Emergency/Disaster Wireless Community Scenario — World Trade Center 9/11

9/16/02

Combine mobile device location pinpointing, wireless devices, and the ability to form emergency communities (which support purpose, identity, and reputation in particular -- the foundation of trust (http://www.typaldos.com/12principles.htm),  a scenario can be imagined that if it existed on Sept. 11, 2001, could have enabled hundreds of people in the WTC South Tower to find the single staircase that was open from the top to the bottom of the building.

"Through most of both towers, the staircases were tightly clustered, and in the north tower, they were all immediately severed or blocked by the blast. Along the impact zone of the south tower, floors 78 to 84, however, the stairs had to divert around heavy elevator machinery. So instead of running close to the building core, two of the stairways serving those floors were built closer to the perimeter. One of them, on the northwest side, survived. A report in USA Today this month also suggested that the surviving stairway might have been shielded by the machinery."

"Even after the second airplane struck, an open staircase connected the upper reaches of the south tower to the street. The Times has identified 18 men and women who used it to escape from the impact zone or above. At the same time they were evacuating, at least 200 other people were climbing toward the roof in that tower, unaware that a passable stairway down was available.."

"A fine powder mixed with light smoke floated through the stairwell. As they approached the 81st floor, Mr. Clark would recall, they met a slim man and a heavyset woman. "You can't go down," the woman screamed. "You got to go up. There is too much smoke and flame below. This assessment changed everything. Hundreds of people came to a similar conclusion, but the smoke and the debris in the stairwell proved less of an obstacle than the fear of it. This very stairwell was the sole route out of the building, running from the top to the bottom of the south tower. Anyone who found this stairwell early enough could have walked to freedom.           

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/26/nyregion/26WTC.html?pagewanted=print&position=tophttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/26/nyregion/26WTC.html

Unable to communicate reliable information within a trusted "community" of WTC South Tower inhabitants, those trapped in the tower communicated instead to the outside, where there was actually less information.

Cynthia Typaldos
cynthia@typaldos.com
www.typaldos.com