NY
Times August 29, 2003
By
JIM DWYER
Until
yesterday, when the Port Authority released its raw historical records from
Sept. 11, the two men were remembered from glimpses as the north tower of the
World Trade Center was heaving toward collapse. One was short, the other tall.
They carried a crowbar, a flashlight and walkie talkies. Beyond that, say some
who survived that day, the smoke had blurred their faces and hair and clothes
into gray.
With
their tools, the two men - Frank De Martini, an architect, and Pablo Ortiz, a
construction inspector - attacked the lethal web of obstacles that trapped
people who had survived the impact of the plane but could not get to an exit.
At
least 50 people stuck on the 88th and 89th floors of the north tower were able
to walk out of the building because Mr. De Martini, Mr. Ortiz and others tore
away rubble, broke down doors and answered calls for help. Everyone above the
91st floor died.
In
the most essential ways, these men, employees of the Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey, pushed back the boundary line between life and death in favor
of the living. Both Mr. De Martini and Mr. Ortiz, who continued to help other
trapped people, died in the building.
Nothing
will alter the basic fabric of Sept. 11, when nearly 3,000 people were killed
in Lower Manhattan, but yesterday afternoon, rich, bittersweet and harrowing
new details surfaced. The Port Authority released about 2,000 pages of
documents, most of them transcribed radio transmissions, from dozens of people
in and around the trade center, including several short ones from Mr. De
Martini. The New York Times formally requested copies of the records on March
29, 2002, one year and five months ago today, and eventually sued the Port
Authority for their release.
"I
think it's time for them to be released," said Nicole De Martini, the
widow of Mr. De Martini.
Emerging
now, as the second anniversary of the attacks in New York, Washington and
Pennsylvania approaches, the transcripts cover 260 hours. They begin a moment
before the first plane struck at 8:46 a.m., and continue for nearly two hours
after the final collapse at 10:28 a.m. While some limited transmissions of the
city's Fire and Police Departments were made public last year, these are the
first from the Port Authority, which built and owned the trade center. They
include calls from Port Authority police officers and conversations on two-way
radios among civilian employees who worked in building trades in the complex.
The
audio of the transmissions, which were recorded in Port Authority facilities at
the trade center and in New Jersey, was not made public. The printed
transcripts indicate that many parts of the tapes were inaudible, and many
others were fragmentary.
The
transmissions arose from people in a vertical village - spread across two
110-story buildings, each floor with an acre of space - from the cavernous
subbasement of the trade center to nearly the very tops of the towers. Fewer
than half of the people speaking are identified.
At
their most wrenching, the transmissions reflect the critical difficulties faced
by those who survived the plane crashes - at least 1,100 people, an
investigation by The Times found last year - yet were unable to escape the buildings.
Sometimes fire blocked their paths. Often staircases at the core of the
building protected only by sheetrock had become impassable. And at times, they
were given mistaken advice to stay in their offices.
Few,
if any, of those speaking over the radio appear to realize that the buildings
are moments from total collapse. The messages include some desperate calls for
help, but many of the transcripts deal strictly with the logistics of
evacuations - of saving people in the building, and of survival.
While
they echo the most somber and stirring notes of the day, the transmissions also
provide fresh views into little-known aspects of the human struggle against a
catastrophe that fell beyond the imagination. Among these were the plain words
and remarkable deeds of Mr. De Martini, Mr. Ortiz and several of their
colleagues. Another set of transmissions are from George Tabeek, a Port
Authority official who ran up 22 flights of stairs with firefighters to free a
group of authority security workers locked in a secret command bunker.
'Don't
Let No People Up Here'
Still
other messages come from a man identified only as Rocko, who was on the 105th
floor of one tower and reported that he was in great distress. When a radio
dispatcher replied that someone would be found to help him, the transcript
shows that his response was a warning: "Don't let no people up here. . . .
Big smoke!" While it is difficult to say with certainty who Rocko was,
among the people known to have been on the 105th floor of the south tower with a
walkie talkie was Roko Camaj, a window washer who had achieved modest fame as
the subject of a children's book about his work.
Among
the other conversations on the transcripts:
A
group of about a dozen Port Authority employees on the 64th floor of the north
tower were told early on that they should not leave the building. That
instruction was not changed until minutes before the tower fell, and they all
died.
At
Newark International Airport, dispatchers struggled to learn whether one of the
planes that crashed into the towers had taken off from Newark. (It had not, but
United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark crashed that morning in Pennsylvania.)
They also discussed the possibility that four other flights might have been
hijacked.
Below
the trade center, PATH train operators and dispatchers in the PATH station
urgently discussed turning around and returning to New Jersey with the same
passengers they had just carried in. They fretted over one stubborn man who
would not get on board.
