just stuff falling on cars and setting them on fire. There were numerous cars burning, numerous...
|
Firefighter James Murphy
http://www.graphics8.nytimes.com/pac...IC/9110323.PDF
Quote:
|
...Then we saw the second one come up. It looked like it was coming up the East River from here. I guess it was coming from the south. I thought it banked over the East River, which is what it looked like. I thought it made a left over the East River and went right into it going from east to west. But as it turns out, it came from the south. Then we saw it just go right into the building and explode...
|
Quote:
|
...We shot down Tenth, down Park Avenue. We rode on The dividers because traffic -- we rode in between the highway where they parked the cars, we rode up there, over those until we got basically to where the Gowanus -- basically to around 207, 101. We made the turn to go over the Manhattan Bridge by accident. We figured out it was an accident. We backed out and went over to the Brooklyn Bridge..
|
Quote:
|
...That's when 30 seconds after the lieutenant left you could hear the noise. I was looking down towardss West Street, because that's where it seemed like it was coming from. You just heard -- I thought it was a third plane that hit, because when we were going in there was a couple of cops. When we made the right onto Liberty, they said, "Be careful, guys, there's a third plane heading in." So thats what I thought it was. It just seemed like a long time that it was -- it didn't seem like an explosion. It was like boom, boom, and then just got louder and louder...
|
Firefigher Fernando Camacho
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110253.PDF
Quote:
|
...As we came in through the revolving doors, the lights went out. A second or two later everything started to shake. You could hear explosions...
|
Quote:
...Five minutes later the north tower started to lean.
Q. You saw it leaning?
A. Yeah...
|
Firefighter Joseph Rae
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110294.PDF
Quote:
|
...We started walking north to just about the second footbridge, which would be 6 World Trade, and all of a sudden we heard the explosion and the building started to come down...
|
Firefighter Craig Carlsen
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110505.PDF
Quote:
|
...I guess about three minutes later you just heard explosions coming from building two, the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten 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...
|
Firefighter Edward Kennedy
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110502.PDF
Quote:
|
...We took two steps, there was a tremendous boom, explosion, we both turned around, and the top of the building was coming down at us.
|
Quote:
|
...We were on Liberty Street and we came out into there and it just look like something that -- it looked like a bomb, of course, had gone off, almost like a nuclear bomb...
|
Quote:
|
...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...
|
Firefighter Thomas Turilli
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110501.PDF
Quote:
|
...they want us to go to the south tower, which is I guess the first actual tower to fall down. He said there was a report of fire actually on -- the lowest report of fire they had was on the 33rd floor at that point...
|
Quote:
|
...The door closed, they went up, and it just seemed a couple seconds and all of a sudden you just heard like it almost actually that day sounded like bombs going off, like boom, boom, boom, like seven or eight...
|
Firefighter Stephen Viola
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110439.PDF
Quote:
|
...that's when the south tower collapsed, and it sounded like a bunch of explosions. You heard like loud booms, but I guess it was all just stuff coming down...
|
Firefighter Gerard Reilly
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110435.PDF
Quote:
|
...So we were in the building maybe a minute in the lobby of the tower, whichever one we were in, and that's when it came down. But I thought it was an explosion in the hotel, because all the debris came down, it was pitch-black, the whole building shook...
|
Quote:
|
...I told him I thought it was a bomb in the hotel, because nobody said the building collapsed...
|
Firefighter Richard Carletti
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110419.PDF
Quote:
|
...I was coming up Allen, which turns into First. When I was crossing Delancey Street, I saw a jet in front of me, which was the first jet. He was pretty low. He was probably about 30 stories. Now I'm heading north and crossing Delancey Streey on Allen and I see the jet make a move toward the Trade Center. It made a southwesterly turn from that point.
|
Quote:
|
...We got to about about 2nd Street and Second Avenue and we saw Ladder 7 was on a gas leak. We asked them if they were going to the Trade Center. They said no, they weren't assigned yet...
|
Quote:
|
...As we passed that, we came into the debris field. It was jet parts and body parts. I distinctly remember seeing a woman's hand. It was cut off at the wrist. She had wedding ring, so it had to be a left hand, and then I looked to the left and I just saw the rib cage with nothing in it and there was just debris...
