The Eleventh Day_ The History and Legacy of 9_11 - Anthony Summers [229]
23 4,540: Freni, 59;
24 By 12:16: WSJ, 3/22/04.
25 Clarke’s videoconference: The Commission Report states that the White House teleconference began around 9:25. Information the authors have learned, however, suggests that it started with some—but not all—officials on line at about 9:37. At the Pentagon, a “significant event” conference call—already under way for some minutes—was upgraded to an “air threat” conference call at around the same time. The FAA, for its part, had begun its own teleconference at about 9:20. The White House teleconference, and Clarke’s desire to have the most senior representative of each agency participating, had the effect of “decapitating” the agencies at various points. Taking part in the White House conference call meant that individual agency heads were away from the very people from whom they could receive the most accurate incoming information, and to whom they needed to give moment-by-moment instructions (CR, 36–, corr. Miles Kara, 2011);
26 Defense: Farmer, 184–, Tenet, 163;
27 first matter: Tenet, 163;
28 contingency/Hastert: Bamford, Pretext, 70–, 80–, transcript, 9/11, ABC News, 9/11/02, WP, 3/2/02;
29 Byrd: corr. Jesse Jacobs, 2010;
30 people pouring: int. Eleanor Hill;
31 White House evacuation: testimony of Norman Mineta, 5/23/02, CO, Richard Clarke, 8, CNN, 9/11/01, Newsweek, 9/24/01;
32 “CNN says”/“Does it”: Richard Clarke, 9;
33 humor: Dwyer & Flynn, 175.
34 golf club/computers: Dwyer & Flynn, 175–;
35 “There’s another”: int. Edward Chacia, TF, 12/6/01;
36 “They hit”: int. James Canham, TF, 12/18/01;
37 “What happened?”: Dwyer & Flynn, 178.
38 locked doors: CR, 294. Any faint possibility of going up had vanished at 9:30, when security officers tried and failed to activate a lock release programmed to open all doors—including doors leading to the roof—as explained on p. 22;
39 Beyea: Dwyer & Flynn, 178, 243;
40 Lillo: int. Manuel Delgado, 10/21/01, TF, NY Post, 9/21/01;
41 “The Chief said”/Suhr: int. Paul Conlon, TF, 1/26/02, NY Daily News, 11/1/01.
42 “We didn’t have”: Staff Statement 13, CO. The World Trade Center did have such a radio repeater system, but most chiefs were unable to use it on the day—either because it was malfunctioning or because they failed to use it properly. To bridge the communications gap, chiefs attempted to use shorter range equipment available—sometimes even their own cell phones—with little success. This left the chiefs in the lobby or outside the towers largely in the dark about the progress of the units moving up and around the building (“FDNY Fire Operations Response on September 11,” www.nyc.gov, CR, 188).
43 “People watching”/men struggled: Staff Statement 13, CO.
44 towers’ casualties/survivors: “Federal Investigators Classify WTC Victims’ Locations,” 7/20/04, NIST, Staff Statement 13, CO, Dwyer & Flynn, 252, 312. Estimates vary as to the number of people in the Twin Towers at the time of the attacks. We have here drawn on numbers cited in 102 Minutes, by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn—which take into account not only the 2005 Final Report of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, but also of figures supplied by the Port Authority of New York (Dwyer & Flynn, 280, “Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers,” Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Sept. 2005, 19, 34, 37–, 48).
45 Clark/Praimnath: Bernstein, 225–;
46 Rooney: Banford, Pretext, 32–58;
47 70th floor: Staff Statement 13, CO;
48 Palmer: Dwyer & Flynn, 206;
49 PEOPLE TRAPPED: NY Daily News, 9/30/01;
50 overwhelmed: Staff Statement 13, CO;
51 “Some of them”: int. Roberto Abril, TF, 1/17/02.
52 Turi wondered: int. Albert Turi, TF, 10/23/01,