Analysis of Published Accounts of the World Trade Center Evacuation. Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster.
Analysis of Published Accounts of the World Trade Center
Evacuation. Federal Building and Fire Safety
Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster.
(291 K)
Fahy, R. F.; Proulx, G.
NIST NCSTAR 1-7A; 70 p. September 2005.
Keywords:
World Trade Center; high rise buildings; building
collapse; disasters; fire safety; fire investigations;
terrorists; terrorism; building fires; egress;
communication networks; evacuation; human behavior;
methodology
Abstract:
Published stories of the survivor's of the World Trade
Center (WTC) attacks were collected to document the
event and as background material to guide the
development of the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) Investigation on occupant behavior
during the evacuation of the WTC. These first- person
accounts came from newspapers, radio and television
programs, e-mail exchanges, and a variety of web sites.
The accounts analyzed were from survivors located in
several areas in each tower, providing a distribution of
floors from the upper, middle, and lower strata of the
two towers. In total, 745 accounts were analyzed,
representing 435 survivors from WTC 1 and WTC 2. This
large quantity of material was coded and analyzed to
obtain a better understanding of the personal evacuation
experiences of different survivors located on the
different floors of the two towers. This report
documents that analysis. The analysis was solely based
on written accounts and does not include first-person
interviews conducted as part of the NIST Investigation.
Rather, the analysis provided background for the
development of the telephone and face-to-face interviews
conducted for the NIST Investigation.
