today. so when the police department helicopter surveyed the situation, the fire department didn t get the information. the chiefs in the north tower were forced to make decision based on little or no information. one of the most critical things in a major operation like this is to have information. we didn t receive any reports of what was seen from the helicopters. it was impossible to know how much damage was done on the upper floors, whether the stairwells were intact or not. people watching on tv suddenly had more knowledge of what was happening 100 floors above us than we did in the lobby. [ sirens ] by now, brian clark and stanley pramnath made it to the ground floor of tower two. the only people we saw were the firefighters and the cops and the ems workers. [ shouting ] the two were told to get away from the building as fast as