Director of the program, operating here on the west side for adults with flexible schedules and a time for leisure learning, today we welcome you to the 92nd Street Series in partnership with time stocks. Featuring noted New York Times journalist and authors. Of our as with all daytime lectures provide a forum for discussion and debate on issues that affect us all. Todays discussion focuses on a topic that still remains greatly in our consciousness. We welcome journalist james dwyer and kevin flynn for discussing the recently published book 102 minutes, the untold story of the fight to survive inside the twin towers. Jim dwyer and kevin flynn are native new yorkers and winners of many awards together and separately. James dwyer joined the New York Times in 2001 as a reporter for the metropolitan section, prior to joining the times he was a columnist for the New York Daily News and before that he was a columnist for new york newsday and previously a reporter for burkink and record record. He is the author of many books, he is also the author of subway lives, 24 hours in the life of the new york city subway. Vy flynn asked Kevin Flynn Kevin Flynn was the new york police euro chief on 2011, previously he worked as a reporter for the New York Daily News, new york newsday, and of the stanford advocate. He is the recipient of several journalistic awards including the 1988 first place award for the new York State Associated press or indepth reporting and the 1990 Distinction Award for the new york publishers association. In 1998 he was part of a team that received an award from the new York State Associated press. Who better to tell us the moving account of the struggle to survive inside the World Trade Center on the morning of september 11 than the authors of hundred two minute, the untold story of the fight to survive inside the twin towers. Please welcome james dreyer and kevin flynn. For having us this morning and thanks to all of you for coming, i would like three something from the authors note of our book. Minutes on the morning of september 11, two thousand one, 14,000 men and women fought for life at the World Trade Center, this book aims to tell what happened solely from this perspective of people inside the towers. Office workers, visitors, and the rescuers who rushed to help them. From accounts are drawn 200 interviews with survivors and witnesses, thousands of pages of transcribed radio transmission, phone messages, email, and oral histories. All sources are named and enumerated. Describe thece can scenes that unfolded at terrible velocities in so many places, taken together, though, the words, witnesses, and records provide not only a broad view of the devastation, but also a singularly revealing window onto acts of grace at a brutal hour. The immediate challenges these people faced were not geopolitical, but intensely local. How, for instance to open a jailed jam to door or navigate a flaming hallway, or climb dozens of flights of stairs. Civilians or rescuers, they had to take care of themselves and those around them. Their words inevitably traced a narrative of excruciating loss, they also described how the simplest gestures and tools were put to transcendent use. Everything from a squeegee and a stuck elevator to a squeeze on the shoulder, from a voice moving in order to get out from 8 two a crowbar smashing the sheet rock around a jammed door. The history of human valor and struggle, these are matters of first importance, they brought us to this book. By our account the 652nd or so that has been written about the events of 9 11 and if you are like a lot of people, you might ask why, why another book about 9 11. It was the single most observed event in Human History watched by millions of people around the world and yet, we believe that, despite that, there is still so much we did not know about what happened inside the towers particularly to the people who were trapped on the upper floors area 102 minutes is to the best we can research reconstructed their story, their history told when we can find them in their own words. Hey beverly, this is sean, in case you get the message there has been an explosion, it looks like a plane struck, it is on fire at about the 90th floor and it is horrible. Bye. Ant is sean rooney of Insurance Company in the south tower leaving one of his last messages to his wife, beverly. This book actually began as a newspaper article in the spring of 2002. Jim and i and three other reporters were asked by the New York Times to reconstruct what happened inside the towers by talking to people who had been there that day who had called outside to loved ones. The survivors of the day could tell us much about what had happened on the mid and lower floors, but they could not help us with the upper floors where hundreds had been trapped after impact. 