Tapes of frenzied Sept. 11 rescue effort released

updated 8:29 p.m. ET March 31, 2006

NEW YORK - City 911 operators caught up in the chaos of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks offered calm compassion but little help to callers trapped in the doomed World Trade Center, partial transcripts of several calls released Friday show.

““Just sit tight. Just sit tight. We’re on the way,” a dispatcher says at 8:50 a.m., four minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center.

Twenty minutes later, seven minutes after the second plane hit, a fire department operator assures a caller stuck on the 106th floor, “The Fire Department, EMS, is crawling all over the place. They’re trying to help everybody as much as they can, OK?”

The tower collapsed 49 minutes later.

The words of the operators — but not the callers — were released after The New York Times and a group of victims’ relatives sued to get them. An appeals court ruled last year that families should have the option to release the tapes made by 28 callers who could be identified.

The Times and family members hoped the audiotaped calls would reveal details of what happened inside the towers and whether 911 operators misdirected the victims. The Sept. 11 commission had concluded in 2004 that many operators didn’t know enough about the attacks to give the best information to those trapped.

The tapes reflect the chaos amid the attacks that killed 2,749 people.

Desperate attempts to get help
One fire department operator mentions problems with the computer crashing. Another exchange between police and fire operators indicates frustration in trying to deal with a once-unimaginable situation.

NBC VIDEO 9/11 tapes reaction March 31: 9/11 families who sued to have 911 tapes released hold a news conference. MSNBC

Even with the callers’ words redacted from the tapes, their desperation is evident in the heavy breathing audible as operators respond to their frenzied calls.

“I’m still here,” an operator tells one caller trapped on the 105th floor. “The Fire Department is trying to get to you. OK, try to calm down.”

A police operator says a caller from a downtown business “states that on the northwest side (of the trade center), there’s a woman hanging from — an unidentified person hanging from the top of the building.”

“Alright, we have quite a few calls,” responds a fire operator.

“I know,” says the police operator. “Jesus Christ.”

The transcripts have long blank spaces where the callers’ words would have appeared, while detailing how word of the terrorist attack spread quickly through the operators.

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