Anthony Summers - The Eleventh Day

Instructions to evacuate the North Tower had been announced over the public address system within a minute of the crash. The system had been knocked out of action, though, so no one heard the announcement. In the South Tower, where the system did still work, the disembodied voice at first advised, “There is no need to evacuate … If you are in the midst of evacuation, return to your office.” The instruction changed at 9:02, when occupants were told they could leave after all. Some four thousand people, two thirds of those reckoned to have been in the South Tower, had by that time chosen to leave anyway.

Then at 9:03, Flight 175 hit the South Tower. For the networks, broadcasting live, the task of reporting became incalculably complex—and totally impromptu. This from the ABC Good Morning America transcript:

S

AWYER:

Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

G

IBSON:

That looks like a second plane has just hit …

S

AWYER:

Terrible! … We will see that scene again, just to make sure we saw what we thought we saw.

G

IBSON:

We’re going to give you a replay … That looks like a good-sized plane, came in and hit the World Trade Center from the other side … it would seem like there is a concerted attack …

S

AWYER:

We watch powerless …

On Channel 5’s Good Day New York , the anchorman Jim Ryan took a flyer and got it right. “I think,” he said, “we have a terrorist act of proportions we cannot begin to imagine at this point.”

At the NSA, director Hayden said, “One plane’s an accident. Two planes is an attack,” and ordered that top priority be given to intercepts originating in the Middle East.

At the Defense Department, assistant secretary for public affairs Torie Clarke, accompanied by colleague Larry Di Rita, hurried to Secretary Rumsfeld’s office with the news. He said he would take his daily intelligence briefing, then meet them at the Executive Support Center where military operations are coordinated during emergencies. They left Rumsfeld standing at the lectern in his office—he liked to work standing up—one eye on the television.

Word of the second strike was slow to reach CIA director Tenet, still in his car racing back to headquarters. “With all hell breaking loose,” he remembered, “it was hard to get calls through on the secure phone.… I was in a communications blackout between the St. Regis and Langley, the longest twelve minutes of my life. It wasn’t until I arrived at headquarters that I learned that, as we were tearing up the George Washington Parkway at something like eighty miles an hour, a second plane had hit.”

Counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke learned of the second attack as he drove up to the White House. He was told Condoleezza Rice wanted him “fast,” and found her with the Vice President. “The Secret Service,” Rice said, “wants us to go to the bomb shelter.” Cheney, famous for his imperturbability, was looking a little shaken. He “began to gather up his papers,” Clarke recalled. “In his outer office the normal Secret Service presence was two agents. As I left, I counted eight, ready to move [Cheney] to the PEOC, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, a bunker in the East Wing.”

Clarke, for his part, headed for the West Wing, to prepare for the videoconference of counterterrorism and other senior officials he would soon chair. He asked, “Where’s POTUS?”—White House shorthand for the President—and learned Bush was at the school in Florida.

“GET READY TO READ all the words on this page without making a mistake. Look at the letter at the end everyone, with the sound it makes. Get ready!”

As the second plane hit the Trade Center, George Bush had been listening intently to teacher Kay Daniels and her class of second graders. The teacher was going into a routine the children knew well, using a phonics-based system designed to promote reading skills. She intoned, “Boys and girls! Sound this word out, get ready!” “Kite!” chorused the children, then “kit!” then “seal” and “steal,” and so on, as Ms. Daniels beat time. Then, “Boys and girls, pick your reader up from under your seat. Open your book up to Lesson 60, on page 153.” The children and the President picked up the readers.

In a nearby room, members of Bush’s staff had been watching the news coverage from New York—the Marine assigned to carry the President’s phone had asked for the television to be turned on. One of those watching as Flight 175 hit was Captain Deborah Loewer, the woman who had run to tell the President about the initial crash. “It took me about thirty seconds,” she recalled, “to realize this was terrorism.”

Loewer spoke rapidly to chief of staff Andy Card, and—we calculate within about ninety seconds—Card was in the classroom and whispering in the President’s ear. By one account he said, “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.” As likely, given Loewer’s role as Situation Room director, is a version that had Card telling Bush, “Captain Loewer says it’s terrorism.”

IN NEW YORK at about that time, high in the South Tower, Brian Clark of Euro Brokers was pausing to pull Stanley Praimnath out of a wrecked wall, glimpsing fires raging through cracks in walls.

Operators at the Fire Department were logging a stream of emergency calls:

9:04 MC [male caller] CAGGIANO … STS [states] PEOPLE TRAPPED ON THE 104 FLR … IN BACK ROOM … STS 35–40 PEOPLE

9:04 MC—STS 103 FLR—CAN’T GET OUT—FIRE ON FLR—PEOPLE GETTING SICK

IN THE CLASSROOM in Florida, Bush’s expression changed. Told of the second strike, the President pursed his lips, gazing back at his chief of staff as he moved away. ABC’s Ann Compton, watching him, thought “his eyes got wide.” Teacher Daniels thought he seemed distracted. Natalia Jones-Pinkney, one of the pupils, thought he “looked like he was going to cry.” “His face just started to turn red,” said Tyler Radkey, another student. “I thought, personally, he had to go to the bathroom.”

In the adjacent room, the Marine carrying Bush’s phone turned to the local sheriff and said, “Can you get everybody ready? We’re out of here.” Not so—not yet, for the President did not move.

“On the count of three,” teacher Daniels said, “everyone should be on page 153 …” The children obeyed, and so did Bush. “Fingers under the title,” came the order. “Get ready!” The children chorused the title of a story: “The Pet Goat …”

For long and unforgettable minutes, the President of the United States sat dutifully as the second graders read:

The girl had a pet goat. She liked to go running with her pet goat. She played with her goat in her house. She played with her goat in her yard. But the goat did something that made the girl’s dad mad. The goat ate things. He ate cans and he ate cakes. He ate cakes and he ate cats. One day her dad said, “That goat must go. He ate too many things.”

On the other side of the room, press secretary Ari Fleischer had held up a handwritten sign for Bush’s attention. It read, in large black letters, “DON’T SAY ANYTHING YET.”

IN THE NORTH TOWER, realtor James Gartenberg and secretary Patricia Puma had by now realized they were stuck in their office. “A fire door has trapped us,” Gartenberg told a WABC reporter who reached him on the phone. “Debris has fallen around us. I’m with one other person … on the 86th floor, facing the East River … I want to tell anybody that has a family member that may be in the building that the situation is under control at the moment … So please, all family members take it easy.”

It was a brave statement, but neither Gartenberg nor Puma would survive.