1500 between both buildings. Only 18 of those people would survive, everyone one of them in the south tower. No one from above impact survived in the north tower, but hundreds, it turned out had called out from inside the buildings. Leaving messages or last words that would resonate with relatives for the rest of their lives. The article was also called 102 minutes and it began like the book with what we learned about what was going on in the buildings even before the plane had hit. On the 101st floor and every other floor in the complex, lights simmered at different temperatures as men and women lined up todays tasks or as they unloaded some fraction of life at home that had been carried into the world of work. One woman called her husband to report that she had stopped at a drugstore to pick up a second home pregnancy test, still not quite able to accept the results of the first one she had taken earlier that morning. A window washer, bucket dangling 44ths arm, waited at the floor of the north tower having just grabbed the practice breakfast. At a health club, a Roman Catholic priest with clogged arteries had just climbed down from a stationary bicycle and was weighing a decision to complete his work out with a few laps in the pool. Lobby, mr. H tower martin, a secretary had just hopped on and express elevator after finishing a final cigarette outside before work. On the 27th floor of the north ed v. A. North tower, rolled his wheelchair to his desk, his aide having set him up with a head pointer that he used to operate his computer. At the top of it all, Christine Olander called home from windows on the world, the restaurant on the 100 sixth and 107th floors on the north tower where she worked as the assistant general manager. She had lived in new york city for 20 years, but still checked and most mornings with her mom and dad back in chicago. Christine and her mother were organizing a visit by her parents to the city, no doubt one that would include a stop at windows. Still, she had a busy morning ahead of her, besides the regulars having breakfast in the dining area called wild blue, a conference was about to begin in the ballroom sponsored by risk waters, a big financial publishing firm. Mother and daughter agreed to talk again later that day. Elsewhere in the restaurant, one floor below, neil 11 patiently read his newspaper watched case carefully by two coworkers who, they wondered, was their boss meeting for breakfast . When it came to gossip, the Port Authority had the authority of most bureaucracies, but they could not stick around to satisfy their curiosity because one had a meeting downstairs. Attead, they stopped weekly levinsohn table to say goodbye, then they walked to the lobby and caught a waiting elevator. A few strides behind them, liz chum liz thompson and Jeffrey Worden hurried to get on board. Quickly, they stepped in, then the doors closed and the last people ever to leave windows on the world began their dissent. It was 8 44 a. M. James the events of september 11 that happened began in minutes later took place over a vast amount of real estate, the two towers as you know were 110 stories each. Each of those floors was one acre, youre talking about essentially 220 acres, 220 football fields of terrain that was involved in this catastrophe. I am going to run through a few of what thewe have building looked like and what the damage whats the damage entailed. North tower and this shows the impact as you can see it began around the 94th floor. The 99thry top there, floor you can see the top of the tail. At the angle that it entered, it cut a cross all those different floors. Below here is a schematic computer simulation that was done by an engineering form firm in new york that was involved there is a lot of litigation over how much insurance would be paid out. As part of that, they sketched out the level of damage through the core of the building as you can see, it was quite extensive. This is the south tower, the distinction here is that the floors where the plane hit were quite a bit lower. The bottom tip of the plane just caught the top of the 77th floor, the bottom tip of the lower wing. Tail sliced through a little bit of the 84th sorry, yeah, 84th floor and then some of it went into the 85th floor. This plane did not hit directly through the core of the building as cleanly as the other one had. As you can see, when it was entering, it was at an angle. Rather than going right through the center of the building, it went off to the sides. Now, this is the stairway layout in the south tower, there were three in each building. A, b, and c. They ran right down the middle of the towers with one exception. When it got to the sky lobbies, the trade center had two sky lobbies, one at the 44th floor of each tower and one at the 78th. Express elevators would go up there and drop them off and they would take shuttles to whatever floor they were going to. At the sky lobbies there were huge elevator machines just above them. Case pens is, as this as the stairs come down they have to swing out to the perimeter of the building and as you can see here, stairway a goes down to the 78th, around the 80th floor it starts to swing out and it goes to the outside. That happens with the other stairways too. That becomes important and the ability for people to survive in the south tower, remember, the plane hit much higher in the north tower. Is up in this area, so so the three staircases were immediately destroyed. Tower, these staircases were just devastated immediately to the entrance, but , staircase atower because the plane cut over that way missed that stairway and that became a very important escape route for 18 people. Thing yousignificant want to know about is that when the trade center was built in starting in 1968, new york city had just revised its Building Code and it was very significant for the Port Authority which was developing the trade center because it reduced requirements for staircases and stairways. Staircases are not rentable space, they