All Too Human

During the same week that New Yorkers said that "terror" and a lack of "terror preparedness" were tops on their list of concerns-up there above education, unemployment and the city's crumbling infrastructure-yet another in the endless series of official reports was released, claiming to explain what really happened on Sept. 11.

This latest report, from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), focused primarily on engineering questions: "Why did the buildings collapse?" "How could the evacuation have gone more smoothly?" and so forth. At its heart, the report's conclusion is essentially this: "The people who died in the World Trade Center that day died because people are stupid."

Beneath all the numbers and all the structural data, the death toll, NIST says, was the direct result of foolish human behavior. Lots of people stayed in their offices for six or seven extra minutes after the evacuation order was given, fretting over what they should do. Once deciding to get out, a number of people didn't know where to find the stairwells. And even after having found the stairwells, people on their way down stopped to catch their breath, holding up those behind them. Worse, the inconsiderate masses clogging the stairs prevented firemen from getting up to the upper floors to rescue others and survey the situation.

The firemen aren't blameless here, either. The 1000 first responders on the scene didn't stop and take turns on the radio, the report claims. Instead, every one of them simultaneously tried to communicate with each other over a mere eight channels. The resulting confusion and mixed messages could have been prevented had the firemen kept a few simple rules of phone etiquette in mind.

NIST's explanation for the physical collapse of the buildings-the same explanation that's been given over and over again in similar reports-is nothing more than a conspiracy theorist's feast. "The impact," they say, "blew all the fireproofing away from the walls, then the girders got real hot from the fires, and the whole thing fell straight down."

The scientific problems with that explanation were outlined in detail within days after the attacks, which is why it's so odd and alarming to see a group of professional engineers trotting it out again. Given the nature of most of their other findings, we're surprised they didn't conclude that the buildings came down because all the people who worked in there were so grotesquely fat.