Jim Gartenberg, 35, a commercial real estate broker with an office on the 86th floor of 1 World Trade Center, kept calling his wife Jill to let her know he was O.K. but trapped. "He let us know he was stuck," says Jill, who is pregnant with their second child. "He called several times until 10. Then nothing. He sounded calm, except for when he told me how much he loved me. He said, 'I don't know if I'll make it.' He sounded like he knew it would be one of the last times he would say he loved me." That was right before the building turned to powder.
35岁的吉姆·加特博格是一名商业不动产代理中介，他的办公室在世贸大厦的86层，他一直在给妻子吉尔打电话，想告诉她自己很好只是被困住了。吉尔正怀着他们的第二个孩子，她说“他让我们知道他被困在那了，他打了很多次电话，一直到10点，然后就杳无音信了。他的声音很冷静，除了在他告诉我他有多爱我的时候。他说‘我不知道我能不能活下来。’听起来就像他知道这可能是他最后一次说他爱我。”在那之后，大楼轰然倒塌。
The tower's structural strength came largely from the 244 steel girders that formed the perimeter of each floor and bore most of the weight of all the floors above. Steel starts to bend at 1000[degrees]. The floors above where the plane hit--each floor weighing millions of pounds--were resting on steel that was softening from the heat of the burning jet fuel, softening until the girders could no longer bear the load above. "All that steel turns into spaghetti," explains retired ATF investigator Ronald Baughn. "And then all of a sudden that structure is untenable, and the weight starts bearing down on floors that were not designed to hold that weight, and you start having collapse." Each floor drops onto the one below, the weight becoming greater and greater, and eventually it all comes down. "It didn't topple. It came straight down. All floors are pancaking down, and there are people on those floors."
这座塔的承重主要来自于244根钢梁，这些钢梁搭成了每一层楼，承担着该层上面的全部重量。钢梁在温度到达1000度的时候开始弯曲。每一层楼的重量都有几百万磅，被飞机撞上的楼层以上的重量就全部落在下面的钢筋上了，而这些钢筋已经因为飞机燃料的燃烧变软，承受不住上面的重量了。已经退休的ATF（译者注：烟、酒武器监督局）调查员罗纳德·鲍恩解释说“那些钢筋已经全部变得像意大利面一样了，然后那个结构就突然承受不住了，那些分量就继续往下压。而下面的钢筋本来不是被设计来承担那么多重量的，于是就开始坍塌了。”每一层楼都落在下一层上，下面的分量就越来越重，最终彻底倒塌。“它不是摇晃着倒的，是直直的倒下来的。”所有的楼层都是平压下来的，每层楼里都有很多人。
The south tower collapsed at 10, fulfilling the prophecy of eight years ago, when last the terrorists tried to bring it down. The north tower came down 29 minutes later, crushing itself like a piston. "I know that the rescue people who were helping us didn't get out of the building," said security official Bill Heitman, who worked on the 80th floor. "I know they didn't make it." And he broke down and sobbed. All that was left of the New York skyline was a chalk cloud. The towers themselves were reduced to jagged stumps; the atrium lobby arches looked like a bombed out cathedral. "A huge plume of smoke was chasing people, rushing through those winding streets of lower Manhattan," says Charlie Stuard, 37, an Internet consultant who works downtown. "It was chaos, a whiteout. That's when people really started to panic. You could see it coming. A bunch of us jumped over a rail, onto the pilings on the East River, ready to jump in."
南部的双子塔在10点钟塌了，承载着八年前的诅咒，那时就有恐怖分子想要弄垮它。北部的塔在29分钟后也随之像个活塞一样把自己压塌了。工作在第80楼的警察比尔·海特曼说，“我知道有很多来救我们的人也没有活着出去。”说着他就哽咽了。纽约的地平线上只剩下了一团白云。双子塔已经变成了断壁残垣；中心大厅的拱门看着像一个被炸毁的大教堂。37岁的查理·斯图尔特是城里的一名网络顾问，他说“一团巨大的烟雾迫使人们冲进低处曼哈顿弯曲的街道里。这是一场大混乱，什么都看不见了。那时人们开始害怕，他们眼睁睁的看着一切发生。很多人跳过围栏，站在东河上的树桩上准备跳进河里。
The streets filled with masked men and women, cloth and clothing torn to tie across their noses and mouths against the dense debris rain. Some streets were eerily quiet. All trading had stopped on Wall Street, so those canyons were empty, the ash several inches thick and gray, the way snow looks in New York almost before it hits the ground. Sounds were both muffled and magnified, echoing off buildings, softened by the smoke. You could hear the chirping of the locator devices the fire fighters wear, hear the whistle of the respirators, see only the lights flashing red and yellow through the haze.
街道上都是带着面具的男男女女，用撕破的布围住鼻子和嘴以防吸入大量的碎片粉尘。一些街道出奇的安静。华尔街所有的交易都停止了,所以街道都空了。灰色的粉尘积了厚厚几英尺，在落地前就像纽约的雪，低沉又空旷的声音在建筑里回响，在烟雾中消散。朦胧中你只能听见消防员带的定位设别吱吱的响，防毒面罩内轻声低语，只能看到红色和黄色的灯在一闪一闪。
