Emergency response is a product of preparedness. On the morning of September
11, 2001, the last best hope for the community of people working in or visiting
the World Trade Center rested not with national policymakers but with private
firms and local public servants, especially the first responders: fire, police,
emergency medical service, and building safety professionals.
HEROISM AND HORROR
Building Preparedness The World Trade Center.
The World Trade Center (WTC) complex was built for the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey. Construction began in 1966, and
tenants began to occupy its space in 1970.The Twin Towers came to occupy a
unique and symbolic place in the culture of New York City and America.
The WTC actually consisted of seven buildings, including one hotel, spread
across 16 acres of land. The buildings were connected by an underground mall
(the concourse).The Twin Towers (1 WTC, or the North Tower, and 2 WTC, or the
South Tower) were the signature structures, containing 10.4 million square feet
of office space. Both towers had 110 stories, were about 1,350 feet high, and
were square; each wall measured 208 feet in length. On any given workday, up to
50,000 office workers occupied the towers, and 40,000 people passed through the
complex.1
Each tower contained three central stairwells, which ran essentially from top
to bottom, and 99 elevators. Generally, elevators originating in the lobby ran
to "sky lobbies" on higher floors, where additional elevators carried
passengers to the tops of the buildings.2
Stairwells A and C ran from the 110th floor to the raised mezzanine level of
the lobby. Stairwell B ran from the 107th floor to level B6, six floors below
ground, and was accessible from the West Street lobby level, which was one
The World Trade Center Complex as of 9/11
Rendering by Marco Crupi
floor below the mezzanine. All three stairwells ran essentially straight up
and down, except for two deviations in stairwells A and C where the staircase
jutted out toward the perimeter of the building. On the upper and lower
boundaries of these deviations were transfer hallways contained within the
stairwell proper. Each hallway contained smoke doors to prevent smoke from
rising from lower to upper portions of the building; they were kept closed but
not locked. Doors leading from tenant space into the stairwells were never kept
locked; reentry from the stairwells was generally possible on at least every
fourth floor.3
Doors leading to the roof were locked. There was no rooftop evacuation plan.
The roofs of both the North Tower and the South Tower were sloped and cluttered
surfaces with radiation hazards, making them impractical for helicopter landings
and as staging areas for civilians. Although the South Tower roof had a helipad,
it did not meet 1994 Federal Aviation Administration guidelines.4
