Hundreds of panicked callers trapped in the burning Twin Towers begged authorities for help, overwhelming 911 operators who struggled to hold back their own emotions, eight hours of emergency tapes show.
“We’re on the way,” the doomed callers were repeatedly told as the FDNY and NYPD operators tried to seem upbeat – all the while themselves coming to terms with the enormity of an event.
“My God! My God! They said an airplane crashed over here,” an FDNY operator yelled to a stunned colleague over emergency radio lines in one of the first calls, logged at 8:49 a.m.
Just 16 minutes later, another police operator told the Fire Department that “on the northwest side there’s a woman hanging from – an unidentified person hanging from the top of the building.”
“It’s chaos here,” the same operator adds a moment later.
“Uh-huh,” the fire dispatcher responds. “It’s another World Trade all over again.”
The 911 tapes – with just the voices of operators audible – were released by the city yesterday after a three-year legal battle between nine victims’ families and authorities.
The voices of the WTC dead were not heard on the tapes, but the horror of their final moments was obvious. The one-sided 911 recordings also show how operators struggled to offer advice as pandemonium swept over the airwaves.
The heartbreaking words of the 911 staff support the Sept. 11 commission’s conclusion in 2004 that many operators could not give the best information to those who were trapped – simply because they had no idea what was happening on the ground.
“Break the windows,” one FDNY dispatcher told a group of victims trapped on the 88th floor of the south tower, just minutes after terrorists rammed the second plane into that building.
Half an hour earlier, another operator had advised a hundred people trapped on the 105th floor of the north tower to “block the smoke coming in under the door.”
“Stay low to the ground” and “search for wet towels in the bathroom,” callers were also constantly reminded, as sirens wailed in the background. Call after call kept pouring in.
While most operators remained calm throughout the hours of taped conversations, the pandemonium often led to tense words with obviously out-of-control callers.
Although the victims’ voices were redacted from the tapes, their panic was apparent in audible heavy breathing and the responses of the 911 professionals they hoped could save their lives.
“If you feel like your life is in danger, do what you must do, OK?” one dispatcher told a caller at 9:02 a.m., just a minute before the second plane hit. “I can’t give you any more advice than that.”
“It’s too hard to tell you what to do,” another operator told a woman, who had phoned to say 13 people were trapped on the 83rd floor of the north tower at 9:58.
“I could tell you to stay there at this moment. I would not tell you to go out into the hallways. You probably can’t see. Just like you say, the room is getting filled with smoke.”
These comments were typical of the frustration, as operators’ computers crashed and calls lit up their screens.
There was also initial confusion over whether a helicopter or a plane had crashed into the towers. “Yeah, yeah. They’re not sure. But most people are saying helicopter,” an operator said at 8:59 a.m.
Minutes earlier, another had told her colleague: “We heard that it was a plane that crashed into the building.”
“I know – but there was somebody that fell out of the window from there, too,” the FDNY operator responds.
“Oh, my God. You’re getting hit with everything over there!”
Simple procedural matters, like whom to send out and what to advise emergency personnel, became unworkable.
“I’ve got a guy on the 106th floor and he wants to know how to deal with a hundred people,” a fire operator said. “He wants some directions. I don’t know.”
Worse still was the moment when some dispatchers realized their callers were unlikely ever to be rescued.
“It’s an awful thing, it’s an awful, awful, awful thing to call somebody and tell them you’re going to die,” a heartbroken operator told another after losing contact with a group of five office workers trapped on the 83rd floor.
“I hope they’re all alive because they sound like they went – they passed out because they were breathing hard, like snoring, like they’re unconscious.”
Before the towers crumbled, the operators realized America was under attack.
“They’re saying it might be a terrorist attack,” a police operator said after the second tower was hit. “It would have to be, because what are the odds of two planes crashing into the same building, OK? . . . OK. I can’t believe this. It’s got to be – it’s got to be hell.”
But many dispatchers tried to remain optimistic. One transcript showed a person trapped with more than 100 people on the 106th floor of the north tower calling at 9:10 a.m., seven minutes after the second plane hit the south tower.
“The Fire Department, EMS, is crawling all over the place,” the Fire Department operator assured the caller. “They’re trying to help everybody as much as they can, OK?”
In the background of another call made from the 105th floor of the north tower at 9:17 a.m., a public address announcement is heard in the background: “We are aware of it down here. The condition seems to have subsided.”
A group of family members who lost loved ones on Sept. 11 gathered at a Midtown law office yesterday to listen to the recordings.
Al Santora, whose firefighter son died in the attacks, said he was amazed at the professionalism and calmness of some of the dispatchers, but also surprised about their lack of knowledge on the ground.
“It’s an hour in, and this is the first time I’ve heard someone give advice on what to do about smoke,” he said.
Sally Regenhard, who was one of the plaintiffs in the suit to release the 911 records, said the tapes showed that the operators were untrained to tell people how to save their lives.
“I’m hoping that the public and the system will learn how unprepared the city of New York and the Port Authority were on that day,” Regenhard said.
But Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the tapes were a testimony to 911 workers, who “displayed professionalism and compassion under the most trying of circumstances, often staying on the line with anguished callers until the very end.”
Some families are still deciding whether they will listen to complete recordings.
KEY: CROs and DISPATCHERs are the FDNY’s 911 operators.
OPERATORS are NYPD’s 911 operators.
TIME: 8:49
OPERATOR: What is it? Hello?
CRO: 8695. Good morning.
OPERATOR: Good morning. 8695, 2106. World Trade Center just blew up.
CRO: The whole center?
OPERATOR: Yeah, that’s what they said.
CRO: My God. My god. They said an airplane crashed over here. Oh, Lord. This makes me feel so bad, I can’t take it. Once again, poor babies. I got another call routed to my screen. One moment.
OPERATOR: Okay.
CRO: Say our prayers. I hope that’s incorrect because – we would be able to see an explosion from the World Trade Center here. We would feel it too. Okay. Let me see something.
OPERATOR: It is.
CRO: On the 83rd –
OPERATOR: I can’t imagine.
CRO: Oh, God. You be trapped, something like that – we’ve got the 83rd – on the second World Trade Center on the 83rd floor five people were trapped, went unconscious. I don’t know what they’re doing. And it’s an awful thing, it’s an awful, awful, awful thing to call somebody and tell them you’re going to die. That’s an awful thing. I hope – I hope they’re all alive because they sound like they went -they passed out because they were breathing hard, like snoring, like they’re unconscious.
TIME: 8:52
DISPATCHER: Fire Department 328. What’s the address?
OPERATOR: 328. 1339 PD. World Trade Center Number One.
DISPATCHER: Okay, what’s going on?
OPERATOR: Okay, she said a passenger airplane hit the World Trade Center above the 8-5 Floor, 85th Floor.
DISPATCHER: An airplane hit the building?
OPERATOR: Right.
TIME: 8:59
OPERATOR: This is Verizon Operator 2764. We have a hundred people trapped on the 105th floor of One World Trade Center.
DISPATCHER: Okay.
OPERATOR: Fire above. They want to know if they should evacuate.
DISPATCHER: I believe they should remain where they are. If they can put something to block the smoke from coming in under the door, because we are in the building, and the hallways are filled with smoke. They should not go in the hallway.
OPERATOR: Okay.
DISPATCHER: All right.
OPERATOR: They’ve already started breaking the windows. They are panicking on that floor.DISPATCHER: I understand ma’am. We’re doing the best we can. Okay?
OPERATOR: All right.
TIME: 9:08
CALLER: (redacted)
DISPATCHER: If you feel that’s necessary, sir. I cannot – I’m not there. I cannot advise you.
CALLER:
DISPATCHER: If you feel that is necessary to survive…
CALLER:
DISPATCHER: I’m 328, but we have personnel there.
CALLER:
DISPATCHER: Okay. Have you covered the doorway? Have you stuffed the doorway with…
CALLER:
DISPATCHER: Did you put something in the doorway to block the smoke.
CALLER:
DISPATCHER: Okay. All right. If it gets really bad, call us back. Okay?
CALLER:
DISPATCHER: We’re on the way.
CALLER:
DISPATCHER: If you feel you must. I cannot direct you on that, sir. 328, thank you. Please do that. Thank you.
DISPATCHER: What floor are you on?
CALLER: (redacted)
DISPATCHER: 88? Okay. I can only tell you to try to remain calm. To remain low to the ground. The smoke rises. Keep your mouth covered, if you can. All right?
CALLER:
DISPATCHER: I understand. I understand your panic and your fear. We are in the building and we are doing the best wee can to get to all the building.
CALLER:
DISPATCHER: No, I cannot. I cannot update you on that. I can only ask you to remain calm and stay where you are. Okay?
CALLER:
DISPATCHER: I understand that. It is for hundreds of other people also, sir. We are doing the very best we can. Okay? We are in the building. We are getting to you as soon as we can.
TIME: 9:43
OPERATOR: Hi. This is Queens 358.
DISPATCHER: Right
OPERATOR: From Nassau we have at the One World Trade Center a report of 50 people trapped on the 104th Floor in the northwest corner. The floor is burning out from underneath them.
DISPATCHER: Okay. One World Trade Center, 50 people trapped on the 104 northwest corner.
OPERATOR: Northwest corner of the 104th Floor, and the floor is burning out from under them.
TIME: 10:15
CRO: Were they calling from inside?
OPERAOR: Excuse me?
CRO: Were they calling from inside the World Trade Center
OPERATOR: Yeah. This person was on the 105 floor. He said he couldn’t breathe and there were 60 other employees with him.
CRO: Oh, man.
OPERATOR: FD was notified, yes. It’s terrible.
CRO: Do you have any other news about it, like any of the latest?
OPERATOR: No, nothing later.
CRO: Are they still standing? The World Trade Center is there; right?
OPERATOR: Someone said they collapsed. I don’t know. But someone came I here and told us the building had collapsed. I don’t know.
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