|
Quote:
|
...When the north tower collapsed, I remember seeing the anenna do a little rock back and forth and I could just hear the floors pancaking. I heard if for 30 pancakes, just boom, boom, boom, boom and the dust blew up to us...
|
Firefighter Kevin Gorman
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110434.PDF
Quote:
|
...We were between the wo towers. At that time, I would say we heard an urgent messge from OEM, it said, where OEM informs us that there is a third plane en route...
|
Quote:
|
...there was a cop I knew who came by and gave me a drink of water, and then as he was standing there, he said, "Aviation just reported that the north tower is leaning." I said, "Which was is it leaning?" He said, "This way."..
|
Quote:
...and as I was looking at him I heard the explosion, looke up, and saw like three floors explode, saw the antennat coming down, and turned around and ran north.
Q. About how long would you say it was from when the police officer told you it was leaning?
A. Within 30 seconds...
|
Quote:
you had the second collapse. What happened at this point? You got engulfed in the smoke again?
A. In the ash...
|
Firefighter John Wilson
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110376.PDF
Quote:
|
...It was just like a crescendo sound like boom, boom, boom, and it just got louder and faster for like -- what did it las, ten seconds or something like that...
|
Firefighter John Malley
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110319.PDF
Quote:
|
...As we're halfway across the street, we hear on the radio about an urgent message or a mayday message about a third plane en route...
|
Quote:
|
...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 jus blew past me. It blew past me it seemed for a long time. 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 what 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...
|
Quote:
|
...There were secondary explosiongs, I don't know, aerosol cans or whatever. But we're in the darkness we see basically the glow of a flashlight and still things coming down. The noise, the explosions, whatever it was. I don't know, we just realized we had to ge the heck out of there...
|
Quote:
|
...At that point I didn't know the building came down. I thought I was still in the explosion...
|
Firefighter Christopher Fenyo
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110295.PDF
Quote:
|
...After a couple of minutes after George came back to me is when the south tower from our perspective exploded from about midway up the building...
|
Quote:
|
...At that point a debate began to rage because the perception was that the building looked like it had been taken out with charges. We had really no concept of the damage on the east side of 2 World Trade Center at that point, and at that point many people had felt that possibly explosives had taken out 2 World Trade...
|
Firefighter Kenneth Rogers
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110290.PDF
Quote:
|
...Meanwhile we were standing there with about five companies and we were just waiting for our assignmentand then there was an explosion in the south tower, which according to this map, this exposure jut blew out in flames. A lot of guys left at that point. I kept watching. Floor after floor after floor. One floor under another after another and wen 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.
|
Firefighter William Reynolds
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110288.PDF
Quote:
|
...I was distracted by a large explosion from the south tower and it seemed like fire was shooting out a couple of hundred feet in each direction, then all of a sudden the top of the tower started coming down in a pancake. I remember my jaw dropping...
|
Quote:
...Q. Bill, just one question. The fire that you saw, where was the fire? Like up at the upper levels where it started collapsing?
A. It appeared somewhere below that. Maybe twenty floors below the impact area of the plane. I saw it as fire and when I looked at it on television afterwards, it doesn't appear to show the fire. It shows a rush of smoke coming out below the area of the plane impact. The reason why I think the cameras didn't get that image is because they were a far distance away and maybe I saw the bottom side where the plane was and the smoke was up above it...
|
Quote:
|
...What I had forgotten to state previous to this, before the towers had fallen, two emergency service cops had come up to us in wired gear, carrying uzis and asked if we had seen any civilians. They said, "If you see any, come get us. Don't go near the civilians." At that time there were no civilians around, in my eye shot...
|
Quote:
|
...I remember seeing a civilian, the first civilian that I saw, he was carrying a bag and I thought, you have to watch out for the civilians and I was thinking, maybe I should take his bag and throuw it in the water, because I didn't know what it was. Then I thought maybe of throwing him in the water. Then I said, "No. He's walking south. I'll work north and get away from him." I remember discussing with other guys that maybe there is people around that would shoot us. Then we went over closer to the water and there was a barge there. I remember thinking, this might be an oil barge and there might be a bomb on it...