As
for Mr. De Martini and Mr. Ortiz, the transmissions disclose only fragments of
their efforts, but taken with the accounts of the people they saved, add to a
powerful narrative of heroism and loss. Drawing on the transcripts, interviews
with 14 of the rescued people and affidavits compiled by Roberta Gordon, a
lawyer with Bryan Cave who represents Mr. De Martini's widow, it is now
possible to explain how the two men managed to save the lives of others. The
transcript hints at reasons why they were unable to save their own, but does
not provide clear evidence.
That
morning, Mr. Ortiz, 49, arrived at work well before 7. His wife, Edna Ortiz,
recalls that he kissed her goodbye before 5 a.m., when he caught a bus from
their home in Tottenville to the Staten Island Ferry to Lower Manhattan.
Mr.
De Martini, also 49, and his wife traveled together, having dropped their son
and daughter off at a new school that morning, Ms. De Martini recalled. She
worked in 2 World Trade Center, the south tower, as a structural inspector for
an engineering firm. He worked on the 88th floor of 1 World Trade Center as
construction manager for the Port Authority. That morning, he persuaded his
wife to join him for a cup of coffee and a visit with his colleagues.
At
8:46, when the first plane struck the north tower between the 94th and 99th
floors, few on the 88th or 89th floor realized what had happened, but the
building swayed so far that they knew something serious had taken place. Anita
Serpe, a principal administrator who worked for Mr. De Martini, said she ran
back to her office and changed into socks and sneakers. Smoke and fire broke
out at one end of the floor. A woman who worked on the floor was badly burned
near the elevator bank. Gerry Gaeta, a member of Mr. De Martini's staff, said,
"To say the least, it was chaos."
'Frank
Had a Calming Effect'
Mr.
De Martini began assembling people in a large office at the southwest corner of
the building, the farthest from where the plane had hit. He began to give
instructions, recalled Joanne Ciccolello, a negotiator in the real estate
department.
"Frank
had a calming effect," she said. "He organized his staff, to find a
way out, to get flashlights."
Those
who survive recall that 25 to 40 people were on the 88th floor when the plane
hit. While there was some debate in those early minutes about waiting for help,
circumstances quickly made that unrealistic. The ceiling had collapsed in the
main public corridor, recalls Mak Hanna, a resident engineer who worked on the
floor. There was fire in the northeast corridor. The walls around the elevators
had vanished. The men's bathroom had disappeared. Around that time, the first
radio transmission from the floor was sent out from an unidentified man.
"We're
on the 88th floor," he said. "We're kind of trapped up here and the
smoke is, uh, is - " The rest of the message was cut off, but a moment or
two later came another.
"We
also have a person that needs medical attention immediately."
"What's
the location?" the dispatcher responded.
"88th
floor, badly burned."
Mr.
Hanna, Mr. Gaeta, Mr. Ortiz and Mr. De Martini hunted for a way out.
"After
about 15 minutes, Frank returned to the corner office," Ms. Serpe said in
a statement she provided to the De Martini family. "He was covered with
gray soot - even his hair looked gray with smoke - and his eyes were completely
red. Frank then told us he found a clear stairwell, but we would have to climb
over to it."
Mr.
Ortiz and Mr. Hanna were dispatched to move some of the debris. Mr. Gaeta and
Doreen Smith accompanied the burned woman, Elaine Duch.
Among
those leaving was Ms. De Martini. She said she urged her husband to come along,
and he assured her he would be coming down behind her. "How could he come
down the stairs and step over his secretary - or anyone?" she asked.
"He wouldn't have done that. He did what he had to do."
The
floor was all but clear. At the end of the line of people were Mr. De Martini,
Mr. Ortiz and Mr. Hanna. "Somewhere, out in the stairwell, we heard
banging from upstairs," Mr. Hanna recalled.
On
the 89th floor, the biggest tenant was MetLife, which occupied most of the
eastern side of the building. Thirteen people were at work when the plane hit.
"The building bent so far, I thought we were going into the ocean,"
said Rob Sibarium, now a managing director for the company.
With
fires breaking out, the people from MetLife moved from their office to a law
firm down the hall, Drinker Biddle & Reath. The receptionist, Dianne
DeFontes, said she was knocked out of her seat when the plane hit.
"I
don't know why, but it seemed like everybody on the floor came into my
office," she said. A friend, Tirsa Moya, who worked for an insurance
brokerage, Cosmos Services America, came in with an older man, Raffaele Cava,
who was working by himself in a shipping company.
