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01-01-2013

Egress from the World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001

Authors: Richard D. Peacock, Jason D. Averill, Erica D. Kuligowski

Published in: Fire Technology | Issue 1/2013

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Abstract

This paper describes the occupant evacuation of World Trade Center (WTC) 1 and WTC 2 on September 11, 2001. Multiple sources of information were collected and analyzed: over 1,000 new interviews with survivors (including 803 telephone interviews, 225 face-to-face interviews, and 6 focus groups); over 700 published interviews; 9-1-1 emergency calls; transcripts of emergency communications, historical building design drawings, memoranda, and calculations; formal complaints filed with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; and other relevant materials. The population in WTC 1 and WTC 2 on September 11, 2001, at 8:46:30 a.m. is enumerated and described, where the characteristics of the population were relevant to the subsequent evacuation, including training, experience, mobility status, among others. The progress of the evacuation of both towers is described in a quasi-chronological manner from 8:46:30 a.m. when WTC 1 was attacked, until 10:28:22 a.m., when WTC 1 collapsed.

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The sampling frame (badge list) identified 427 persons in WTC 1 and 376 persons in WTC 2. 440 persons responded that they were in WTC 1 at 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001 during the telephone interviews. When a sample number is indicated (n), the sample number will be the actual number of responses. Where percentages are indicated, however, the percentages were weighted based on the response rate for each stratum to allow for generalization. Details are available in Ref. [2, Sect. 3.2.2, p. 58].

The majority of face-to-face interview respondents who observed fire inside the building observed flames at or near the elevator shafts [3].

The time to begin evacuation was defined as the time while on the floor of origin due to the fact that, while many people decided to leave quickly, they often chose to perform several activities prior to actually entering the stairwell. Thus, time prior to entering a stairwell (or elevator) was a better measure of evacuation delay than a moment when the occupant ‘decided’ to evacuate, which may have been significantly prior to actually starting evacuation.

86% was calculated by summing the number of people who reported starting their evacuation in less than 16 min, whereas 91% of people reported starting their evacuation prior to WTC 2 being attacked. These two questions were asked independently of one another during the telephone interviews. Note that while the discrepancy may be partially attributable to the uncertainty in time recollection by the occupants, the uncertainty intervals for the two percentages overlap at the 95% confidence level (plus or minus 5 percentage points).

New York City 911 Emergency Call Recordings, 2001.

NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) (2005) Federal building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade center disaster: final report on the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. NIST NCSTAR 1. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg

Averill JD, Mileti DS, Peacock RD, Kuligowski ED, Groner N, Proulx G, Reneke PA, Nelson HE (2005) Federal building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center disaster: occupant behavior, egress, and emergency communication. NIST NCSTAR 1-7. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg

NIST (2004) WTC face-to-face interview data set. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Radio Communications Transcripts from September 11, 2001

Lawson JR, Vettori RL (2005) Federal building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center disaster: the emergency response operations. NIST NCSTAR 1-8. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg

NIST (2004) WTC emergency responder interview data set. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg

911 Emergency Call Records, City of New York, 2001

NIST (2003) Database of fire-person accounts from survivors of the World Trade Center evacuation on September 11, 2001 conducted as part of report NIST NCSTAR1-7A. National Institute of Standards and technology, Gaithersburg

Fahy R, Proulx G (2005) Federal building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center disaster: analysis of published accounts of the World Trade Center evacuation. NIST NCSTAR 1-7A. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg

Title: Egress from the World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001
Authors: Richard D. Peacock
Jason D. Averill
Erica D. Kuligowski
Publication date: 01-01-2013
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Fire Technology / Issue 1/2013
Print ISSN: 0015-2684
Electronic ISSN: 1572-8099
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10694-011-0236-7

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