are essentially a dead load in the building. The fewer staircases that are in a place, the more space you can rent. Here is the Empire State Building which was built around 1930, 1931, and it has six staircases including one that is a reinforced fire tower in the center of the building. Those six staircases run from the ground all the way up to the top of the building. Lower,tion, as it gets as you get into the lower floors, instead of six you have nine so it fans out and there is a dispersion for the folks coming down the stairs. Ae trade center, you had three staircases in the core of the mezzaninerom up to the top of the building. As i mentioned, the only place they opened up where the 78 and 44th floor. Stories of the people who were trapped upstairs, we begin the research by trying to look through newspaper accounts in order to find keywords. Words like cell phone, or email, or blackberry. We found in those accounts there had been an interview made from as far away as canada in which someone had spoken from inside the towers to a loved one, when we identified those we sought to go out and reinterview those people. Tom toric who is a database editor at the time created these databases we used in which you are able to basically catalog all the interviews you had done, organize them by name or by company or by floor they were on and then you would search it. This gave you the ability to accounts where people had all been on save 106th floor of the north tower. Reading them a one against the other, you begin to get a sense of what had happened on that floor, not individual snapshots, but more of a narrative of what had happened on that floor. We became particularly interested in the floors were that where there had been a lot of coming occasions. We were also interested in the boarding area and those were areas where just below where the plate and hit where a lot of people may not have been necessarily hurt by the impact, they had been trapped by the jammed doors when the buildings twisted. They were the scenes of some very dramatic rescues. Also, we went to court and after a Court Settlement we were able to get about two dozen radio tapes from the Port Authority that detailed what their police and other workers had done that morning. The police and Fire Department also gave us their radio tapes although not there 911 calls. The tapes they gave us where the taste between the dispatcher and their people at the scene. In particular, one tape from the special Operations Division had the transmissions of the helicopter pilots as they were circling around the building and watching the events unfold on the upper floors. Oralso got about 200 histories from both the firefighters and from the Port AuthorityPolice Officers who had been inside the tower that day. All of these, like the interviews with survivors or family members were entered into a database where you can search by company or floor or name and the net effect of having so many sources on a particular point was that you were able to get very detailed accounts. For example, there is the case of ed and abe, the rough outline of their story was already known by the time we had started this book, but the details were not as wellknown. They were computer programmers from the roof blue cross and blue shield and they worked on the 27th floor of the north tower, they had been friends for a long time. It had been injured in a diving accident and was confined to a wheelchair, nothing below his neck moved. With the elevators out, he could not easily get out of the building, but abe refused to leave him behind. We learn from some of the survivor interviews and from the firefighter oral histories the series of people had interacted with him during the course of the morning that gave us a continuous account of their whereabouts throughout the entire 102 minutes as they moved in and out of stairway c on the 27th floor. They were with captain burke of Engine Company 21 for a well who stayed with the pair even after he knew the south tower had collapsed. He, like ed and april, did not survive. We found eds nurse irma who had been with him and she gave us her account before her departure from the building. Abes relatives detailed their phone conversations with him from the north tower, finally, in those Port Authority radio tapes, we noticed this is mission on channel 28 from one of the workers. 277, i am in and this lease or see staircase, i have a man in a wheelchair, he needs assistance. The speaker it turns out was a nam a man by the name of anthony who had survived. We found him and found he had spent much of the morning with ed and abe and that he was able to give up the following account which we were able to put in the book. Help, theyaited for moved about the 20 seventh floor, they had been to the stairwell, to the elevator banks, and to a Conference Room or a firefighter told them to stuff wet rags underneath the doors. Several people did what they could to make those left on the floor operable, anthony giardina, an electrician who worked in the building passed out snapple and water from a vending machine, firefighters ordered the drinks over their heads. One firefighter looked at sir he couldve left much earlier, but the fire upstairs seemed far away. The danger, distant, why dont you go the firemen asked. No, he replied, i staying with my friend. James in what we called the border country, just around below the impacted