|
Quote:
...I said, "Chief, they're evacuating the other building; right?" He said, "No>"
Q. You're talking about the north tower now; right?
A. Before the north tower fell. He said, "No." I said, "Why not? They blew up the other one." I thought they blew it up with a bomb. I said, "If they blew up the one, you know they're gonna blow up the other one." He said. " No, they're not." I said, "Well, you gotta tell them to evacuate it, because it's gonna fall down and you gotta get the guy out."...
|
Firefighter Thomas Spinard
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110445.PDF
Quote:
|
...As we were at the box, a plane passes us overhead real low. You could hear it; you could feel it. We turned around, and it just impacted the builiding, building one...
|
Quote:
|
...When I made the right, there was debris, windows, metal and I guess plane debris right on the floor there betwwn seven and I guess that would be six...
|
Quote:
|
...We also had 2 civilians blown out to the middle of West Street on the divider there. It's about two feet high with dirt and grass they were sitting up there. I don't think they walked up there, They were just blown up there. They were all women. They were naked. They were burnt up. They were alive, but they were -- maybe they made it; I don't know...
|
Quote:
|
...I had my control man, who went into the building, his cyliner malfunctioned, emptied right out in two seconds. So I went to high-pressure hose. He came back out. He went to get another one, but at that point they had taken the chauffeur's one off the rig already, somebody. So now he couldn't even go back in because he had no cylinders, no nothing. I said, "Joe, just stay with me." That's what we did. I needed help anyway out there, so he stayed out with me. He watched my back while I hooked up, actually...
|
Quote:
|
...While we were still in the middle of the street, another plane comes in, makes a big circle, comes around from like the Statue of Liberty direction, and hits two...
|
Quote:
|
...I don't know what time later a loud rumble -- it sounded like an explosion. We thought it was a bomb...
|
Quote:
|
...Heavy debris is hitting the front of the column, light debris is make it around, dust and little particles, and then the dust cloud hits us. Then it got real hot. It felt like it was going to light up almost...
|
Firefighter Roy Chelsen
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110475.PDF
Quote:
|
...We were actually sitting in the kitchen, the lieutenant and I , and we actually heard the first explosion. We both looked at each other and we were like, "Oh, what was that?"...
|
Quote:
|
...All of a sudden we heard this huge explosion, and that's when the tower started coming down...
|
Firefighter Kirk Long
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110509.PDF
Quote:
|
...We made it up to the 22nd floor. We stood there for a couple minutes. I believe Andy Desperito talked to the battalion through the fire warden phones. We did locate somebody at the end of the hall, but everything was blown out. The ceiling had fallen. The drop ceiling had blown to the floor. Some of the walls were blown out...
|
Chief Frank Cruthers
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110179.PDF
Quote:
|
...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...
|
Quote:
...Early on, there was concern that 7 World Trade Center might have been both impacted by the collapsing tower and had several fires in it and there was a concern that it might collapse. So we instructed that a collapse area --
Q. A collapse zone?
A. Yeah -- be set up and maintained so that when the expected collapse of 7 happened, we wouldn't have people working in it. There was considerable discussion with Con Ed regarding the substation in that building and the feeders and the oil coolants and so on. And their concern was of the type of fire we might have when it collapsed. They shut down the power, and when it did collapse, the things that they were concerned with would have been....
|
EMT Orlando Martinez
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110183.PDF
Quote:
|
...Early morning, about 8:40, I was parked down at Church and Barclay, regular normal routine, getting our breakfast. While inside the deli a few minutes later, there was a large explosion. We went outside, the building shook we were in, looked up and saw the top half of the World Trade Center on fire...
|
Quote:
...Once we started taking off, I guess 30 feet in front of us, there was a lady on the ground by the curb and she was just waving her arms. That's all she could wave. Her legs were crushed. Apparently she got hit by part of the landing gear, one of the tires of the airplane. There was a large tire next to her. The person who was next to her, I guess worked with her, said something hit her. It may have been the landing gear. It was a large piece of metal that was so sharp it slit her whole back open, buttocks. Her legs were exposed, bones. I told Frank, jump out of the back of the bus, get the stretcher. So we too the second degree burn patient out of the stretcher, threw him on the bench. We placed him on the bench. We took the stretcher out, took the long board.
