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Then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani told ABC News that he received a warning that World Trade Center was "gonna' collapse" a short time before it did. I .. I went down to the scene and we set up a headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna' to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit, got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us.-- ABC News: http://stj911.org/evidence/docs/abc_giuliani.wmvIn an interview published in 2005, EMT Richard Zarillo describes delivering a message from the OEM (Office of Emergency Management) to Fire Marshal Steven Mosiello and Department Chief Peter Ganci: As I was walking towards the Fire command post, I found Steve Mosiello. I said, Steve, where's the boss? I have to give him a message. He said, well, what's the message? I said the buildings are going to collapse; we need to evac everybody out. With a very confused look he said who told you that? I said I was just with John at OEM. OEM says the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get out.
He escorted me over to Chief Ganci. He said, hey, Pete, we got a message that the buildings are going to collapse. His reply was who the f___ told you that? Then Steve brought me in and with Chief Ganci, Commissioner Feehan, Steve, I believe Chief Turi was initially there, I said, listen, I was just at OEM. The message I was given was that the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get our people out. At that moment, this thunderous, rolling roar came down and that's when the building came down, the first tower came down. -- Interview, New York Times: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110161.PDFFire Marshal Steven Mosiello describes receiving the warning from Zarillo: A. At that point I don't know exactly when the Commissioner and Mayor had left. It was pretty soon after they had left that Richie Zarillo, who works with EMS -- I believe he's an OEM liaison -- came running up to me. I was not on the ramp at this time. I was like almost at the sidewalk location.
He said Steve, where's the Chief? I have to tell him, you know -- I said tell him what, Richie? These buildings are in imminent danger of collapse. I said how do you know that, you know? So he ran with me. I ran over and grabbed Chief Ganci and said Chief, these buildings are in imminent danger of collapse. He looked up at me. -- Interview, New York Times: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110141.PDFhttp://www.skyscrapersafety.org/html/article_20040520.htmlIn the epic accounts of Sept. 11 provided over the last two days by former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and his aides, the Police and Fire Departments bravely worked together, and no catastrophic failure to communicate doomed scores of firefighters inside the World Trade Center. Instead, Mr. Giuliani testified, those firefighters heard an evacuation order, but still did not leave the building. They were "standing their ground" to make sure civilians got out, he said.
Mr. Giuliani's vision of the day, offered during his testimony before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, addressed the loss of many firefighters who appeared to have had ample opportunity to escape. Along with his former commissioners of the police, fire and emergency management departments, Mr. Giuliani denied that the city's response suffered from the central problems identified by the panel and by earlier city investigations. The firefighters "were interpreting an evacuation order the way a brave rescue worker would interpret an evacuation order, which is to first get the civilians out and then get yourself out," Mr. Giuliani said.
For all the power of his voice and stature, however, Mr. Giuliani's account must compete with a substantial and diverse body of evidence that flatly contradicts much of what he and his aides say happened that day, particularly on matters that could be seen as reflecting on the performance of his administration. On perhaps the most painful of these, the loss of at least 121 firefighters in the north tower, Mr. Giuliani suggested that they stayed inside the trade center because they were busy rescuing civilians -- never mentioning that they could not hear warnings from police helicopters, that many of them never learned the south tower had collapsed or that they were having serious problems staying in touch with their own commanders.
Witnesses who escaped from the tower tell a vastly different story than Mr. Giuliani. They say that in the north tower's final 15 minutes, only a handful of civilian office workers were still in the bottom 44 floors of the building, perhaps no more than two or three dozen. Many of the firefighters who remained in the towers were between the 19th and 37th floors, having made slow progress up the stairs in their heavy gear. It is clear, witnesses said, that even after the south tower collapsed, many, if not most, of the firefighters had no idea that they were in dire peril, or that it was time for them to leave. In contrast, police officers received strong guidance from their commanders to get out of the building, the commission reported, thanks in large part to the information sent to the ground by police helicopters. |
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