zone, we followed in the north tower a particularly stirring pair of men named Frank Martini and pablo ortiz. They worked on the 88th floor which was about five floors low the bottom point of the impact of they had quite a job getting the way clear out of their floor. It, they gotto do about 2540 people out of their floor by clearing a path through a lot of rubble, down and some garters that were not burning and into a staircase. The situation was not as hospitable on the floors above and below. Jury r up, on 89, the the doors were jammed or unreachable. The ottomans could not get out the way their counterparts on the 80th floor had 88 floor had. A man sat on the chair with his led into a lors office down the hall and sat in a chair with his hat in his lap. Diane defined his diane watched in amazement as most people from metropolitan love life gathered her space. A companys president opened the office door to stuff his jacket underneath and the sudden shaft of light fell into the dark, smoky hallway. Tryinga woman had been to find somewhere to go away from the office of her Public Relations firm where the conference table had burst into flames after the plane hit. She followed the of light from the office, then led her staff toward it. No one seemed to know one another. Everyone began making calls both there and in the office where defontis now had more than a dozen people with her. Stephanie manning from metlife hung up the phone and reported they are aware of the situation. Situation, what situation . Metlifes branch manager. The word of the crash and circulated in the room from fans and family members who are home watching television, someone switched on the radio and a disc jockey was making jokes about how drunk the pilot mustve been to crash into the trade center. Metlife had gone outside to investigate escape routes, they found that of the three stairways, the two closer to the north side were all but impossible to get to. The floor itself felt as if it were melting and buckling. The stairway door nearest to them it was wedged tightly into the frame. Do you have a fire extinguisher . Brian asked her, and she found one in the office. She took it out of the cavity where the elevator shafts had been, he was sparkling a few drops into an ocean of flames. A group of the men begin throwing their shoulders and all their strength at the jammed stairway door, but had no luck. A few pounded on it, frustrated. Phone calls to make home, this time, to say that the situation was desperate and to bring up matters that had been left unsaid or to affirm what was already part of their lives. Rick brian called his father. Defontis called her boyfriend but could not reach him, then she called a girlfriend to say that she loved her. The men and women of the 89th floor had taken a small, protective steps, they had a moistened closing to use as a filter, called for help, stuck jackets into the crevices at the bottoms of office doors. Breathing through damp paper towels, men and women banged on the stairway doors, but the act had in air of futility. Nathan from metlife stood in the hallway wondering if the world was unraveling. Suddenly, a muffled voice called out, get away from the door. The tooth of a crowbar burst through the drywall, tearing around the frame. Pablo ortiz pushed the door open, behind him, were Frank Demartini and mac. Ortiz walks to the law offices and told the people there to move quickly to the stairs. Then, he opened the doors to the offices of cosmos insurance. Huddled. Re lets go, ortiz announced. As walter entered the stairwell, demartini and ortiz were behind him, he thought he saw them continue up the stairs. So, onto the 90th floor, one floor above, a young woman is trapped in her office. She is about a month away from getting married. They are stuck, everybody in her then ais stuck and in flashlight comes bobbing into the room and we do not know for sure who that is, but we are pretty confident that it was one of these two men. Frank demartini or pablo ortiz who were the only two wandering around that part of the building. And then on the 86th floor, four floors below, there is a Career Planning seminar going on and that group was also trapped in their office. Again, one of these two men showed up and led them out to a door through a door that had previously been jammed shut. 91st floor, the stairways were plugged solid, the collapsed rye wall forming and impermeable an impermeable membrane. A line they could not be crossed even for the people on the 92nd and 93rd floors most of which had not been touched by the impact. Or parts ofoss all 10 floors, dozens of people had been unable to open doors or walkthrough burning corridors to the stairs and find their way past the rubble. Then, help appeared. With crowbar, flashlight, hardhat, and big mouth, Frank Demartini and pablo ortiz had pushed back the Boundary Line between life and death. Now, the attempts, the rescues did not only go on up in the high on rescues did not only go on the high floors. We know the city mounted one of the largest efforts and its history. Thousands of police and firefighters and ems workers voluntarily rushed to the scene. They faced two calamities. Firesere trying to fight and they were getting word that there was yet another plane on the way. We now know that there was not. Once this had happened twice in a single morning, that there was nothing you could dismiss. Let me show