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American Morning

Survival No Accident for World Trade Center Survivors

Aired December 20, 2001 - 08:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Among the many investigations into the September 11th attacks, we were particularly struck by one report on how the World Trade Centers collapsed. The newspaper "USAToday" has actually reconstructed exactly what happened from just after the first jet crashed into the World Trade Center, right up through the collapse of the Twin Towers. The report found out that for many, survival was no accident. CNN's Martin Savidge is standing by with the details of the story from Atlanta. Good morning, Marty.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Morning to you, Paula. It is a remarkable article by "USAToday." They have spent about two months basically putting together the pieces of the tragedy, and the first thing that you learn from reading this article, and it has been said before is that the tragedy that occurred on September 11th was very severe, but it was also perhaps the greatest successful rescue operation that has ever been conducted anywhere at anytime. Let's begin, though, with the breakdown of the graphics that have come out of this particular investigation by "USAToday."

I'll go to the telestrator here. You're looking at the two buildings. There has been some confusion as to sometimes referring to them as "Building One" and "Building Two." This is basically the North Tower here. This is the South Tower here. It was the North Tower that was struck first at 8:46 A.M. on September 11th, and of course, it was the second tower that was struck 16 and a half minutes later. This is the depiction of where the two aircraft struck, and what portion of the buildings were hit at that particular time.

Now, if we focus in on the specific buildings and the impact, measuring specifically the death toll, you're looking at the North Tower. Again, the first building that was struck, and you see that the impact area was among the 98th, 93rd floors. It is estimated that when the first plane hit, it had the destructive power of about 480,000 pounds of TNT, and points out that above the 98th floor -- actually, above the 93rd floor, 1,360 people died. No one survived. But below that cutoff point of the 93rd floor, 72 people died. More than 4,000 survived. A remarkable figure, considering obviously no one knew the attack was coming.

You go to the South Tower that struck 16 and a half minutes later. The death toll is significantly less. Good reason for that is, obviously, many people saw what happened to the North Tower and the evacuation process was already well under way. As a result of that, 595 died above the 84th floor, and four died below the area of the impact of the second airplane. This is all stuff that we had begun to think about, but now it has been carefully broken down by the investigation of "USAToday."

And you see, obviously, that the North Tower had the highest number of casualties. The South Tower had dramatically fewer casualties and 99 percent below the crash site survived. Again, an indication of the sacrifice of the over 400 safety personnel that lost lives during the effort to get everyone out of the building that was possible. It is also been pointed out that the number of people inside the building was far less, Paula, far less than many people had thought on that terrible day.

ZAHN: So, Marty, do we know exactly how many people were actually working in the building that day?

SAVIDGE: Well, if you remember, the first figures that started to come out from the Port Authority of New York, there were estimations that perhaps there were 10 to 15 thousand people per building, that were in at the time that the first plane struck. That is now found to be inaccurate, that actually, there were only 5,000 to 7,000 people in each of the buildings, far less. And the reason for that, of course, was the time of day at which the first aircraft struck. A lot of people were not in. A lot of tourists were not there because the observation deck would not have opened until about 9:30 in the morning, and then again, as we point out, many people, having seen what happened in the North Tower, began evacuating themselves out of the South Tower. There's still a wealth of information that is being going over, especially by the structural engineers as they try to determine the pancake effect that took place.

ZAHN: Well, your report and "USAToday"'s report certainly clears up some of that confusion. Martin Savidge, thanks so much.

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