Fire dept 9/11 transcripts reveal horror and confusion

Transcripts documenting the horror and confusion among hundreds of firefighters and paramedics on September 11 were released today by the New York Fire Department.

Some 12,000 pages of accounts given in the voices of those who struggled against the chaos on the front line were made public for the first time, offering a dramatic new picture of the fight to save lives.

Emergency phone call logs, many from those trapped in the wreckage, and more than 15 hours of radio transmissions were amid the vast mine of documents made available.

On frantic radio messages, bursts of activity can be heard followed by periods of silence.

Against the wail of sirens, dispatchers desperately called for assistance. “A plane’s crashed into the World Trade Centre,” one yelled.

“The World Trade Centre is on fire, the whole of the outside of the building is on fire, can we have every available ambulance.”

In one interview transcript, firefighter Kirk Long described rushing up a stairway of the World Trade Centre’s north tower as evacuees were coming down.

“I was watching every person coming down, looked at their face, just to make them happy that they were getting out and we were going in, and everything was OK,” he said.

Long heard the tower shake and thought something in the basement had exploded.

“At that time I never knew that the south tower had gone down,” he said.

Another firefighter, Patrick Martin, said that after the south tower collapsed and before the north tower came down, he was told to go on a boat that was taking people to hospitals across the Hudson River.

“I told him I wasn’t leaving,” he said. “We were still missing one guy.”

One emergency worker said the black cloud had come down faster than the building.

The records cover the time frame from around 8.35am until 1pm on September 11, 2001, when 343 firefighters lost their lives. The accounts were collected in the days after the collapse of the towers but have never been used.

The New York Times sought the documents in 2002 and eventually sued under the Freedom of Information Act.

In March, an appeal court ordered that the oral histories and radio transmissions be released but gave the city permission to edit out potentially painful and embarrassing portions.

The Fire Department said it believed the material would serve to confirm the bravery and courage of its members who responded to the attacks.

“It is the Department’s hope that the release of these records will not cause our members and their families any additional pain and anguish,” a spokesman said.

Critics of the city’s response hope the documents will bolster their theory that many deaths could have been avoided.

Some claim radio messages calling for the north tower to be evacuated were ignored rather than unheard.

A congressional inquiry into the attacks has already concluded there was a breakdown in communications between the emergency services.

Independent investigations described major flaws in the city’s response to the attack, how emergency radios did not work properly and how vital messages went unheard.

In accounts previously obtained by the New York Times unofficially, firefighters recalled losing touch with each other and being unable to deliver or hear warnings about the imminent collapse of the towers.