why wasn't the second tower evacuated????

[mrhopeforwes]

It's one of those things that astounds me more than anything. Here the are--at "full battlestations in the months before 9/11," according to Rice--yet the security people don't then order tower 2 to evacuate immediately since, after all, Bush and co. believed it must be horrible, horrible accident...even though it's the friggin' number 1 terrorist target without a cloud in the sky. Right, accident. As if a plane would just happen to have its controls lock up while aimed at the tower.

[MamaBear]

1. .

As I understand it, with the North Tower on fire, they wanted to keep the plaza as clear as possible so that people wouldn't be injured by flying glass, etc. There actually was no reason to evacuate the South Tower. Remember, the last time the Trade Center had been attacked, only the North Tower had been hit. Many people in the South Tower made their own decision to leave, and survived.

At least, that was what they told us at the time. Many people didn't leave the area until after the North Tower collapsed.

In hindsight, many things no doubt would have been done differently.

[mirandapriestly]

2. The announcement for people to return to their offices was mad at 8:55.

By this time, NORAD knew that two planes had been hijacked and that one of them had hit the north tower (8:46) and that the other one was HEADING TOWARD NYC (#175 had turned toward NYC at 8:28). This goes considerably beyond "hindsight is always 20/20" to me.
The plane that eventually struck the south tower had been known as DEFINITELY hijacked since 8:21 and POSSIBLY hijacked since 8:14.
Not only that, but the announcement was made regularly , it was not just a random announcement, which indicates that some sort of thought or policy had been made. It sounds like a "policy" to make sure there were casualties to me, considering how many lives could have been saved by telling people to evacuate.

(Info from The New Pearl Harbor by David Griffin. The entire book is online at http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2004/06/141355.php )

[sabbat hunter]

3. it is

SOP (standard operating procedure) to not to evacuate a building unless there is immenent danger. for example in the building i work in there was a fire on one floor, but they told us to stay in our offices until further notice. the fire was small and put out without any problems

[Rich Hunt]

4. I asked this question ...

a couple of weeks ago.

Incidentally, I reviewed the Ric Burns documentary last night. People in the south tower talked about seeing burning desks and airplane debris and people flying out the window. For god's sake, the north tower is not that far away!

It's not a 'hindsight' thing, and I'm becoming more and more suspicious of people who insist that.

For god's sake, a commercial jet crashed into the building next door - common sense would tell you to evacuate the other one, before the second one catches fire or something. A commercial jet.

Sorry, but this is one 'little pill' I'm not going to swallow. As I said, many of the documentaries had interviews with south tower workers who had (sensibly) made it all the way down to the lobby, only to be told to go back upstairs.

No "danger"? As I said, buildings in cities DO get evacuated if there is a major, major explosion or fire in the one next door.

Do try again. You need more 'spin management' classes before you bring your cover-up back to DU.

You find a way to evacuate people when this happens. Period.

More people died in the south tower than the north.
Incidentally (or perhaps not), this is the 'hit' we all saw on tv, if not live, and it was quite a 'spectacular' shot. It collapsed much sooner, too. The whole thing put together really STINKS.

[sabbat hunter]

5. before you start

before you start accusing people of 'covering up' please think first. you have been around long enough to know better. i am not covering anything up, i merely stated my opinion.