World Trade Center stairs, 9/11, and Hugh Murray

There are times when we are not always aware of the importance of our own words.  In the early 1980s I worked in New York City in the World Trade Center.  One day, the elevators were broken, and rather than await the repairs, (a huge crowd was already waiting to board the elevators to get to work too), I chose to walk up to the office located on the 38th floor.  After the 9^th floor, there were no more lights in the stairwell.  Around the 11^th floor, I placed y hand before my face, but could not see it.  It was that dark.  One could hear the building sway with the wind, the heavy grinding of the metal so it could be flexible.  Going up, I had to grip the rail, and because employees in the building often did not want to go all the way down to eat lunch, or remain at their desks, some would eat on the stairwell, and leave their empty bottles and other trash.  When lit, it was easy to avoid such impediments.  But in the blackened stairwell, for each step, I had to use my foot as a broom, to push any item on which I might trip away to the side.  I reached my office on the 38^th floor, gripping the handrail at each step in the pitch dark.  When I opened the door on the 38 floor, all the office lights were functioning normally and the early crew was working as usual.  I was stunned that the electricity for the elevators and the lights for the stairs might be on the same circuit, malfunctioning at the same time.  I complained at that time to my union representative, and may have written my complaint to OCEA, a government agency that might handle such problems.  However, shortly thereafter I left the job, and never knew the outcome of my complaint.

With the bombing of the WTC in 1993, I was shocked to see TV reports that the lights were off in the stairs.  This time I complained to the newspapers, and my letter was published in the NY POST, 8 March 1993, “WTC: Dark Stairwells and Other Lapses.”  The same letter was published in the New York DAILY NEWS, 18 March 1993, p. 42.   It was also published in NY NEWSDAY.  I did not think these letters important at the time, though the combined circulation of the three newspapers was about 2 million.  Noteworthy, I did not include these publications in my bibliography.

Then September 11, 2001!  INVESTOR’S DAILY noted the changes in the stairwells.  “In 1993, it took six hours to evacuate most of the Trade Center after terrorists detonated a bomb in an underground garage,…After the bombing, however, batteries were added to every other light fixture in stairwells…Handrails were painted with glow-in-the-dark paint, which was used to mark a continuous stripe down the middle of the staircases.”  The newspaper concluded, “…, despite missteps, evacuation was cut by several hours.”  I am quite proud.  I suspect that my letters may have helped spur these improvements, which on 9-11 may have saved many lives.

We can never be sure of the consequences of our actions, or inactions.  But sometimes we can be proud of what we thought were minor acts.  That is much better than grieving because we failed to do something simple.