Q. In your words.
A. Yes. We boarded her as fast as we could. There was nowhere to grab her, She was too slippery, so I just grabbed the hip bone. That was exposed...
|
Chief Mark Steffens
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110003.PDF
Quote:
|
...We got to maybe one block north of where the Battery Tunnel exits onto West Street there, and then, boom, a massive explosion. fight in front of us we saw what looked like a fireball and smoke. It was rolling this way...
|
Quote:
|
...Then there was another it sounded like an explosion and heavy white powder, papers, flying everywhere...
|
Quote:
|
...Q. So it was clear while you were going up West Street?
|
Quote:
|
A. Yes. 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...
|
Quote:
|
...My thought was I've got to go there. My guys are there. Then boom and the cloud. I didn't want to stay in the vehicle...
|
Paramedic Gary Smiley
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...IC/9110039.PDF
Quote:
|
...As I was coming across the street, across Church Street, is when the second plane hit the south tower, at that point we ran across the street going towards St.Pauls and there was a fire engine on the corner of Vesey. We hid behind the fire engine and we got hit with a lot of debris.
|
Quote:
|
It took I don't know how long for that to stop. I know it was hot because we all were -- I remember Danny looking at me and saying you are like red as a beet, because we probably got flash burns from the fireball...
|
Quote:
|
...The parked cars that been parked there were all on fire and which wasn't on fire was exploding. We didn't know at that point. I know that one of the police officers said that he thought that they were bombs and maybe they rigged them to blow up. Just secondary explosions. We didn't know what to do...
|
Quote:
|
...Stayed in there for about 20 minutes. The explosions outside were too much, so we decided to get out of there and we ended up coming out of there and we ended up on North End Avenue...
|
Lieutenant Brian Becker
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...C/91100019.PDF
Quote:
|
with Engine 4 and start your way up," and I remember specifically asking him how are we going up, and I remember thinking that it was a stupid question, because I knew the elevators were blown out, but I just asked it anyway, just in case he knew something I didn' t know, and he said , "You're walking." I have an impression of smoke around the elevators , and bent doors, and it was pretty -- the lobby was pretty devastated...
|
Quote:
|
...I ' d say we were in the 30th or 31st, 32nd Floor, or something like that , and a few of the guys were lying wiped out on the floor , you know, taking a break with their masks off and lying in the hallway when there was a very loud roaring sound and a very loud explosion, and the -- it felt like there was an explosion above us, and I had a momentary concern that our building was collapsing...
|
Quote:
|
...We got to the lobby, and we saw things. We saw an arrest being made of some Arab-looking type guy. I think he had a blue uniform type World Trade Center type maintenance type person. It was my impression. It didn't seem important to me. It seemed like he was being arrested by a Port Authority type policeman. That's my impression. I remember them putting cuffs on him, and I remember one of the firemen saying, "Look, they're arresting the guy," and I said, "Never mind that. Never mind that."...
|
Quote:
|
...So we just ran as a unit to the overpass again, and we took a look up, and it was like one -- it was like, holy shit. It was like -- because it was like -- I guess the building was kind of -- I don't remember specifically, but I remember it was, like, we got to get out of here. 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...
|
Quote:
|
...Q. What did you hear when the building starting collapsing the second time? Did you feel -- just started coming down? You didn't hear anything, feel anything
|
Quote:
A. We felt -- our whole building that we were in, when World Trade Center 2 collapsed, that was the first one to collapse. We were in World Trade Center 1. It was a tremendous explosion and tremendous shaking of our building. We thought it was our building maybe collapsed, there was a collapse above us occurring...
|
__________________
In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man,
and brave, and hated and scorned.
When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
- Mark Twain, 1904
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/9858/banner1ec8.png
Last edited by Locc; 7 Nov 2009 at 00:23 AM.
|