floors of the Marriott. Four of these companies searched the spa on the hotel's
top floor--the 22nd floor--for civilians, and found none.
South Tower. In fact, he pointed them to the North Tower. Three of the FDNY
companies who had entered the North Tower from the Marriott found a work-
ing elevator in a bank at the south end of the lobby, which they took to the
23rd floor.
staging area. At this time, the units that earlier had been staged on the Brook-
lyn side of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel were dispatched to the South Tower;
some had gone through the tunnel already and had responded to the Marriott,
not the South Tower.
ladder company encountered numerous seriously injured civilians on the 70th
floor.With the assistance of a security guard, at 9:53 a group of civilians trapped
in an elevator on the 78th-floor sky lobby were found by an FDNY company.
They were freed from the elevator at 9:58. By that time the battalion chief had
reached the 78th floor on stairwell A; he reported that it looked open to the
79th floor, well into the impact zone. He also reported numerous civilian fatal-
ities in the area.
van (Field Comm), numerous units that began to arrive after the South Tower
was hit, and EMS chiefs and personnel.
operating at the scene on a large magnetic board. Both of these missions were
severely compromised by the magnitude of the disaster on September 11.
First, the means of transmitting information were unreliable. For example,
while FDNY dispatch advised Field Comm that 100 people were reported
via 911 to be trapped on the 105th floor of the North Tower, and Field
Comm then attempted to convey that report to chiefs at the outdoor com-
mand post, this information did not reach the North Tower lobby. Second,
Field Comm's ability to keep track of which units were operating where was
limited, because many units reported directly to the North Tower, the South
Tower, or the Marriott.Third, efforts to track units by listening to tactical 1
were severely hampered by the number of units using that channel; as many
people tried to speak at once, their transmissions overlapped and often
became indecipherable. In the opinion of one of the members of the Field