The
public corridor was filling with smoke and flames. "The floor was actually
melting," Mr. Sibarium said.
Stairway
Door Jammed Shut
Walter
Pilipiak, the president of Cosmos, looked for an exit, but any stairway door he
could safely reach was jammed shut. "And bone can't break steel on
steel," he said. He retreated into his office.
Others
tried to fight with meager weapons. Rick Bryan, a lawyer who works at MetLife,
actually found an extinguisher and tried to douse a fire in the elevator shaft,
then realized the futility. "We were doomed," he said. "We had
only minutes."
Nathan
Goldwasser, a MetLife employee, recalled the frustration, and then a moment of
deliverance.
"We
were pounding on those doors," Mr. Goldwasser said, "and almost like
a miracle, we heard a voice on the other side yelling, `Get away from the
door!' The next thing, there's a crowbar coming through the wall."
Mr.
Goldwasser felt sure that it was Mr. De Martini who broke through the wall. Mr.
Hanna, who was in the stairway, said it was actually Mr. Ortiz who did it, as
he and Mr. De Martini looked on. Mr. De Martini held the door open, and the
MetLife employees poured into the stairwell from the law office.
Then
Mr. Ortiz noticed a door on the other side of the hall. It was the Cosmos
office, where Mr. Pilipiak and his staff were trying to figure out their next
move.
"This
distinguished-looking man with an earring sticks his head in," Mr.
Pilipiak said. "It was Pablo. He said, `Come on, let's go.' "
The
23 people on the 89th floor were launched into the stairways, and toward life.
The people on the 88th floor - whether 25 or 40 - were already making their way
down.
Mr.
Pilipiak says he believes that Mr. Ortiz headed up the stairs, toward the 90th
floor. None of the transcripts released yesterday show any messages from Mr.
Ortiz, but they are clearly incomplete.
Mr.
De Martini was next heard from about a half-hour after the plane hit, perhaps
10 minutes after the people on the 89th floor were freed. He does not identify
himself by name, but by his job title, construction manager.
"Construction
manager to base, be advised that the express elevators are in danger of
collapse. Do you read?"
Only
his end of the conversation is recorded. A few minutes later, he returns with
another message: "Relay, that, Chris, to the firemen that the elevators -
"
There
is an interruption in the transmission.
"Express
elevators are going to collapse."
He
did not give his location, but Gerry Drohan, a colleague who was outside the
building, said he also had a radio conversation with Mr. De Martini about the
conditions on the 78th floor. Mr. De Martini wanted structural engineers
brought up to the floor to look at steel, Mr. Drohan said, but police officers
would not let them back into the building.
Mr.
Drohan said that Mr. De Martini had asked him to pass his two-way radio to a
police official in an attempt to persuade him, but that he was unsuccessful.
None
of these conversations appear on the transcripts.
Another
reason Mr. De Martini might have gone to the 78th floor was to help free
Anthony Savas, who worked with him and was stuck in an elevator. He had sent
out repeated radio requests for help. Alan Reiss, the former director of the
World Trade Department for the Port Authority, who worked with both men, said
Mr. Savas apparently did get out of the elevator, because his body was found in
the remnants of a stairwell.
Not
everyone who left the 88th floor got out alive. Two other Port Authority
employees, Carlos Da Costa and Peter Negron, are heard on the radio, talking
about a stuck elevator on the 87th floor.
Edna
Ortiz remembers her husband as a very human man. "I'm very proud of what
he did." she says. "But I wish he had come home." His children
from his first marriage plan a memorial service for him on Sept. 11 in upstate
New York, and Tirsa Moya and others Cosmos employees who were saved plan to be
there.
She
Knew He Had Died
Ms.
De Martini said that from the moment she saw the building collapse, she knew
her husband had died, and knew it was his character - the one she had embraced
and loved - that had kept him in the building. Yet she could feel the ache of
loss for herself, and especially for their two children.
She
would not use the word "pride" to describe her feelings about what
her husband had done, she said, but "true." And after she read the
transcripts last week, she realized that also went for many of the people who
died alongside him.
"I
knew a lot of the people on those transcripts," Ms. De Martini said.
"A lot of them did not get out. They all did their share of trying to get
to people. They didn't run away. There was a lot of heroism. They had an
immense pride in their work. They did everything they could to be helpful, to
do whatever could be done to save the people."
VOICES
NY
Times August 29, 2003
By
KEVIN FLYNN
The
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey yesterday released transcripts of
radio transmissions and phone conversations that it recorded in the moments
immediately after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11,
2001.
The
transcripts, together with written accounts by Port Authority employees,
numbered about 2,000 pages and covered over three hours of recorded
conversation, most of it between agency employees, rescue workers and people
trapped inside the towers.
