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The September 11th emergency response tapes were released today downtown. For $13, any accredited reporter could pick up a set of CDs containing 130 edited messages. The recordings were excerpted, because the city decided that they didn't want to release recordings of any voices they couldn't identify. More than twenty callers were identified, and those two-way conversations were also released this week. All of the city newspapers are busy preparing transcripts, which we'll link to as they are published online. The Times is the first to publish, with a dozen or so messages. Here's one:
What is your emergency? O.K. one second, sir. One second. What floor are you on, sir? You're on 105th floor. Wow. Any injuries? Just hold on one second, sir. Hold on. I hear the fire alarm. They're coming. They're on their way. They're working on it. My God, this, don't worry, God is there. God is there. God is, don't worry about it. God is . . . Don't worry. They're on their way, sir. E.M.S. is there and . . . O.K. . . . E.M.S. Hold on. I'm going to connect you to E.M.S. Hold on one second, sir."
It's hard to listen to this stuff. Even without the callers' voices, it's clear they were terrified, and the operators had little idea of what was going on, and no way to help them. Almost no one was told to try to leave the building. Hopefully studying these tapes will allow the city to improve their disaster response plans in the future.
Related:
The New York Times analyzes the tapes
NY1 is putting up the audio in Real format
1010WINS has clips in Flash player format
WNBC is putting up the calls as MP3s
The AP has a good summary article
Newsweek is putting up full text transcripts and Flash audio
Newsday also has transcripts and a story on what has been edited out of the tapes
The story is everywhere now, from the Washington Post and the BBC to the the Daily News and CNN
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i honestly don't know how anybody can listen to this and not completely breakdown.
I know he/she was trying to be comforting, but the last thing I want to hear is "God is there..." I wanna hear something like "You ain't got no problem. I'm on the mother...Go back in there, chill out and wait for the Wolf who should be coming directly."
Alas, that didn't happen in this case.
If only Winston Wolf were there that day.
I want to hear the tapes just to know why no one was told to leave. (and, the civil service employees working 911)
It's like that ONE employee who refuses to leave his/her desk during a fire drill because their work is too important or the fire drill is not important enough.
Not sure if Gothamist had this as a story, in the past, but the Sonic Memorial is an amazing site: http://www.sonicmemorial.org/sonic/public/index.html
I was in NYC on September 11, 2001 and the enoromity of that tragic day will live with me forever.
But the wholesale exploitation of the victims of that day is really sickening. And I practically smashed my remote control against a wall last night when I flipped through every damned news channel and EVERY ONE was playing the "impportant" tapes in one way or another.
It's enough already. If half the energy spent on conspiracy theories and continually reliving that day were spent on being proactive, we'd have a damned 9-11 memorial or SOMETHING on the old WTC site.
At the rate this is going it's like this city is filled with automotons who are more interested in voyeuristically reliving tragedy than actually doing something productive.
It's bad enugh this people died the way they did. Now they're being exploited again and again and again. It's enough already. Just get over it and start rebuilding SOMETHING on the old WTC site.
It's sickening that 5 years later the best this city can do is release 911 tapes.
According to this article, telling people to stay put is--or at least was--standard procedure for a high-rise fire. The city had no way for people on the scene, who were ordering evacuation, to communicate with the 911 operators. Scary.
Just looking at the damaged towers or watching a video them crumbling nearly makes me break down. At the same time it makes me absolutely furious, and I wish we could destroy all those responsible and anybody who had anything to do with them.
What were the the instructions for workers in the First WTC bombing in the garage? I'm sure they were told to stay put. So, did we actually learn anything from the first incident?
exploitation of 9/11 == vengeful wars and yes, cheap television 'news' with patronizing emphasis (not all of the tv news fits this).
but the release of these tapes in and of itself are not exploitative.
- M
from washington
I have to agree with Jack. 5 years later, and still hardly any construction. Way to show the resiliency of our city.
Still a gaping hole and Osama is still free, laughing at us. Sick.
The release of these tapes was exploitive. It was totally coerced by the media. None of the families, no city officials, no one who lived through that day here in New York - no one - wanted these tapes released. The New York Times went to court to get them. No good comes from hearing what those 911 operators recorded. It's just as bad as 1010wins playing the tape of that woman being murdered yesterday. It's just as bad as a snuff film and I'm sure all of America is glued to their televisions in morbid fascination. These are the same people who elected the right wing fundamentalists who made us a target in the first place. I'm usually embarassed by most of the country lately, but in the case I'm just flat out disgusted by them.
Our society is a failure.
Of course there has been no construction. Look at this city, everything that has been built in the past 50 years is crap.
Since 9/11, over 1,000 hi-rise buildings have been constructed in Shanghai.
