The 911 Operator Calls

The 911 Operator Calls transcripts and recordings have just been released in New York.
I can only describe the reading and listening experience as heavy, sombre, intense, helpless ... my heart goes out to both the victims and the operators that day.

Excerpts of transcripts of actual calls

The recordings of the actual calls
(Note: By Court Order, the transcripts and recordings have omitted the actual voices of the callers victdims in the two Towers. Only the operators' voices are released.)

Fighting to Live As The Towers Died (the final moments in the Towers)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/26/nyregion/26WTC.html

The 9/11 Records

Complete NYTimes 911 Coverage
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2005/11/30/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/01/nyregion/01tapes.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/01/nyregion/01operator.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/nyregion/31-sept11-audio.html


Some transcripts of the 911 calls cited in the New York Times:

"Just hold on one second, sir," a police operator said to a man on the 105th floor. "Hold on. I hear the fire alarm. They're coming. They're on their way. They're working on it. My God, this — don't worry. God is there. God is there. God is — don't worry about it. God is — don't worry."

"I don't know what they're doing," an Emergency Medical Service operator said. She was referring to a group of perhaps five people she had been talking with on the south tower's 83rd floor before they had gone silent. "And it's an awful thing. It's an awful, awful, awful thing to call somebody and tell them you're going to die. That's an awful thing. I hope — I hope they're all alive because they sound like they went — they passed out because they were breathing hard, like snoring, like they're unconscious."

Nine minutes later, the south tower fell, and 29 minutes after that, the north tower went down.