They
were made public in response to an order by a New Jersey Superior Court judge,
who last week ruled that the authority must abide by an agreement it signed in
July to settle a lawsuit filed by The New York Times.
The
Times argued in court that the records were public and could provide important
insight into the day's events, including the way emergency operations had been
handled. The authority initially agreed to turn over the records, but it later
balked, citing privacy concerns and its sensitivity to the victims' families.
The
Port Authority lost 84 employees in the attack, including 37 police officers.
An
authority spokesman said that by early yesterday evening, 49 news organizations
had requested copies. The Times originally asked for the records 17 months ago
through a Freedom of Information request. It filed suit in June.
The
families of victims were split on the release. Some characterized it as a
painful and unwarranted intrusion into the privacy of those who had died and
their survivors. Others said they welcomed the opportunity to learn more about
what had happened to family members. Authority officials gave the families an
opportunity to view the transcripts before their release, although several
declined the invitation.
While
some people in the transcripts are identifiable by context or job title or
because they identify themselves, many are simply listed as a male or female
voice.
The
transcribed conversations included phone calls that were made to police desks
by people within the towers and radio transmissions between agency personnel,
including those who worked at Newark International Airport, at agency offices
in Jersey City and at various stations on the PATH train lines.
"In
general, they show people performing their duties very heroically and very
professionally on a day of horror," the authority's statement said.
On
the 64th Floor
Advice
to Stay Put May Have Sealed Fates
They
had gathered at a natural spot for anyone desperate for information: a Port
Authority office on the 64th floor of the north tower that was equipped with
video monitors displaying live scenes from the city's tunnels, airports and
bridges.
Patrick
Hoey, 53, a civil engineer and the manager of the Port Authority's bridges and
tunnels, was there, as were a dozen or so other engineers from his office,
unsure what had caused the terrible explosion 30 floors above them, unsure what
they should do.
"What
do you suggest?" Mr. Hoey asked a sergeant at the Port Authority's central
police dispatch desk in Jersey City, whom he reached by telephone about 25
minutes after the first plane hit, and shortly after the second plane hit the
south tower.
"Stand
tight," came the reply from the sergeant. "Stay near the stairwells
and wait for the police to come up."
It
was a piece of advice that may have cost Mr. Hoey and the other Port Authority
engineers their lives.
Thousands
of office workers who were below the plane impact floors in the north and south
towers survived on Sept. 11.
The
mystery for two years now has been why certain pockets of office workers, like
those Port Authority engineers on the 64th floor, died, while hundreds who were
on higher floors got out alive.
"They
will come up, huh?" Mr. Hoey asked the sergeant again, after being told to
hang tough and stay put. "They will check each floor? If you would, just
report we're up here."
"I
got you," the sergeant replied.
The
group did as the sergeant suggested. Finally, nearly an hour and a half after
the north tower had been hit, Mr. Hoey called in again. "The smoke is
getting kind of bad," he told the police desk. "We are contemplating
going down the stairwell. Does that make sense?"
This
time, the reply was different.
"Yes.
Try to get out," the police desk officer said.
"All
right. Bye," came Mr. Hoey's response.
ERIC
LIPTON
On
the Phones
Many
Questions, but Few Answers
Each
time the phone rang, another fearful, confused, urgent or sometimes oblivious
voice asked for information that the Port Authority police officers at their
various command desks mostly did not have.
But
whether it was a worried spouse, an NBC News reporter or someone who believed
missiles had been fired from the Woolworth Building at the trade center, the
callers found officers who, by and large, kept their composure under tremendous
duress and passed along the scraps of knowledge they had been able to glean
within the constrained universe of their desks.
"Yeah,
we heard from him," said a Sergeant Holland, answering a call at the PATH
train station in Jersey City from the distressed wife of another Port Authority
police officer. "None of our guys are hurt and injured right now,"
Sergeant Holland said.
"Are
you sure?" she asked. "Because he was going up the stairs, he told
me."
"I
understand," Sergeant Holland said. "I . . . I understand, it's got
to be awful, you know."
Sometimes,
the sense of helplessness must have been overwhelming. "People stuck in
the stairway," said a distressed man on the 103rd floor of the north
tower, a place where no one would ultimately survive, in a radio call to the
police desk at the trade center itself. "Open up the goddamn doors,"
the trapped employee pleaded.
Requests
for interviews began coming over the phone lines from news organizations within
fifteen minutes after the first plane hit the north tower.
"You
know what? I can't right now," Sergeant Wozack said to a caller from NBC
News. But when the network phoned again, the sergeant apologized for having no
insights to share: "I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut short."
