Text size:

Sounds of helplessness and despair from 911 tapes

BY MELANIE LEFKOWITZ | Newsday Staff Writer

April 1, 2006

They suggested damp towels for the doorways. They warned people that panicking would waste their oxygen. They urged them to sit tight, stay low and not break windows.

But in the end, the best that 911 dispatchers could offer those trapped in the highest floors of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, was solace.

"If you feel that your life is in danger, do what you must do, OK?" one dispatcher told a caller at 9:02 a.m., just 16 minutes after the first plane struck. "I can't give you any more advice than that."

Helplessness was the common theme in the approximately 130 calls made to 911 operators from the World Trade Center the morning of Sept. 11, which the city released Friday under a court order. Faced with a disaster that rendered decades of training obsolete in an instant, dispatchers -- fielding almost unimaginable reports of bodies hanging from windows, a leg caught in an elevator, anxious groups of men and women trapped a quarter mile off the ground as the tops of the towers glowed red -- handled the cascade of events as best they could.

Most operators, not informed of orders to evacuate both buildings, relied on standard advice to remain in place and await rescue. But they remained professional, if agitated, as the clock ticked and callers grew increasingly desperate, urging people to stay calm even as they ran out of oxygen and out of hope.

"It's an awful thing. Awful, awful, awful thing to call somebody and tell them you're going to die," one police operator, who had just finished talking to a group trapped on the 83rd floor of south tower, told another operator at 9:53 a.m. "I hope they're all alive because they sound like they went -- they passed out because they were breathing hard, like snoring, like they're unconscious."

The city was able to identify only 28 callers on that morning's 911 tapes, and only one of those survived. According to the city Law Department, which released the tapes but withheld the names and voices of those calling to protect their privacy, there were few callers because often a single person was phoning on behalf of a large group. Twenty-one of the 28 families contacted by the city about whether they wished to hear the 911 tapes never even responded.

Wendy Cosgrove of West Islip, whose husband, Kevin, called 911 from the 105th floor of the south tower, has heard what may have been her husband's last words.

"He's in a lot of pain. You can just imagine there's no oxygen; he can't see," she said Friday. "He just wants to be with his family."

Families listen together

Friday, the eight families who sued for the tapes' release along with The New York Times -- none of whose relatives were heard calling 911 -- listened to the tapes together, later expressing awe and admiration for the dispatchers but frustration that it took the city so long to release incomplete records.

"It's an important lesson to be learned. That's what can come out of this, a legacy to another generation," said Rosemary Cain of Massapequa, who lost her son, Firefighter George Cain, 35. "This world never has to have another calamity like this."

Nevertheless, for Cain and thousands of others whose friends and relatives were among the 2,749 people who died at the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, Friday was a searingly difficult day.

"It's a knife in your heart all over again," she said.

In the nearly 100 minutes of calls, operators offered a wide range of advice in the face of confusion and chaos, their sometimes contradictory suggestions adding another layer to the almost surreal environment that the tapes reveal. As they talked to people weighing their options in hot and airless rooms, the operators at times seemed to be feeling their way in the dark themselves, grasping for logical answers to an unfathomable, hopeless situation.

"I agree with you that you need air. But I can't tell you to break a window. Now I can tell you if you break a window you might let more smoke and debris ... " one operator told someone on the 86th floor of the north tower at 9:41. " ... and then if you break a window you will break the foundation more. ... No sir, we're not figuring out what to do. It's just ... we don't want to give you the wrong information. I feel so bad that we can't do more. You don't know. Oh boy. Um. God forbid. Oh."

Though most exhorted callers not to break the windows, warning them that it could feed the fire or bring in black smoke from outside, some did suggest opening or breaking windows. One EMS operator told a caller that the fire was far away, since the floor and doors didn't feel hot.

"That's good. That means no fire should be near you," that operator said. "So smoky conditions ... is the worst thing you should be concerned about now."

Another dispatcher advised someone to listen to the radio.

"The news, AM," the dispatcher said. "Or 1010 AM. OK?"