you how they were organized on that morning. Here are the two towers. There was a center of command being operated by the Fire Department. This is one World Trade Center here. To two world lobby trade center, the south tower. In both of those buildings there were fire chiefs operating. They had a very limited view of what was going on. When you are standing at the bottom of a vertical plane that is that high, you cant tell what is happening a quartermile above you. I will play a little tape after the first tower collapsed. This is the south tower. It was hit at 9 02. It collapsed 57 minutes later. This building did not collapse until 10 28. Nobody expects this to happen. The shock of it was so disorienting to people on the ground that many people did not understand what happened. People who survived on this side of the street at this fire command area, they ran out to get aside from the smoke. Some of them thought they had come out a different door than they came in. Prettyorientation was extreme. The Police Department was somewhat better organized on this front. The tape is not easy to listen to. [indiscernible] the building is going to collapse. We need to evacuate everybody. [indiscernible] i dont think this has too much longer to go. Warning that was given by the police helicopter. That message was relayed to the Police Helicopters to the Emergency Services commanders. No matter how many times the Police Dispatcher repeated that message, none of the firefighters in the north tower had radios that could hear those reports. Hearof them could not reports from their own commanders. Word to spread the leave at once. Very sporadic. S as smith went down, he kept coming across firefighters. Another cycle of firefighters would search the floors. She said forget about that. Just get out. These firefighters did not have any sense of urgency. He noticed them stopping to look out windows to see what was happening in the street. Because the fire was so distant, many had gone up without a specific order. It was the titanic mentality. On the 19th floor, a lieutenant stops because a young firefighter has popped out. He says, i need some help. What is going on, he asked. He headed back for the stairs. People had to leave. They had run into the building to help. They were coming down from the 51st floor. They had stopped on the 19th floor on the way up. They noticed a vast assembly of firefighters on their way down. They stepped out of the staircase. They could scarcely believe their eyes. It was still packed with firefighters. It would be tough to find a place to squeeze in. The place was carpeted with firefighters. Most had their helmets off. Somewhere down to their tshirts. Some were lying down. They could not be hearing what we are hearing. They guessed there were at least 100 firefighters on the floor. No one moved. Fewill come down in a minutes, someone said. The alarm outside the tower grew more urgent. It does appear that the top of the tower might be leaning at this time. It is now 10 28, 102 minutes since the nose of flight 11 shot into the tower. The bangs are distant. B, they hear the approaching collapse. Doors are hard to budge. The door will not open. It springs open in the wind blast comes as a raging storm. Is as ifloor drops, it a giant accordion is being squeezed. Air comes theh of screech of the following trusses , the slap of tons of metal. Percussive bangs. The building seems to spill out of itself. Ouring down. Those who had escaped the collapse of the south tower know the impossible is happening yet again. A team of men hurried north. As the north tower crumbles, another fire captain runs toward the hudson river. This is an active of war. He was giving general absolution. B, amongirway firefighters who have taken on , there is a prayer or two for a swift and. End. Even stronger than the noise is the wind. He is carried down three floors. The air has nowhere to go. So much of a skyscraper is nothing but air. Putting little pieces of their daily lives onto those platforms. Is where she keeps her sensible shoes. The couch in his office where his children nap on their afternoon at daddys job. The table where the wealthy young men and women dine out of paper bags. The well set tables of crystal and linen are as pleasing to the eye as the 40 mile vista. Now the lights have gone out. The wind seems to be bouncing back up stairway b, whipping tons of crushed particles. The people stretched up and down the lower floors of that of other a couple stragglers, can see nothing. They pry open a door but it goes nowhere. They huddle alive in the last intact part of the World Trade Center. Above them is only sky. [applause] thank you. It is a difficult topic for so many of us. Many of us want to know more about those who did survive. How they are surviving surviving. Have they stayed in touch with you . From a faireard number of people. In general we have gotten a good response. What happened outside, we all saw. Everyone in the world watched. They seemed very keen to have this history told. Some families were inspiring to me because they were so deeply interested in finding out what had happened to love ones. There were several families i spoke to. There is much more to be told them what is in our book. Other comments or questions . Step up to the microphone so we can hear you. I knew many of the people who were inside the buildings. Your book was marvelous. What remains