FDNY releases 9/11 oral histories, transmissions

A firefighter looks out over the destruction of what is left of the World Trade Center as he coordinates the rescue efforts of personnel below. The World Trade Center fell after two commercial airliners crashed into it in an act of terrorism on Sept. 11, 2001. (AFP / Getty Images Photo / September 13, 2001)

Fire Lt. Brian Becker had just arrived at the north tower with his unit on Sept. 11, 2001, when a chief grabbed him by the shoulders.

"'Team up with Engine 4 and start your way up,'" Becker recalled. "And I remember specifically asking him, 'How are we going up?' and he said, 'You're walking.'"

Becker's hike toward the burning floors of the Twin Towers was one of more than 500 accounts that emerged in interviews with fire personnel, logs of 911 calls and emergency dispatch tapes released Friday by the city under court order.

While some of the material has been reported independently in the past three years, the records contain a wealth of new details about the experiences of hundreds of rank-and-file firefighters and their immediate field commanders as they waded into the burning towers.

The often-graphic accounts, including raw dispatches in the terrifying moments immediately after the first plane hit, indicate that the response was plagued with radio problems, and that the rank and file had limited information about the situation above and the orders they received as they went into the worst high-rise fire in history.

Lt. Warren Smith, of Ladder Co. 9 in lower Manhattan, for example, recalled his orders when he arrived in the north tower lobby. "We got an order to go up the stairway," Smith said. "No specific orders or anything like that, just go up, see what you can do, basically.

"I think everybody was pretty much overwhelmed at that point because just shortly before that the other plane had hit, so you could see the confusion."

Smith said civilians on their way down slowed their progress, and the radios were "difficult to use." Still, Smith heard the order to pull out and passed on the message to others who did not get the message on their radios.

"If you weren't near a chief, from guys I talked to, you didn't get that order, at least not as quickly. I think it came over later," Smith said.

Another lieutenant, Howard Hahn, then of Battalion 50 in Jamaica, noted, "I was able to get through but transmissions were very hard. You're doing basically your own show."

"I didn't have any information," said Lt. Thomas Piambino, then of Engine 65, who also would up at the north tower. "The handie-talkie information was pretty sketchy at best."

After the south tower fell, Piambino said he opted initially not to evacuate. "We continued to go up," he said.

But then, he changed his mind. "I don't know what it was," he said. "It was just the culmination of intuition or what. I just decided it was time to go, I received no Handi Talkie communications to get out."

Firefighter Michael Beehler, of Ladder 110 in downtown Brooklyn, says he did hear an evacuation order from the 21st floor of the North Tower. "I heard on the radio, Chief come over the radio," he said. "I don't know his name. He said this is Chief so and so. I personally am ordering you out of the north tower now."

There are also striking details in the records. At 9:59:13, for example, within seconds of the collapse of the south tower, a caller already had phoned EMS to raise health concerns about the "white particles falling" through the air. In the ensuing months, federal and city officials would seek to deflect health concerns, sparking a battle that rages on today in the thousands of lawsuits.

Inside the towers
A firefighter, Timothy Brown, of the Office of Emergency Management describes the awful scene inside an elevator that had plummeted to the ground floor with eight people inside. "The elevator pit was on fire with the jet fuel," he said. "People were screaming in the elevator. They were getting smoked and cooked."

Firefighter first grade Maureen McArdle-Schulman, who is assigned to Engine 35 in Manhattan, recounted watching the jumpers fall. "I was getting sick," she said. "I felt like I was intruding on a sacrament. They were choosing to die, and I was watching them and shouldn't have been. So me and another guy turned away and looked at the wall and we could still hear them hit."

And there are bits of that gallows humor familiar to any cop on a crime scene. Chief of Operations Salvatore Cassano spotted the Rev. Mychal Judge, who later died on the scene. "I walked up to him, gave him a smile," he said. "I told him, 'Father Judge, we are going to need a lot of help here. You better get some more chaplains.'"

The dispatch tapes, meanwhile, are filled with voices walking the ragged edge of the crisis: trapped people calling for help, a report of a bomb in the battery tunnel, a man hanging from a window on the 110th floor, 50 people with the fire burning below them, the dust cloud.

"George," a voice in a deadly serious tone tells the dispatcher, "Have them mobilize the Army. We need the Army in Manhattan."

