Argumentative Essay On 102 Minutes

Argumentative Essay

In this new modern age of technology that connects billions of people from around the world, communication has reached a point where it can almost not be improved upon because so many people from opposite sides of the earth can talk to each other at the push of a button. But in 102 Minutes by Dwyer and Flynn, an in depth story by the New York Times, and a story by CBS News the quality of communication during the attacks is given new light and is explained in great detail. The sources point out crucial details about the failure of communication during the tragedies that occurred on September 11, 2001. The sources show how feuds between emergency services, outdated sources of communication, and differing instructions given

by emergency services to people inside the towers affected the outcome of events on 9/11. The sources all point to the fact that the very poor quality of communication during the 9/11 rescue efforts caused more human life to be lost because due to the feuds between emergency services, the failure to provide the same instructions to people trying to escape the tower by different emergency services, and the outdated sources of communication used to coordinate rescue efforts throughout the day.
During the rescue efforts on 9/11 the firefighters and the other emergency service workers were going into the towers and attempting to rescue people that were trapped or could not find their way out.

But as they were doing that, the emergency workers and other people in the buildings were not being warned about the impending collapse that had a possibility of happening, and this is because many of the firefighters were not receiving any messages due to the incredibly poor communications that were in place mainly in the fire department. During the moments leading up to the collapse of the south tower, the fire chief was being told that the towers were under the impending threat of collapse “Chief, these buildings are in imminent danger of collapse”(Dwyer and Flynn 208). But sadly the fire chief did not get the message to the firefighters in the south tower in time because he had never heard of a skyscraper collapsing after being on fire for only thirty minutes. But even before the fire chief was told at this time of the structural damage to the towers, Frank De Martini who was in the north tower told about the damage to the elevator shafts not long after the first plane hit “The elevator...the express elevators could be in jeopardy of falling”(Dwyer and Flynn 146). This means that the people on the ground were warned about the structural damage to at least the first tower before the second tower had even collapsed, but due to poor communications this vital information was

not passed on to the right authorities which could have saved the lives of more rescue workers and other people in both towers. The poor quality of communications also led to the death of more firefighters and civilians in the towers because emergency announcements were not communicated to people in the towers which caused more people to be confused and sadly lose their lives (Roberts 1). The whole of the emergency services communication network during the attacks was later described as a failed system that did not work as it should have during the events that occurred on 9/11(Flynn 1). That statement proves how under extreme examination after the 9/11 attacks, even the federal government and the investigation agencies say that the quality of the communication during the attacks was very much sub par and did not work the way it should have for those who were trapped in the towers when they collapsed.
For many years before the 9/11 attacks, the New York fire and police departments have had a long standing rivalry with each other that has affected them on a deep level. During the 9/11 attacks these rivalries got in the way of the police officers and the firefighters working together as they should have done to save as many people as possible. The federal internal review of the events on 9/11 even states that “Throughout the crisis, the two largest emergency departments, Police and Fire, barely spoke to coordinate strategy or to share intelligence about building conditions”(Flynn 1), and that “When the police officers in the towers gave some orders to the firefighters, many did not follow the instructions”. The departments were both seen to have problems communicating with each other which caused some very vital information to not be shared between the departments which could have saved more lives. That outstanding rivalry shows how the very large lack of communication just aided to the already poor quality of communication that was in place. The rivalry is alluded to and is mentioned when Flynn and Dwyer write that “They simply did not communicate”(Dwyer and Flynn 57). This exemplifies how the two departments totally let their rivalry get I. The way of the job and did not allow for the vital life saving information to be passed along so that everyone was aware of the situation. Sadly the departments did not communicate and that caused some emergency service people to be caught in the buildings because they were not warned about the impending collapse of both buildings.
The poor quality of communication is also proven to have caused more people to be killed in the buildings because of how differing instructions were given by different emergency services to people caught in the buildings that caused people to be confused.

People in the south tower were confused in the first few minutes of the attack because the emergency alarms were going of in the tower which made the workers go down and evacuate. But this was stopped when a guard on the bottom floor told the people that everything was safe and that people could go back up to their offices (Dwyer and Flynn 32). This circumstance shows how on one hand the evacuation alarms are going off and people are being told to evacuate according to the tower safety guidelines, but when people reach the bottom floor to leave they are told that everything is safe and that they should go back to their desks by a Port Authority official. Also a woman in the South Tower was told on one hand to stay in place and wait for firefighters to reach her on the 84th floor while some of her other coworkers were told to start to find the stairs and evacuate the buildings by the 9-11 operators on the line (Roberts 1). This shows how even at the same time, different departments were not giving out the same commands to people in the towers. Some of the people were confused on whether to stay or to go because they had heard both commands and some of those people chose to stay which put their lives at risk especially if

they were on the top floors. The people in the towers were not being told the same thing because of the poor communication quality in the towers that caused different emergency service departments to give different commands to people who were looking for support, which actually made things worse in some cases.
Opponents to the claim that the quality of communication caused more death in the towers claim the the communication was the best that it could have been. But this is just not true, this is because the police and fire departments didn’t even operate their emergency radios on the same frequency which caused more confusion than necessary. To add to that the fire department had just spent several million dollars on new radios that were better than the older ones that they used. But during the events on 9/11 many of the firefighters were not yet using the new radios (Roberts 1). In addition, the departments were not even talking to one another during the rescue operations to relay vital information to each other. This could have created a better system of communication with people inside and outside the tower, but this never even happened. The operation centers for the fire and police police departments weren’t even close to each other which prevented an even greater lack of communication, the operation centers were actually pretty much on opposite side of the World Trade Center complex. So obviously the quality of the communication during 9/11 was not as good as possible and could have improved by a significant margin if a few things were changed and improved.