And everyone else, quit your whining. People die every day. Big frickin' deal a few extra died on 9/11/2001. Most of them were clearly clueless sheep otherwise they would have gotten the hell out of there.
MT -- You're wrong in the sweeping nature of your statement. Family members of victims joined the New York Times in the FOIA case for the release of these tapes.
If I were Family, I think I'd want to hear it. Other than that, I think these should stay private.
IMO, The News Media is only interested in hearing these tragic tapes for the purpose of selling news, nothing more.
"but the release of these tapes in and of itself are not exploitative."
Actually it's highly exploitative. The N.Y. Times went to court to have them released. And for what value? So we can hear desperate people try to save their own lives? There's nothing to be learned from those tapes in any way that can change anything. It's basically snuff audio. A snuff podcast for those "hip" to the lingo.
The big thing that infuriates me is that somehow all this energy is spent on releasing these tapes, yet somehow an equal amount of energy is not spent on uncovering the trail of lies behind George W. Bush's push towards war. Let that be the most political thing I say about this.
It's a matter of public record. But that doesn't mean it's news worthy. I'd damned sick at all of this. And this releasing of the tapes is enough already.
Can someone spend equal energy and vigor into truly tracking Osama bin Laden down? Or spend a fraction of that energy to get that? WTF has happened to people's priorities when it comes to the WTC? These tapes are historical junk food at best. And if I were a family member I'd scream bloody murder at them being exploited in the way they did.
I don't want to hear them. Especially when there is a chance someone I know is on them. But I'll make that choice. I don't need Mike Bloomberg or Rudy Guiliani or OHS or Governor Shitforbrains to make that decision for me. I let them make decisions on what happens at Ground Zero, and look how they fucked that up. If they spent half as much energy rebuilding as they did hiding stuff we'd all feel a little more proud and a little less fearful.
What is the rationale for letting the public hear these tapes? It's the exact same thing as airing footage of people at the WTC leaping to their deaths.
After a huge outcry the media stopped airing that tasteless sensationalist footage.
MT, the "right wing fundamentalist" made us a target? So what exactly were the 1993 bombing as well as the ones in the African embassies, the barracks in Saudi Arabia, the Cole and the aborted LA airport bombing? All during Clinton's watch. Have you notice that there hasn't been any more attacks since 9/11.
I agree with the statement that the press forced the release of the tapes for no good reason but the rest of your statement seems bizarrely looney.
Suz, I'm not so sure that the mainstream media stopped showing the jumpers just so as not to be sensationalistic (it's in their business model after all). I think they did it out of their own political point of view to avoid making us angry and pro-war.
I myself beleieve that, every year, we shoud watch an unedited video of the attacks like the one that documenatry filmmaker, Ric Burns, made in his masterful history of the WTC. We should never forget and become complacent.
Do we even get to hear the voices of the people in the building?
I think the reason they don't release those is because they probably say shit like there were multiple explosions beyond just the plane crash and it would expose the fact that the towers were purposely detonated.
"We should never forget and become complacent."
Has anyone out there truly fogotten that 9-11 happened? It's baffling to assume somehow this country has been "forgetful" about the events of 9-11.
Except for one thing.
How about that wacky Osama Bin Laden? With all the talk about this/that/other it seems that most people forget that the main bastard behind this is still out free. And that the number of troops in Afghanistan are dwarfed by the amount that's elsewhere in the region.
Lest someone tag me as some "wacky" liberal, my opinion is if the same amount of troops fought--and died--in a war to find Bin Laden, I would not think twice about it.
That's the thing. These tapes add nothing to the "never forget" mentality. They just--basically--abuse the victims again by exploiting their deaths for ratings. And you do hear victims voices if the 911 dispatcher identified them. Bizarre loophole that allows "papers of record" like the New York Times publish the material without "guilt".
In contrast it seems like this whole country has forgotten who really caused this tragic day. And that's what's really been forgotten. What an abyssmal mess this whole 9-11 mess has really been. It's 2006 and this city's ways of dealing with 9-11 are incompetent at best.
Paralyzed and vulnerable people who couldn't get out if they wanted to and nobody to turn to except each other or maybe perhaps a 911 caller in the last minutes of their lives.
The calls are edited... I do not understand how this is helping anyone..its still very upsetting and I wish people had some sympathy for family members who lost loved ones..
I think it's pretty simple. In journalism there is something called The Public's Right to Know. 9/11 had a profound effect on our country, the world, and the way everyone here and elsewhere lives their lives. Why SHOULDN'T we know what went on? Why shouldn't we hear the caller's voice? What good are these tapes if we don't hear the callers voice? To me, it's like watching a movie in French and only being 1/2 literate. You'll understand some things, but the rest you just won't get.