Jolie Rouge
08-28-2003, 07:36 PM
www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/08/28/911.transcripts/index.html
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Transcripts of radio and telephone transmissions and handwritten notes released Thursday chronicle the confusion and desperation of those seeking rescue from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
More than 260 hours of transcripts and notes were released by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
"Something blew up at the Trade Center," a male voice says in an call from one of the towers to a Port Authority police desk. "Either a plane crashed into the Trade Center or a rocket hit ... People are all over the place, dead."
"Really?" a female operator responds.
The male replies: "I'm going to be here ... I just wanted to let you know I'm okay, because you would have saw this on the news, you would have thought, 'Uh-oh.'"
In other calls, people trapped inside 2 World Trade Center, the South Tower, were advised to "stay put."
A male caller on the 92nd floor of Tower 2, asks the Port Authority police desk, "We need to know if we need to get out of here, because we know there's an explosion, I don't know which building ... Should we stay or should we not?"
An officer reponds, "I would wait until further notice."
The tapes were released after Judge Sybil R. Moses ruled last week that the material must be released following an open records lawsuit from The New York Times seeking access to the 2,000 pages of documents.
The Port Authority scrambled Thursday to get copies of transcripts into the hands of family members of its deceased employees to meet a court-mandated deadline to release the documents to the media.
Family members of the 87 Port Authority police officers and employees who died the day the twin towers collapsed in the terrorist attack had opposed the release. About a third of the family members have had a chance to review the documents.
The Port Authority said it was trying to avert the possibility that the rest will be seeing the transcripts at the same time as the public.
"What it shows is people performing their duties very bravely on a day of unimaginable horror," said Greg Trevor, a Port Authority spokesman who has read through the documents.
JoAnn Barbella, whose father, James, worked in the World Trade Center, said she was shocked by the planned release of the transcripts.
"We are not ready to read these, particularly in the newspapers, and now we'll have to rush through them before the public knows what's there," she said.
The Port Authority, which had its headquarters at the World Trade Center, was in charge of security there. Its staff was most familiar with emergency plans and was on location. Thirty-seven of its police officers died September 11, and many of their voices can be heard on tapes organizing the rescue effort.
A good portion of the documents are the handwritten and typed notes of Port Authority police and civilian employees recounting afterward what had happened. The rest are transcriptions of radio and telephone conversations between Port Authority employees attempting rescues inside the World Trade Center complex and the Port Authority command centers at airports and other facilities.
The transcripts also include calls that came into the authority's command center from employees looking for help, workers such as elevator operators who were trying to assist in a crisis situation and tenants who were trapped in the buildings.
"The settlement with The New York Times was that it would be transcripts only," Trevor said. "There will not be audiotapes."
When callers identified themselves, their identities have been recorded in transcripts, but no effort was made to identify unidentified callers because the Port Authority said it feared making a mistake.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Transcripts of radio and telephone transmissions and handwritten notes released Thursday chronicle the confusion and desperation of those seeking rescue from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
More than 260 hours of transcripts and notes were released by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
"Something blew up at the Trade Center," a male voice says in an call from one of the towers to a Port Authority police desk. "Either a plane crashed into the Trade Center or a rocket hit ... People are all over the place, dead."
"Really?" a female operator responds.
The male replies: "I'm going to be here ... I just wanted to let you know I'm okay, because you would have saw this on the news, you would have thought, 'Uh-oh.'"
In other calls, people trapped inside 2 World Trade Center, the South Tower, were advised to "stay put."
A male caller on the 92nd floor of Tower 2, asks the Port Authority police desk, "We need to know if we need to get out of here, because we know there's an explosion, I don't know which building ... Should we stay or should we not?"
An officer reponds, "I would wait until further notice."
The tapes were released after Judge Sybil R. Moses ruled last week that the material must be released following an open records lawsuit from The New York Times seeking access to the 2,000 pages of documents.
The Port Authority scrambled Thursday to get copies of transcripts into the hands of family members of its deceased employees to meet a court-mandated deadline to release the documents to the media.
Family members of the 87 Port Authority police officers and employees who died the day the twin towers collapsed in the terrorist attack had opposed the release. About a third of the family members have had a chance to review the documents.
The Port Authority said it was trying to avert the possibility that the rest will be seeing the transcripts at the same time as the public.
"What it shows is people performing their duties very bravely on a day of unimaginable horror," said Greg Trevor, a Port Authority spokesman who has read through the documents.
JoAnn Barbella, whose father, James, worked in the World Trade Center, said she was shocked by the planned release of the transcripts.
"We are not ready to read these, particularly in the newspapers, and now we'll have to rush through them before the public knows what's there," she said.
The Port Authority, which had its headquarters at the World Trade Center, was in charge of security there. Its staff was most familiar with emergency plans and was on location. Thirty-seven of its police officers died September 11, and many of their voices can be heard on tapes organizing the rescue effort.
A good portion of the documents are the handwritten and typed notes of Port Authority police and civilian employees recounting afterward what had happened. The rest are transcriptions of radio and telephone conversations between Port Authority employees attempting rescues inside the World Trade Center complex and the Port Authority command centers at airports and other facilities.
The transcripts also include calls that came into the authority's command center from employees looking for help, workers such as elevator operators who were trying to assist in a crisis situation and tenants who were trapped in the buildings.
"The settlement with The New York Times was that it would be transcripts only," Trevor said. "There will not be audiotapes."
When callers identified themselves, their identities have been recorded in transcripts, but no effort was made to identify unidentified callers because the Port Authority said it feared making a mistake.