102 Minutes

Last Sunday evening, September 10, I began reading an incredible book that recounts the stories of many people at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. The book is called “102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers.” It was written by New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn. They did a fantastic job of compiling thousands of interviews and recordings into one volume.

I had bought this book from Amazon.com probably about 10 or 12 months ago. But I shelved it in plain sight. I just couldn't bring myself to read it, despite a huge part of me desperately wanting to do so. Just like I hesitated for weeks before seeing the movie “World Trade Center” on Tuesday the 12th, I dreaded the painful emotions I’d experience when I delved into the book. I’m here to tell you that if you can get your hands on this book, open it up right away and read it. Don't let your fear of gut-wrenching emotion stop you. This is a book you'll find yourself up reading at 2:00am on a weeknight.

I think it was an email from my Uncle Mike that Sunday that made me change my mind. As he signed off he wrote, "Please, Susie, remind everyone you see tomorrow what happened 5 years ago on Sept. 11." That night I finally decided to pick up the book and made plans with my friend Rashmi to see the movie a couple nights later.

I’m so grateful that I did. It was selfish of me not to. I dreaded going through the pain of reliving that horrific day and learning in greater detail about the horrible things that happened to real, live human beings. Now I realize that this wasn’t the right approach. Instead, I should be making an effort to embrace those memories--and often. Yes, it makes me angry, and it makes me cry. It makes me want revenge and it makes me mourn for the families who lost loved ones and companies that lost employees. It's painful for all of us. But that shouldn't stop any of us from facing the terrible truth.

I regret not picking up the book sooner – not just because it serves as a tremendous reminder of what happened, but because I didn’t understand the full extent of what went on in the towers during that hour and a half. I had no idea how many people were helplessly trapped above the site of impact with absolutely no hope of getting out. I had no idea just how many people jumped, or that Cantor Fitzgerald lost a whopping 658 employees. I didn't realize that the Marriott was full of firefighters and that the building was essentially bifurcated by the first tower collapse. I didn’t know that there was a huge Risk Waters conference starting at 8:30 that morning in Windows on the World, at the top of Tower 1, and that not a soul who was in attendance got out, with the one exception of a lucky guy who snapped a few pictures then left just before the first plane hit.

I learned a lot from this book. I learned why the towers fell, and why they fell so quickly. I was angered to find out how many lives were lost because the real estate developer tried to squeeze out every possible square inch of rentable space – denying upper-floor citizens escape routes on 9/11 that should have existed in the form of emergency stairwells. Instead, each building held only three staircases, all clustered together in the center of the buildings, and only one of those actually extended to ground level.

It enraged me to realize that the FDNY lives lost could have been massively reduced had the NYPD and FDNY put down their swords and resolved their ongoing feud years before. Instead they were still using different radio frequencies and their efforts were not coordinated one iota. They set up separate command posts. They didn’t communicate. They couldn't get the repeater working in Tower 1, so all the firefighters who valiantly climbed the stairs went in blind - with virtually no radio transmission. The police circling the buildings in helicopters had no way to report to the hundreds of firemen resting on the 19th floor of Tower 1 that the upper floors were starting to sag and the top of the building was leaning – in other words, that collapse was imminent.

In fact, the majority of the people inside the towers during those 102 minutes never even know that Tower 2 had fallen, 57 minutes after it was struck. To most people, like window washer Roko Camaj and Frank De Martini, the Port Authority construction manager who saved many lives but didn't get out alive himself, it was unthinkable that the buildings that had withstood the 1993 bombing would collapse. People who knew the buildings the best didn’t believe that for an instant. The buildings were supposed to be able to withstand the impact of a 707 jet airliner and self-contain any fire. So these men went about digging people out and wresting open jammed doors, freeing dozens of trapped workers, ultimately pushing back the border between survival and death.

This book is the kind of reminder that Americans need to give ourselves as often as possible for the rest of our lives.

And if you can see the movie "World Trade Center," do it. I went to the theater armed with Kleenex but didn't go through as much tissue as I thought I would. This is the amazing and true story of the rescue of two Port Authority Police Officers, John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, from the rubble nearly 24 hours after Tower 2 fell. In fact, their story is also featured in the book.

And then, when I flipped to page 170 of my Reader's Digest this evening, there they were again. These guys are true heroes, along with hundreds of others (many of them civilians) who risked their own lives to help other people get out. John McLoughlin has suffered years of multiple surgeries and painful rehabilitation treatments. He's alive, but it hasn't been easy for him or for his family.

Many people died trying to save (or to not abandon) others. . . people like Dave Vera and Jose Marrerro who actually returned to the upper floors to help save others. . . and Abe Zelmanowitz who refused to leave his wheelchair-bound co-worker Ed Beyea for the entire ordeal as they waited for someone to help Ed down from the 27th floor stairwell landing. That help never arrived. Both men were crushed to death.

The senseless murder of 2,749 innocent Americans on our own soil is an unspeakable outrage. Those are the only words (stolen from a John Irving character) that I can think of that come close to describing what happened. There are no words. But the stories of human sacrifice, honor, and selflessness of that time are heart-warming. The book and the movie will both help you to see the good in people, rather than just serve as reminders of the evil of that day that we as Americans still cannot comprehend.