Twin Towers Research Paper

In a disaster situation, the first instinct people have, no matter the circumstance, is to escape. On September 11, 2001, that exact thought was running through the heads of those in the Twin Towers, but unfortunately, many people were not able to make it out as the result of the impact of the plane, which would not have been as lethal if the buildings were properly built. The sources used as evidence for this claim include 102 Minutes, written by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, an excerpt from the Encyclopedia of U.S. History, written by Sonia Benson, an article written by Thomas W. Eager and Christopher Musso, and separate articles, one written by Will Knight and the other by Jim Dwyer. The faulty construction of the Twin Towers was the greatest

Clearly, safety was not the primary concern and instead speed and inexpensiveness were the most important factors when designing the buildings. The building should have been designed with the safety of the 50,000 workers and 200,000 daily visitor being the primary concern. Consequently, when the planes hit the Twin Towers, there were very few ways people could escape

Both buildings did not include enough staircases “to meet… the major building codes” (Dwyer) in New York City. Both buildings only included three staircases, which was in no way adequate for total evacuation and on 9/11 they became blocked with so much debris from the attack that all three stairwells were “destroyed or made impassable” (Dwyer and Flynn 121). It is absolutely unacceptable that a building holding tens of thousands of people did not have enough staircases to escape by, and the few it did were blocked off. In 102 Minutes, the story of Gregory Milanowycz is told who, along with 30 others, was trapped on the 93rd floor of the South Tower. He called his father to tell him that “the staircases collapsed… we are stuck here”(Dwyer and Flynn 111). Unfortunately, hundreds of people shared the same experience as Milanowycz and had nowhere to go as a result of blocked staircases.
In addition to the design and staircases, the lack of fireproofing in the Twin Towers further supports the claim that the inadequate construction of the tower was the greatest contributing factor to loss of life. The fireproofing was not sufficient to begin with and had never even been tested. After the 1993 bombing, the Port Authority began to replace it but had