An announcement in the South WTC tower said for no need to evacuate the building because of the fire in the North WTC tower."Brent Glading, a salesman for MassMutual Financial Group's OppenheimerFunds Inc., was on the 33rd floor of the South Tower yesterday morning when the first plane hit the North Tower. He headed down the stairs, but then there was an announcement over the building's public address system that said a plane had hit the North Tower but that the South Tower was secure. So he and others began heading back to their offices." - Pulitzer/Wall Street Journal (09/12/01)
"A Briton who worked in the World Trade Centre in New York has said that staff were told there was no need to evacuate the building after the first plane smashed into the north tower of the complex on Tuesday morning.Mike Shillaker said he was on the 72nd floor of the south tower when the first hijacked plane struck. "We started walking down the stairs," he said. "A message came out of the Tannoy when we were on about floor 50 that there was an isolated fire in the first building and there was actually no need to proceed down the stairs any further if we didn’t want to. There was no need to evacuate."Mr Shillaker said he ignored this message and continued to descend the stairs: "We got down to about floor 40 and I think that is when the second plane hit, but even at that stage we were completely oblivious to actually what was going on. "The rumours were that a small plane had maybe hit the first building and that the second bang was an aftershock or something like that. It was only when we got downstairs that there was some sort of sense of panic." - TCM Breaking News (9/14/01)
"A Briton who worked in the World Trade Centre in New York has said that staff were told there was no need to evacuate the building after the first plane smashed into the north tower of the complex on Tuesday morning.Mike Shillaker said he was on the 72nd floor of the south tower when the first hijacked plane struck. "We started walking down the stairs," he said. "A message came out of the Tannoy when we were on about floor 50 that there was an isolated fire in the first building and there was actually no need to proceed down the stairs any further if we didn’t want to. There was no need to evacuate."Mr Shillaker said he ignored this message and continued to descend the stairs: "We got down to about floor 40 and I think that is when the second plane hit, but even at that stage we were completely oblivious to actually what was going on. "The rumours were that a small plane had maybe hit the first building and that the second bang was an aftershock or something like that. It was only when we got downstairs that there was some sort of sense of panic." - TCM Breaking News (9/14/01)
