Recently Released 9/11 Documents

Anybody notice today's Associated Press article regarding the recently released 9/11 documents? There is a quote from Firefighter James Murphy in which he says that the only difference between the firefighters trying to get out of the towers and the victims was the firefighters had flashlights which they used to find a way out. Kind of justifies our addiction. You can go to the Associated Press web site and read the article.

A quote from one of Firemen:

"Trapped in the mall below the trade center after the collapse of the south tower, James Murphy and a group of fellow firefighters started hunting for the exits. Frightened civilians began grabbing onto them, he said.

"We were saying, `Don't worry, we're with the Fire Department. Everybody is going to get out,'" Murphy recalled. But, he said, "We were just as scared as anybody else. We were just victims, too. Basically the only difference between us and the victims is we had flashlights."

From the above AP article.

I wonder how many more would have gotten out if they had lights?

Bill

This should be a sticky.

I read that quote but wasn't quite sure what others would feel, though it is related.

I've read stories from other sources about people having to feel their way down truly pitch black staircases as emergency lighting failed, and I can imagine that would be true dark inside a concrete building.

One can only imagine but let it be a reminder to all to carry a light ON YOUR PERSON. "I'll leave it where I can find it" "It's on my desk" "It's in the bag" is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. For none of those will be on you when you need it..

I think also that we know how to improve emergency lighting. I believe the law is that they have to run for 90 minutes? At least exit signs do, I dont' know about those flood light things. But really, when they have been hanging on the wall for 10 years float charging a battery that has never been tested or maintained... What do you think the real runtime will be once the power goes out?

LED based emergency lights could run for 10 times as long on a smaller battery. Course, they would probably be more expensive to install so forget about it and keep carrying your EDC!

I can't even read the 9-11 transcripts they just made public, it gives me the chills.

[ QUOTE ]
I think also that we know how to improve emergency lighting. I believe the law is that they have to run for 90 minutes? At least exit signs do, I dont' know about those flood light things. But really, when they have been hanging on the wall for 10 years float charging a battery that has never been tested or maintained... What do you think the real runtime will be once the power goes out?


[/ QUOTE ]

I completely agree. I used to work as security for a small hotel here. We had a bunch of those emergency floodlights on walls spread throughout the front office, guest buildings, and restaurant. One night, there was an extended power outage that lasted almost 2 hours. Several of the lights never went on, almost half of the ones that did go on did not last 30 minutes before going out, and only about 8 (of dozens) lasted for more than an hour.

Fortunately, no emergency arose in that time, and I had SOME personal lights with me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif, but the poor reliability of those rechargeable lights left much to be desired.

These buildings were all 3 stories high or less. It scares the cr*p out of me to think of a power outage happening in a high rise during an emergency.

God bless those firefighters, police officers, and emergency workers. Breaks my heart to read some of that testimony even now, 4 years later.

I think it is interesting how many people don't carry flashlights. Most people just expect everything to work all the time and never give a second thought to what would happen to them if it didn't.

As a teenager working on my first ship I got some great advice. Someone told me that during the first week onboard any ship I should try to never use the same hatch to leave a compartment that I had used to inter it. To have a chance in an emergency you must often have experience taking alternate routes -- just knowing that there are other options isn't good enough. People always seem to only be capable of doing what they've done before when faced with an emergency. That's why so many ignore close exits in club fires and die waiting to get out the way they came in.

The idea that some in the WTC worked there five days a week for years and had no idea that some of the fire doors were illegally locked is very sad. I would have found them. I would have raised hell and if I was not able to change policy and get them unlocked I'd have gotton another job. There are many good reasons to die on the job but that is not one of them.

Demographically, it's pretty easy to see that CPFers are way ahead of the general public when it comes to expecting the unexpected. Carrying a light is so fundamental...

I can say right now were are going through our annual emergency lighting inspection here. All of our emergency and exit lights have to stay lit for a minimum of 30 minutes for the test or they fail, they run about 2 hours with a new rechargeable battery. It does amaze me that this isn't standard and some places install them and never test them. Of course we are a 2000 seat theatre, but still any public building should have some sort of inspection...

And I completely agree if you don't have the light on you when you need it most, you might as well not have it. I used to always try to carry a larger bright 2 cell 123 light, but often found myself leaving it at my desk. So I now carry a smaller Arc AAA light and of course a Photon Freedom on my keychain, all the time.

It is amazing how bright a Photon is in complete darkness.