THE MOST IMPORTANT DEED IN MY LIFE?? A LETTER TO THE EDITOR??

      HUGH MURRAY

     On a personal note, I admit, sometimes I do the unusual.  For example, some years ago I worked at the World Trade Center in New York, #2 WTC, on the 38th floor.  On wintry days near closing time, it was a joy to look out the window down NY harbor atthe Statue of Liberty as the sun began to set.  A beautiful scene.

 

     I was a minor bureaucrat working for a government agency.  One day. probably in 1982; our department decided to have a fire drill.  We walked down the steps from the 38th to the 33rd floor (these were the floors rented by our agency).  There we all gathered and asked what next.  We were told, in case of emergency, someone would give us further directions at that time.  We were told one most important fact - as this was a new building, new improvements in the elevator had been added.  For example, in most elevators, you must press a button once inside the cabin to direct the devise to the floor to which you wish to go.  With the updated device, you no longer had to press the button, just place your finger on the desired number floor, and the heat of your digit was sufficient to tell the elevator which floor you wanted to go to.  No need to push the buttons, just place your finger over the number.  There was a drawback, however; he informed us..  In case of a fire, the heat of the fire would heat the buttons too and call the elevators to the burning floor.  In case of a fire, we were urged not to use the elevators.

 

     Some time later in 1983, I was then living in nearby Brooklyn, and if I woke early and the weather was nice, instead of the packed subway, I would walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.  The tall WTC in the foreground had sufficient glass to reflect the sky and it sometimes appeared a light purple.  At the end of the bridge, I could go north to China Town, or south toward the Wall St. area.  I walked to the WTC, but when I reached the lobby of #2, it was packed.  The elevators were not working. and ever more people were coming up from the subway below to join the crowd.  Unlike most, I had an alternative.  Sometimes, I would walk up to work, the 38 flights.  The stairways were well hidden, but I knew where they were. Should I wait for an elevator - none were then running, or walk.  My walk was no fast run.  I might be late for work.  I chose to walk up.

 

     All went well until the 9th floor, for I looked up and it was dark.  I kept going, but slower.  By the 11th floor, I placed my hand in front of my face and could see nothing.  That is dark.  I went very slowly, because from past experience I knew some would eat lunch on the stairs, and leave trash and even bottles.  I did not want to fall in this perpendicular cave of night.  There was an eerie sound in this "cave" however - a metalic one.  The building was constructed to sway with the wind.  The 110 stories moved.  One did not notice this when working in the outer sections where folks worked.  But in the stairwells, you could hear the metal crunch of the wind's power on the massive building.  Now and then I would open a door to check the floor I had reached, then back to the cave.  At 38 I opened the door and was shocked.  The lights were on, the early shift was working as usual; all was normal.  But now I was convinced something important was wrong.  The lights in the stairwell were out at the same time the elevators were not working.

 

     I informed my union representative that we should write the Occupational Safety and Health Administration about this problem.  I was about to leave the job, and wrote the agency 23 May 1983.  I do not know it the union representative also wrote the agency.

 

     A decade later, 26 February 1993, I was living in Milwaukee, watching the national news on tv, and learned that terrorists had attempted to blow up the WTC.  A bomb had been planted in a vehicle in the WTC parking garage below the building.  It damaged the buildings.  Workers tried to escape, but there were no lights in the stairs.  It took some 6 hours to get people out of the building that day.

 

     I decided I would write to urge changes in the stairwells.  I wrote the same letter to the then big 4 newspapers in NYC - the New York Times, the New York Post, the Daily News, and Long Island Newsday.  Three of the four published my letter, the Post, Daily News, and Newsday.  I quote below from my letter of 18 March 1993 in the Daily News:

 

     Let there be . . . .

     When I was working  [at the WTC] . . . I wrote to the Occupational Safety and Health agency to complain that the lights in the stairways of the WTC had been out during a minor emergency. . . .Watching CNN [the other night], it seems the lights were still out on some of the stairways.  The managers of the buildings have had 10 years to rectify a dangerous situation.  Did they do so?  No one could predict that fanatics might place a bomb in the garage.  But everyone could have predicted that at some point there might be an emergency.  And during an emergency, the stairways, the only highways out of the citylike buildings, should be lit.

 

     The New York Post published a slightly longer version of the same letter, earlier on 8 March 1993.  Newsday also published it, though I no longer have a copy of that, and the date was about the same as the other two.  The circulation of these 3 newspapers was then about 2.5 million.  Did my letters have any effect?

 

    Shortly after 9/11/2001 Investor's Business Daily commented on changes in the building AFTER the 1993 bombing.  "After the [earlier garage] bombing, however, batteries were added to every other light fixture in stairwells in case power went out.  Handrails were painted with glow-in-the-dark paint, which also was used to mark a continuous stripe down the middle of the staircases.  A public address system was added."  Did this make a difference?  The same paper notes - "In 1993, it took six hours to evacuate most of the Trade Center after terrorists detonated a bomb in an underground garage, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000.  This time [9/11] despite missteps, evacuation was cut by several hours."  In 2001 they did not have 6 hours, but many did escape in the 2 hours before the crumbling.

