9/11 report cites rescue communication flaws

Rescuers at New York’s World Trade Centre on September 11 were forced to make rapid-fire, life-and-death, decisions based on incomplete communications, according to a new report.

Two days of hearings by the federal commission investigating the terrorist attacks began today with a stark warning from the commission’s staff: “The details we will be presenting may be painful for you to see and hear.”

In a vivid departure from previous commission hearings, the panel will revisit the jarring sights and sounds of the attack and its aftermath. Videotapes to be aired at the hearings show the confusing, rushed recovery efforts, and the recollections of those who survived.

One critical issue – early public address announcements in Tower Two telling workers to remain at their offices – is recounted verbatim by a survivor.

A 26-page staff report reconstructing events through first-person survivor accounts found:

:: A fire chief failed to notice a critical second button on a device that carried radio signals up the buildings, leaving the chief to wrongly believe the equipment wasn’t working. It was, and was later used by other fire personnel in Tower Two, the south tower.

:: Other communications gaps that day included a lack of co-ordination between the police and fire departments, a crush of radio traffic that sometimes blotted out information, and an inability to share information effectively between on-scene officials and 911 (999) phone operators.

:: A helicopter rescue of trapped workers on the upper floors was not a practical option, due to various equipment attached to the roof, and the heat and smoke of the fire below.

:: While many of the safety procedures put in place after the 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre helped employees escape, others proved ineffective or possibly even dangerous in response to a very different type of attack eight years later.

:: One survivor, Brian Clark, president of Euro Brokers Relief Fund, said the PA system advised: “Your attention please, ladies and gentlemen, Building Two is secure. There is no need to evacuate Building Two. If you are in the midst of evacuation, you may use the re-entry doors and the elevators to return to your office. Repeat, Building Two is secure.”

The report offers no concrete explanation for that direction. But it does suggest two possible reasons: a concern for workers being injured by falling debris from the other tower, and the knowledge that in the 1993 bombing, many of the injuries were sustained in the crowded evacuation of the building.