Containment areas of plywood and thick plastic sheeting meant to keep in potentially dangerous particles sucked in air, fanning flames. Plywood that had replaced windows on the upper floors can be seen burning in photographs.The building became a house of horrors, and the decontamination systems in place fanned the flames by using negative pressure to keep the building's contaminants inside the confined spaces.
Flames got around and under the firefighters who died, Robert Beddia, 53, and Joseph Graffagnino, 33. A voice believed to be that of Firefighter Beddia was heard on a radio transmission saying he had run out of air and was trying to follow his hose out. It may have been his last transmission.
“There were problems getting water on the fire,” one official said. “They are trapped and they run out of air because of how rapidly the conditions change, and now they have no refuge and they cannot get out. They now cannot see and they have no air.”
Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which owns the building, promised investigations, and an official with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration said the agency had cited the John Galt Corporation, the subcontractor doing the demolition, for 20 serious violations at the building. At the same time, officials said that tests had revealed that the air around the building was clear of asbestos, but that it would take several days for results of tests for other contaminants.
Residents in the area expressed an array of frustrations.
“You’d think that after six years, we would have learned something, but when this fire broke out, there was no notification system in place, and the people who live around here didn’t know what to do,” said Patricia L. Moore, who lives at 125 Cedar Street, in the shadow of the burned building. “Some of us left the building and some of us stayed, but we’re all concerned.”
Avi Schick, the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, said the fire was “a perfect storm of misfortune that worked together to turn what is, under any circumstance, a hazardous situation into something that was perhaps even more treacherous.”
Mr. Schick said the mechanism to ensure negative air pressure within the containment areas might have worsened conditions by bringing in a supply of outside air that wound up feeding the flames and by drawing smoke across the floor without fully venting it, since the exhausts have filters designed to trap particles in the air.
“It’s likely that the very measures that were insisted upon by the E.P.A. to protect those on the outside had a less than salutary effect when the fire started, because there were too many pulls on the oxygen,” Mr. Schick said. “And the firefighters paid the ultimate price.” Officials said the fire would delay the dismantling of the building by about three weeks.
The last calls from the trapped firefighters showed that they knew that things were going to get real bad real quick. They were disoriented and knew that their air supply was going to run out.
"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Engine 24 standing by!" a voice on the fire radio yelled. "I'm lost. I'm trying to make it on the charged hose line. Running out of air!" came a frantic call.Meanwhile residents nearby aren't entirely comforted by the initial air quality test results, noting that the same was said in the aftermath of the collapse of the towers on 9/11 and that proved to be untrue.
The radio transmissions - obtained by the Daily News - chronicled firefighters' growing desperation as they fought Saturday's blaze in a skyscraper devastated by the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I'm not sure which side we're on - but we're blowing windows out - we're outta air," a firefighter radioed to crews below.
In the background comes a fainter voice telling more ominous news: "The firemen on the 14th floor, they're screaming for help. They can't get to them."
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