 

     I do not think that my letter alone caused the changes.  But it surely put pressure to make changes.  3 NY papers with 2-3 million circulation meant the issue could not be hidden under a rug.

 

     I think that my letter may well have helped to force the changes that saved lives on 9/11.  It may well be the most important act in my life.  A letter of complaint!  And yet, a justification for everyone who complains when they observe something wrong.  My most important deed.

      If you wish to see a few more of my writings, and some old photos, a friend, Tony Flood made a portal for me on one of his sites.  http://anthonyflood.com/murray.htm

WORKING AT WORLD TRADE CENTER

     By Hugh Murray

            There are times when we are not always aware of the importance of our own actions.  In the early 1980s I worked in New York City in the World Trade Center on the 38^th floor.  Though my desk was drafty in winter and we had little control over the temperature, the winter view was spectacular – the sun setting while we could look down on the Statue of Liberty with the golden red horizon in the West.  Indeed, I recall beautiful scenes of New York.  For a time, I lived in Brooklyn and would walk to work across the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning.  Looking at the massive twin towers of the WTC, they appeared purple reflecting some of the morning sky.  If I had enough time and were more energetic that day, I might walk all the way to work, climbing the staircase to the 38^th floor.  There were no beautiful sights in the stairwell, some empty soda bottles and paper plates, refuse left by those who took a quick lunch away from the malls in the Trade Center lobbies.  The stairwells were narrow; just room for two people.  Unlike the rest of the building, it was in the stairways that one could hear the creaking of the building as these 110 story-structures swayed in the wind.

            One day in 1983 our agency conducted a fire drill.  All of us walked down from the 38^th floor, joining with the fellow workers from the 37^th, 36^th, 35^th, 34^th, and we all congregated by the elevators on the 33^rd floor.  These were the floors rented by the New York State agency for which I worked.  We were then instructed to do this same action in case of fire.

            WTC were modern buildings, the tallest in the world when constructed in the 1970s.  Both towers included modern features like robots that crawled up and down the outside windows, cleaning them from the ground to the 110 story.  The elevators, like subways, had local and express cars.  They rose so fast your ears popped, so, as in airplanes, you had to chew to avoid pain.  Another modern innovation, there were no pushbuttons in the elevators.  There were circled numbers indicating floors, and they appeared to be buttons, but they were not.  You did not push them to indicate the floor you wanted to get to; you simply placed your finger on the appropriately numbered circle, and the heat of your finger would light up the number and take you to that floor.  But it was not a push button.  Even to call the elevator from the lobby, a similar circle, but not a push button was used.  The heat of your finger on the circle called the elevator to that floor.

            During the fire drill, we were warned not to take the elevators in case of fire.  The reason – the heat of the flames would call the elevator to the floor with the fire.  When we asked what we should do after arriving at the 33^rd floor during a fire, we were told to wait there for further instructions.  That we were told was policy in 1983.

            One day that year I arrived at work from the subway, and the lobby was packed with people.  The elevators were not working, and everyone was waiting, with no idea when they might be fixed.  Should I wait or walk?  Either way, I would be late, for even if the elevators were fixed immediately, I would not be on the first or the tenth.  So I decided to walk.  I knew where an entrance to the stairs was and began my upward climb as usual.  But, on the 9^th floor, there was no light.  And as I climbed higher, it was worse.  On the 11^th floor, I held my hand before my face, and could not see it.  I continued my upward climb, but slowly. Gripping the handrail, with each step I had to move my foot so as to clear a path of bottles or trash.  If I tripped and fell, who knows how long before someone would find me?  When I finally reached the 38^th floor and opened the door, I was shocked.  The lights in the office and electricity were working normally.  The early crew was doing its job.  They laughed when I appeared, because they knew the elevators still were not repaired and knew I must have walked up.  But I was stunned for another reason – how could there be a malfunction of the electricity of the elevators and the lights in the stairwell at the same time?  I soon complained to my union representative, and one of us may have written to OSEA, a federal agency that might take up such problems.  Shortly thereafter, I left that job and never knew the outcome of my complaint.

            With the bombing of World Trade Center in 1993, I was shocked to see TV reports that workers in the twin towers had difficulties getting down the unlit stairwells in the evacuation of the buildings.  The evacuation took 6 hours.  This time I decided to complain to the newspapers.  I wrote the same letter to the four largest newspapers in New York at that time, presenting my 1983 stairwell story in summary fashion.  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, which then had a large New York City circulation.  Generally, newspapers do not publish the same letter published by competitors.  Their editors must have judged my letter important.  Only the NY Times did not publish it.  Nevertheless, the combined circulation of the 3 papers that did publish my letter was over 2 million.

             Then September 11, 2001!  A few days later 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 the 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.”  In 1993, it took six hours.  On 9/11, they did not have 6 hours.  Nevertheless, most were able to get out.  I am quite proud.  I suspect that my letters helped spur these improvements, which on 9/11 saved lives.     

            I have published in many academic journals.  When I published the letter in the 3 New York newspapers, I originally deemed it so inconsequential, I did not bother to include it in my bibliography, my list of publications.  After 9/11, I now suspect that letter may be the most import deed of my entire life.