"We have total blackness," a firefighter transmits at the collapse of the North Tower. "We have no way out of here ... Charlie to Central: Mayday."

One call is from a firefighter who, incredibly, made it to the 70th floor of one tower by 9:49 a.m. "We got injured people up here," he says. "See if they can somehow get elevators past the 40th floor."

Fire units around the city call in. "Put me on the World Trade Center job, put me on the World Trade Center job," one caller begs. They begin to use the phrase "MCI" for "mass casualty incident." And in the midst of it all, a call for help with a man stuck in a revolving door at the Chrysler Building.

The release of the records -- about 12,000 pages of oral histories and 900 minutes of transmissions to units responding to the scene -- came after the city lost a three-year struggle in March first to block, then limit their disclosure, citing privacy concerns and federal criminal probes. Eight relatives of people who died in the attack, and a New York Times reporter, filed suit, claiming the public's right to know outweighed the privacy issue.

Lawyers for the city claimed no fewer than six exemptions under the state Freedom of Information Law during the litigation and argued that the firefighters had been assured of confidentiality. That claim was later withdrawn and acknowledged to be "in error," court records show.

In March, following dramatic oral arguments in Albany, the state's highest court ruled for the plaintiffs. In the decision, the court ordered the full release of the oral histories, except portions shown to "cause serious pain or embarrassment." The court also affirmed the lower court decision to black out identities of civilians in EMS call-logs. The actual tapes of the 911 calls were not released yesterday.

In a dissenting opinion, Associate Judge Albert Rosenblatt argued the court should have required the unredacted release of the 911 emergency call records. "Americans," he wrote, "deserve to have as full an account of that event as can be responsibly furnished."

After so long, the release of the records was something of a media event at FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn. Black-garbed firefighters stood guard. About 50 reporters showed up, including two in a shiny, black chauffeured car. But it remained unclear what impact the disclosures will have.

"I lost some guys, others survived. This isn't going to bring them back," said Battalion Chief Eugene Kelty, formerly the commander of an engine company located across the street from the trade center. "There would be value to come out of it if changes could be made in building codes... "

Norman Siegel, a lawyer for the families, hailed the release. "It is an accomplishment and a relief to finally receive it so we can continue trying to understand and learn from the events of 9/11," Siegel said. "The fire department should have released these documents years ago."

For some, the complex issue of the radios was paramount. Jerry Riley, a retired fire lieutenant, said his son now wishes to become a firefighter. "If he becomes a firefighter, I think he should have the best equipment available," Riley said.

On his radio show Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg seemed to downplay any significance to the release of the documents.

Bloomberg noted the release was made because of the New York Times lawsuit. "The city did not think that we should release them. There's all sorts of privacy issues," he said.

"People say things when they call 911, or the police officers and the firefighters talking to each other, that probably would be best for everybody that it just was not released."

He did not elaborate on why.

Fire officials yet again sought to portray its duty as protecting the emotions of relatives. "It is the department's hope that the release of the records will not cause our members and their families any additional pain or anguish," a prepared statement read.

Robert Freeman, director of the state Commission on Open Government, said despite the long, expensive legal battle, the disclosure of the records shows that the Freedom of Information Law "works reasonably well."

"Four years is too long in my opinion to gain access to records," Freeman said. "However in terms of history, and the value of records, it is akin to the wink of an eye. After all, what could have been more difficult or wrenching?" Freeman said he did not think the case set precedent, except in that it was a rare chance for the court to consider the effect information about the deceased would have on their surviving relatives.

-Staff writer William Murphy oversaw the selection of oral histories included in this special section.
-Staff writers Robert Polner and Katie Thomas selected the excerpts of taped transmissions.
-Tape transmissions and oral histories -- on which several stories also were based -- were compiled by staff writers Bill Bleyer, Pete Bowles, Samuel Bruchey, Katie Chaffer, Celeste Hadrick, Pradnya Joshi, Robert Kahn, Chau Lam, Joseph Mallia, Jonathan Mummolo, William Murphy, Christian Murray, Collin Nash, Tania Padgett, Liam Pleven, Robert Polner, Rolando F. Pujol, Graham Rayman, Hilary Russ, Katie Thomas, John Valenti, Mary Voboril and Ellen Yan.
-Section Editor: Rosemary McManus
-Assistant Section Editor: Benjamin Weller
-Photo Editor: Jane Hwang
-Designer: Joanne Utley