When
he learned that the south tower had fallen, taking many of his colleagues'
lives, Sergeant Wozack struggled for anything but the most elemental response.
"Oh, my God," he said to a Captain Devlin, who was on the line with
him.
"All
right," Captain Devlin said, "say a prayer,
brother."
JAMES
GLANZ
In
Windows on the World
Doing
as She's Told, but It's Not Enough
Christine
Olender, an assistant to the general manager at Windows on the World, had
already done everything she could. The breakfast guests and restaurant employees
had been collected on the 106th floor of the north tower.
The
three emergency stairwells had been checked and found to be filled with smoke.
She called the Port Authority police command post, down more than 100 flights
at the base of the tower.
"We
are getting no direction up here," she told the Port Authority police
officer who picked up the line, about 15 minutes after the north tower had been
hit. "We need direction as to where we need to direct our guests and our
employees as soon as possible."
The
police officer did not have the most encouraging response. "We're doing
our best. We've got the Fire Department, everybody, we're trying to get up to
you dear," the police officer told Ms. Olender.
In
the more than 1,000 pages of transcripts of Port Authority radio and telephone
calls on Sept. 11, 2001, the communications with Ms. Olender, 39, a native of
Chicago who lived on the Upper West Side, stand out because of the repeated
calls and extended conversations she had as she futilely tried to save herself
and the others trapped at Windows on the World. She got through to the police
four times, obeying each of their requests, calling back precisely as
instructed.
"Hi,
this is Christine, up at Windows," she said, telling the police officer
this time that she was with about 100 others on the 106th floor. (In fact,
about 170 guests and staff members were trapped there.) "We need to find a
safe haven on 106, where the smoke condition isn't bad. Can you direct us to a
certain quadrant?"
Again,
there was only the reassurance that the rescue squads were on the way.
"What's
your ETA?" Ms. Olender asked.
"As
soon as possible, as soon as it's humanly possible," the police officer
said.
The
final recorded call from Ms. Olender came only about 20 minutes after the attack.
Smoke had quickly accumulated near the top of the tower, as it rose through the
building as if it were a chimney. "The fresh air is going down fast! I'm
not exaggerating," she said.
"Ma'am,
I know you're not exaggerating," the officer said. He added, "I have
you, Christine, four calls, 75 to 100 people, Windows on the World, 106th
floor."
This
was hardly a sufficient answer, at this point.
"Can
we break a window?" Ms. Olender continued.
"You
can do whatever you have to to get to, uh, the air," the officer told her.
"All
right." ERIC LIPTON
In
the PATH System
Calmly
Taking Riders Out of Harm's Way
Just
minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center, the full sense of
chaos and panic had yet to overwhelm the PATH station below the twin towers.
But the dispatcher on site knew something was seriously wrong as he directed
the arrival of thousands of commuters during the morning rush.
"Rich,"
the dispatcher asked Richie Moran, the system's train master over the radio,
according to a transcript of the conversation. "What are you going to do
with us? I just unloaded."
Mr.
Moran was supervising train traffic on the PATH system from his office in
Journal Square in Jersey City.
"We
want people out of the station, not in," Mr. Moran told the dispatcher.
Load the train up again, he said, and get it out of there.
Over
the next 20 minutes, PATH supervisors rerouted several trains that were already
en route to the buildings. They directed one train that had already arrived to
keep its passengers on board and head back out. Another was told to simply loop
through the station and return to New Jersey. The efficiency of their
decision-making, which Port Authority officials credit with saving hundreds of
lives, was captured in the transcripts released yesterday.
"Take
those passengers with you," Mr. Moran told a conductor whose train from
Hoboken was approaching the trade center with an estimated 1,000 people.
"I
will not open my doors," the conductor responded. "I'm taking them
with me."
Passengers
who had already gotten off trains were evacuated by the police, and the station
emptied quickly. But a final train, with just a conductor and an engineer
aboard, was dispatched from Jersey City to pick up a dozen or so PATH workers
still there.
"We
are going to use you as an evacuation train," Mr. Moran told the
conductor. The rescue train ran into a problem, however. A man who had been
sleeping on the platform refused to leave.
"You'll
have to get the passenger on board. If he doesn't want to get on board, you
have to leave him," Mr. Moran told the crew.
The
crew asked whether a police officer could be dispatched. Mr. Moran then told
them what had already become obvious above ground. "We have an extreme
situation at the World Trade Center," he said.
The
last train left at 9:11 a.m., 48 minutes before the south tower collapsed. No
passengers were stranded in the tunnel by the collapse. The sleeping man was
among those evacuated.
KEVIN
FLYNN
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