[OKDXA] Check this out...

[Nelson Derks]

We use these words all the time, but this one really made me think... Take
something as ordinary as a repeater then apply an extraordinary situation
and see what happens:

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For much of the last year, New York City has said the devastating breakdown
in fire communications at the World Trade Center was largely caused by the
failure of an electronic device in the complex called a repeater, which was
designed to boost radio transmissions in high rise buildings.

Now, however, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's analysis of
its 78-minute tape of firefighter communications from Sept. 11 flatly
contradicts the city's version of what went wrong. It also raises questions
about the thoroughness of the city's investigations into the worst loss of
life any fire department has ever experienced � 343 men.

If the Port Authority's position is correct, it raises the possibility that
different factors � failure of other equipment, design of communications
consoles in the tower lobbies, or a simple mistake made at a moment of high
stress � might have accounted for the communications breakdowns. Many
firefighters believe those breakdowns contributed to the department's
staggering losses.

On the tape, which recorded transmissions as they were passed through the
repeater, firefighters in the south tower can be heard speaking over their
radios until the building collapses. Practically no communications are
recorded from firefighters in the north tower, even though the same repeater
served both of the towers.

Before the voices from the south tower are heard, a series of coded tones
are captured on the tape, marking the moment that the radio repeater was
turned on, a spokesman for the Port Authority said.

In the view of Port Authority officials, those transmissions show beyond any
doubt that the repeater worked, contrary to the accounts given in an
official study of the emergency response that has been endorsed by Mayor
Michael R. Bloomberg and Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta.

Asked, then, what would account for the communications failures, a spokesman
for the Port Authority, Greg Trevor, said, "You will have to put those
questions to the Fire Department."

The tape is likely to be remembered as far more than a record of what went
wrong. It contains the only permanently preserved voices of firefighters
from the tower stairwells, including transmissions from the fire chief who
climbed highest into the building. As the firefighters raced up the stairs
of the south tower, and right until the final seconds, they can be heard
calmly organizing help for injured civilians as high as the 78th floor.

--- more ---

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/nyregion/09TAPE.html

- AC5UP, in for the count...