102 Minutes

Chapter 10 focuses on the structural designs and rescue efforts centered around the 99 elevators in each tower, which, combined, account for fifteen miles of elevator shafts. Woven into the narrative documenting the efforts by Frank De Martini and others, who “tore open walls with crowbars and shined flashlights and pried apart elevator doors on the 90th, 89th, 88th, 86th, and 78th floors, saving the lives of at least seventy people in the north tower” (152-53), is a discussion of how people stuck in the elevators react. The chapter highlights the difficulties rescuers face during the 1993 bombing when dealing with the express elevators, which shuttled workers from the lobby to the 48th and then 78thfloors. The express elevator shafts do not have openings, known as blind shafts, on every floor. This causes extreme difficulties for firefighters searching for people trapped in elevators during the 1993 incident. On 9/11, a group of men use hands, feet, and a window washer’s squeegee, sharpened against the layers of sheetrock, to carve between the elevator shaft and any exit into the building itself. Included is a brief discussion of the elevators’ backup safety system, which catches falling elevators, as it did that morning.