SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
When the first plane hit the first tower on that sunny morning on September 11, 2001, WNYC reporter Samantha Max was in kindergarten. Maybe you saw it as an adult, and you'll never forget what you saw, or maybe it happened before you were born. Twenty-five years later, Samantha Max dug through recordings that WNYC reporters gathered back then. And be prepared that because of the topic, the story will have some intense audio moments.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Everybody, stay calm.
SAMANTHA MAX, BYLINE: At 8:46 a.m., a hijacked plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center near the southern tip of Manhattan. Less than 20 minutes later, another tore through the South Tower. In 911 recordings, dispatchers frenetically fielded calls from people inside the soaring skyscrapers.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: The line is so busy, man.
UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER #1: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: There's a lot of people that need help.
MAX: One dispatcher prayed in between assurances to a caller.
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UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER #2: They're coming. They're on their way. They're working. They're working on it, they're working on it. God, just pray. Don't worry. God is good, God is good. God is good.
MAX: But those dispatchers didn't fully understand what the conditions were at the twin towers. But they tried to calm the people inside.
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UNIDENTIFIED DISPATCHER #2: Open the window. If you can get a window open, open the window. You know, I'm not there. Oh, we are. We're trying to get up there, sir. Like you said, the stairs up collapsed, OK? Now, everybody, wet the towels. Lie on the floor, OK? Put the wet towels over your heads and lie down, OK? I know it's hard to breathe, I know it is. OK, listen, listen. Listen to me, listen to me, OK? Listen, try not to panic. You can save the air supply.
MAX: About an hour after the first plane hit, the South Tower fell.
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BETH FERTIG: The buildings falling right now.
MAX: Then WNYC reporter Beth Fertig was just blocks away and recorded herself as she described what she saw.
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FERTIG: People are running through the street. Smoke is everywhere.
MAX: Thick gray smoke billowed from the crumbling building and into the crowded downtown corridors as people tried to escape. The image played over and over again on television screens around the world.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Explosion. Oh, my God.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Move, move.
MAX: Moments later, supervising fire marshal Thomas Williams (ph) told Fertig he was responding to the scene when suddenly he was engulfed in smoke and started running.
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THOMAS WILLIAMS: Thank God I just got out. I just didn't know where I was. I was praying to God and my family I made it out.
FERTIG: Were you able to save anybody?
WILLIAMS: I helped one lady up, but I really don't know what happened to her. It was just total chaos.
MAX: He said he had been working with 10 firefighters.
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WILLIAMS: I pray to God that they're safe and all right. But I don't know.
MAX: Loretta Williams (ph) worked in the North Tower for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. She described running down 82 flights of stairs as she felt the building shake.
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LORETTA WILLIAMS: I just heard an explosion. I just looked into the hallway, and the ceiling, everything just collapsed. And we were trying to get out. And when we was on our way down the stairs, that's when I felt the shaking again. We were just trying to get out. That's all.
MAX: Sanitation police captain Charles Diaz was buried under the rubble.
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CHARLES DIAZ: I don't know how I'm alive.
MAX: Diaz said a school safety officer helped to unbury him.
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DIAZ: I don't even remember her name. We helped each other out. She had a flashlight, and we made our way through the darkness and picked up some stragglers on the way.
MAX: He said the thick air made him choke. Everything turned black.
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DIAZ: Oh, yeah. There were people injured all over the place, crying for help, screaming for help. We couldn't see in front of our face. It was total darkness. It was like the sun was just covered over.
MAX: Then Mayor Rudy Giuliani was in the area the morning of 9/11. When he spoke with reporters later that day, there were still a lot of questions. He couldn't say who was responsible, how many people had died or what the extent of the damage was.
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RUDY GIULIANI: And we will strive now very hard to save as many people as possible.
MAX: Giuliani said he wanted to send a message that New York and America were stronger than terrorists. He asked New Yorkers to go about life as normal.
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GIULIANI: Everything is safe right now in the city. And the people who are doing the relief effort need all the help they can get.
MAX: The mayor urged the public to avoid the hazy, debris-cluttered streets around the fallen towers. A noxious, burning smell filled the air. Charred scraps of paper fell from the sky. But first responders stayed downtown to search for survivors, and later, the dead. College students drove from upstate New York to hand out water. Paramedics and firefighters traveled from Missouri, Massachusetts and other states. Veterinarians treated rescue dogs searching the rubble.
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JING HONG: So we just started doing all the stuff to help out.
MAX: Nineteen-year-old nursing student Jing Hong (ph) posted up at a Burger King near the pile of ruins to distribute food, attach fire hoses and assist in whatever other way he could.
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HONG: You just can't explain, you know, the feeling you get when you see everything there in front of you.
MAX: Social worker Lauren Aardman (ph) told WNYC's Andrea Bernstein that she left her home upstate in New Paltz to counsel people in need.
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LAUREN AARDMAN: From Upstate. And I was driving to work this morning, listening to the radio and crying. And my car just took me to the train station.
MAX: Joshua Raskin (ph) was a middle school social studies teacher on the Upper West Side. After school let out on 9/11, he rode his bike as far downtown as he could get.
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JOSHUA RASKIN: I just wanted to help. I live in this city. And just I couldn't stand not being a part of this, not helping.
MAX: Raskin is a lifelong New Yorker. When I visited him recently in his Manhattan apartment, he told me he didn't want to sit around and watch his city burn.
RASKIN: I was a schoolteacher. I didn't have an actual credential to be helpful. But I thought of myself as someone that was good at counseling people and good at crisis management. And I just figured I could have a role in this.
MAX: On September 11, Raskin helped to set up a triage center. Then he coordinated mental health professionals and religious leaders who came to support people with missing or dead loved ones. He recruited friends, family and strangers who noticed the silver piece of duct tape on his shirt that marked him as a volunteer.
RASKIN: And I would explain to them, and they'd say, can I come tomorrow? And I'd say, of course, here's my number.
MAX: Twenty-five years later, Raskin still has a New York Knicks duffel bag filled with mementos from the few days he spent volunteering.
RASKIN: Hazmat suit. Never needed to put it on but was issued it when we were downtown.
MAX: He pulls out a hard hat, a protective mask, newspapers and magazines. A small black canister filled with dust from ground zero.
RASKIN: Glad that I scooped that up.
MAX: Yeah.
RASKIN: Yeah.
MAX: For months after the attacks, bagpipes wailed at funerals across the city. New Yorkers mourned firefighters, police, finance workers and others.
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MAX: Nearly 3,000 people were dead from the attacks at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a flight that crashed into a Pennsylvania field. Then President George W. Bush ordered strikes on al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Suddenly, the city and the country were grappling with a new reality. But between the funerals, strangers comforted each other on the subway, and volunteers kept lining up to help mend what was broken. For NPR News, I'm Samantha Max in New York.
PFEIFFER: The audio you just heard came from WNYCs archives.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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