“**_It must be around the 65th floor, give or take, an announcement comes on. It’s a woman who sounds a little nervous. ‘If you want to leave, you can. If you want to stay, you can return to your office.’ She really left it to whatever anyone wanted to do… At least a third of the people, maybe half of the people \[already in the stairwells\] say, ‘fine, I’m going back to my office’… And my colleague says to me, ‘I think we should keep going. It may not have been an accident.’_**”
Conventional Wisdom Became Fatal Guidance
Even though the lone “A” stairwell in the south tower survived the attacks, it didn’t guarantee that the hundreds of trapped occupants would know to use it. Instead, many individuals heeded the instructions given by 9-1-1 telephone operators and earlier building-wide announcements to stay put, in what’s known as a “defend-in-place” strategy. Under virtually every other conceivable high-rise fire scenario, this is a solid protocol that has saved many lives; keeping people out of stairwells and inside compartmented areas on their floors is usually much safer than descending down a staircase that can become a smoke-filled chimney. However, 9/11 was a very unique situation where people should have been told to leave.
As a result of a court-ordered release of the 9-1-1 operator tape recordings (through a lawsuit initiated by The New York Times and supported by several 9/11 family members), we know that there were large groups of victims calling 9-1-1 for help on their cell phones. They were told to stay in place, of which the overwhelming majority complied.
The fact that the “A” stairwell was passable and very few individuals used it emphasizes the importance of getting such critical life-saving information to those in immediate danger. About 15 survivors actually descended from above the point of impact in the south tower; had they been questioned about their egress path when they emerged from the stairway at ground level, their escape information could have been relayed back through 911 operators to those still trapped. By calling them on their cell phones, perhaps hundreds more could have made it out alive.
Hindsight, of course, is always 20/20. But as in any disaster, it is critical to analyze what actually happened and learn from it.
“_**When we got into the stairwell is when we encountered a lot of white smoke… and we had to hold hands… It was really, really dark... Somebody said they wanted to light a match. Something in me said: Do not light a match.** —Florence Jones, then-employee of Baseline, who with her colleagues surmised that what they thought was water on the stairs was likely jet fuel._
**_I don't even know what happened. I was walking down the stairs and the next thing, everybody is knocked to the ground and there's this ringing sound in my ears. The entire stairwell was rocking, swinging like as if you're on a ferris wheel... I'm afraid the stairs are going to fall out beneath me._** —Henry D’Atri, on what it was like in the south tower's stairwell as Flight 175 crashed into the building.”
Conditions Got Hairy
For those who found themselves below the points of impact in each tower, their escape was still a harrowing experience. They had to contend with a variety of conditions: collapsed ceilings, destroyed partitions and the like. In some locations, water from broken water pipes rained down. On the floors immediately below the impact floors, they also encountered fire and smoke, likely from some of the jet fuel that poured down from the decimated floors above.
Once these escapees made it into the stairwells, they found a variety of other issues. In some cases, the stairwells were intact and well lit. In other cases, they were dark and slippery from water and jet fuel. On the lower floors, evacuees had to contend with shoes discarded in the stairwell by individuals seeking to move more quickly.