untold about that day . I think is one mystery would be fascinating and helpful to find out. One of the great problems in the many tower was that firefighters did not get the evacuation order. They were trying to design a workable radio system. That improvement did not work for whatever reason. There is debate over that. One of the men who was most schooled in the way of radio communications, he at some point in time tested this system with another fire chief. They both determined that it did not work. This happened before the south tower was hit. To be the leaded fire chief. The decision was made that the repeater system was not working. To use their left tiny walkietalkies. Somehow he came to learn that the repeater did work. Or at least it worked in some fashion. He began to use that same channel. They got seamless communications. It was those communications that were ultimately recovered. They would show that the repeater for part of the day was working. Is, how does he come to figure that out . It does not seem like everyone in the south tower goes on that channel. There were many firefighters in the south tower who did not appear to ever get onto that channel. That is one of the big mysteries of the day. Forward, they are trying to get a grip on it. I dont know whether or not many people in the second tower couldve been saved. We saw the impact of the first plane. Over the television they said a small plane had hit the first tower. When in fact it was a large commercial plane. Completed aa different image. The first thought was that basically some misguided, inexperienced pilot had hit the tower. We all know it was a commercial plane. How was it this gap of knowledge took place for so long . That no one corrected the television stations that were transmitting the information to all of us . That is a good question. It is almost inevitable that the fog of war decisions. Ds. Descen a few people saw it and could say right away that a commercial airliner hit. Most of the broadcast media did not know what had happened. We at the New York Times did not quite understand what had happened. There was no one around to tell us. I went to iraq a year later. Of wrong stuff that comes out in a situation like that. The tv helicopters were ordered to land as a result of the nofly zone. The only helicopters that had a birds eye view of what was happening where the Police Helicopters. That, we do try to get the news. We had people there at the time. There is a delay between what the police are finding out and what gets to the reporters and wickets onto tv stations. I think that the lady may have been increased that day because everyone was stunned with what was happening. We know how confused they were in the civil aviation. The faa did not understand what was happening. Laguardia had no idea. They were still loading up planes. There were plans on the runway ready to go. One thing that they come up was people inside the towers were turning to broadcast media because there was no internal pa system anymore. They were calling 911. Operators had Bad Information as well. Crimp in thel pipeline of facts. In the future they will create it so 911 operators will get updated information in realtime. They dont just give reports of stay put, everything will be fine. Which is what they are left with now. They dont get updated information. We have time for one more question. I havent read your book but now im going to read it. Far ass happened as buildings are concerned . New construction . Has there been any reconsideration from this tragedy . There was an excellent study done in the first months afterward by the City Building department. They have enacted some of their recommendations. They have resisted others. They are trying to work out some compromises on those issues. Some of the most important reforms are still in a stalemate. The Buildings Department has said they will wait or the National Institute of standards and technology, which is doing a federally funded, largescale study of integrity of the building. The Buildings Departments position is they want to see the outcome of that study before they make their final recommendations. You so much for being with us today. [applause] we will invite you to come out and answer some other questions. Thank you all. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] history bookshelf features the bestknown American History writers of the past decade talking about their books. You can watch our weekly series every saturday here on American History tv on cspan3. American history tv on cspan3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story, every weekend. Tonight, a look at world war i and the environment with the coeditor of environmental histories of world war i. The diverseuss ecological impacts the First World War had across the globe. Shifts in Agricultural Production and the displacement of wildlife and humans. Sunday, hear about gayles first female students after the university opened its stored its doors to women. With the author of yale needs women. Completede newly eisenhower memorial located in the u. S. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan3. Congressional Research Service is policy Analyst Daniel discussesthe science and war craft. The kluge center at the library of congress hosted this event and provided the video. Entitled the origins of the militaryindustrial complex ,nd features dr. Daniel ellis which