By Hana Alberts and William Murphy
Newsday (New York)
Copyright 2006 Newsday, Inc.
New York City plans to release 1,613 phone call recordings today containing the voices of emergency workers and a trapped civilian at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
This will be the third time in barely a year that the public will once again revisit the events and voices of that day.
Most of the 911 calls that will be released today are from Fire Department employees to fire dispatchers, but there are also 10 calls from people trapped in the towers, although most such voices won’t be heard.
The Fire Department is releasing these recordings now because of an oversight that occurred after a March decision by the New York State Court of Appeals to release all calls, according to a statement.
A personnel error led to the department overlooking another tape of phone calls made between 8:45 and 10:45 a.m. on Sept. 11, the statement said.
One of the calls to be released will be from Melissa Doi, who was trapped on the 83rd floor of the south tower. Part of her recording — in which she screams, “We’re all going to die” — was among those played at the terror trial of Zacarias Moussaoui earlier this year.
That excerpt will be the only time a civilian voice is heard on today’s tapes. The other nine voices have been redacted because the Court of Appeals verdict also held that words uttered by civilians be kept private. Thus the only voices audible on those 10 tapes will be from emergency dispatchers.
Doi’s tape, along with two others, had not been released publicly at a request from the federal government because they were intended as evidence in Moussaoui’s then ongoing trial.
Doi’s mother, Evelyn Aldrete, didn’t answer the door of her Bronx home yesterday. “All this time later, it’s still a very tragic time for her,” said an unidentified woman outside, who turned a reporter away.
Sally Regenhard of the Bronx, who lost her firefighter son Christian, said the tapes will help families construct a picture of what exactly happened to their loved ones during their last moments.
“I have the right to know what happened to my son on 9/11,” said Regenhard, the founder and chairwoman of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign. “The more information that we learn, the more we can help other people in the future.”
The first release of tapes and transcripts was Aug. 12, 2005, when about 12,000 pages of oral histories from firefighters and 900 minutes of radio transmissions were made public. The second release came March 31 — some 130 calls made to 911 operators.
The city had at first sought to block release of the material, but lost a three-year court battle that went to the state Court of Appeals.
“It’s a good thing, because we can finally get more of the truth,” Regenhard said.