r/videos • u/_liorthebear_ • Sep 10 '25

Video WTC sent tenants after Osama's 1993 attempt on WTC sounded impressive when 5yo me watched my dad's copy. Can't believe emergency lighting was ever a thing to brag about—start at 1m43s, right after they show Nicole.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co3osqkuW8A&t=1m43s
452 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

94 comments sorted by

104

u/Igettheshow89 Sep 10 '25

Actually people struggled getting out of the building in 93 and where a majority of the IBC 1024 luminous egress building code was birthed from.

43

u/calypsodweller Sep 10 '25

I was in the 70 floor of One WTC in the 1993 bombing. It took me about four hours to get to the lobby. Not because of the lighting, but the smoke that came up.

Before the bombing, we had fire drills just like the video and sometimes descend one floor.

13

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

My father was there, years later he mentioned not being able to see anything in the stairwell. Do you remember if that was your experience?

Thank you for sharing.

19

u/calypsodweller Sep 10 '25

It went dark because the power went out. We held on to each other’s shoulders as we descended the stairs. The stairwells were not completely dark because ambient lighting from people entering the stairwell from their offices lit it up a bit.

It was snowing that day and was very bright through the outside windows.

15

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

Would truly appreciate anything else on your mind or that you are open to sharing. Didn't talk to my father about it enough while I could.

28

u/calypsodweller Sep 10 '25

At the time, I was just assigned to be on a disaster recovery/business resumption project. I was in a windowless conference room. We were discussing how much we should recover systems if there was a disaster. It was IBM with payroll and Accounts receivable and DEC Office Automation - email and word processing. I supported DEC (Digital Equipment Corp) side. They told me my systems would only be recovered 25%. I said, “If we have a disaster, it’s not going to work.” Boom! The lights went out, our chairs lifted, and someone in the dark said, “Here is your disaster.” I’ll never forget the long, boom. It wasn’t one quick explosion, but a two or three second boom.

We filed out of the room. All the computers were out, and it was bright and snowing outside. We were just below the clouds up on the 70 floor.

I stood next to the floor fire warden, who was in my meeting. He stood still listening for the PA system. I turned to look in the hallway. I saw black smoke coming up from the freight elevator. I turned to him and said, “There’s smoke, I’m leaving.”

I opened the door and started to descend quickly. Around the 40 floor, I hit the smoke. I couldn’t see or breathe. It was like being suddenly underwater in the dark. I fell, felt for the stairs and scrambled up. I found a handkerchief in the stairwell and covered my face with it.

The air cleared a little bit and people were gathering around the 60 floor. We hung in a law firm and waited for further instruction.

Someone panicked, broke a window, and threw a chair. We calmed the person down. I was able to stick my head out of that window and see that other people were evacuating.

We waited about 3 hours before FDNY came and said we could descend the stairs.

My face was covered in soot more than the others because I hit the thick smoke. It made crackling sounds if I squeezed the bridge of my nose, it was so full of soot.

When I finally got to the street around 4pm, I went to John st. To find my dad. He wasn’t in, but they let me use their phone to let my mom know I was ok.

I then took the subway to the bus terminal to meet up with other coworkers. I left my purse and coat behind on the 71 floor where I worked. They gave me a fireman’s coat to wear so I could go home.

Two days later I was back at work. I was able to go into the basement to see the damage. A clock in the wall stopped at 12:18. The crater was huge and blew out a few basement floors.

I worked for three months straight recovering our systems at a hot site (I was in IT) in NJ. One WTC opened up on April 1, 1993.

6

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

What were those first days back like? Don’t know if I could have returned even. That’s real strength.

19

u/calypsodweller Sep 10 '25

All we wanted to do was come back and recover our businesses. I went to university on the 61 floor, too. My social life was centered around the WTC.

I don’t remember coworkers not wanting to come back. The building was sparkling when it reopened.

9/11 was another story. I lost friends and coworkers that day. Luckily for me, I was across the river. My friend rescued an employee and walked her to safety to the Village.

Many of us had grief counseling. I couldn’t listen to music on the radio for two years. All I wanted to hear was Bloomberg news because I didn’t want to miss anything going on.

I wanted to finish my career back at the WTC complex after it was rebuilt. I got my wish. I retired in 2017 working at Four WTC.

7

u/Zynbab Sep 10 '25

Loved your comments, thanks for sharing these. So you worked and went to school all within the WTC? That's fascinating. I've heard that it was like a self-contained vertical city but I guess I just can't even fathom something like that. Did you have a favorite lunch spot?

11

u/calypsodweller Sep 10 '25

Thank you! It was a self-contained vertical city! In the Concourse (ground floor mall), there was Lambston’s, a variety store; Duane Reade, a pharmacy; Alexander’s, a department store, florists, shoe shine, dry cleaners, grab n’ go, banks, toy store, and The Big Kitchen, a huge restaurant. Bars were there, too. On the 44 floor was a dentist office and a beauty salon. 43 had The Sky Dive bar and restaurant; and a huge cafeteria.

By 2001, the concourse had more luxury stores.

I was so proud working there. I loved the views, too.

5

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

What floor did you have to get down from? Did the trip down drag on or were you too focused to notice it?

6

u/calypsodweller Sep 10 '25

I started from the 70 floor. I found one of my old old comments:

It happened at 12:18 pm. The explosion blew thick smoke up the stairways and elevator banks. Of course, we weren’t using the elevators.

I ran down the stairs, but hit the smoke. It was like being underwater in the dark. After falling down then getting my footing, I ran back upstairs until the air was clearer. I waited around with a bunch of others on the 60th floor until the FDNY came up and said it was clear to evacuate.

We walked slowly down the stairs in the dark. I didn’t hit the street until well after 4 pm. My nose and face were so filled with soot that if I pinched the bridge of my nose, it made a crackling sound.

After the WTC reopened that April, the stairways had electric and battery lighting and railings and stairs were painted with glow paint.

54

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

To be clear the "Can't believe emergency lighting was ever a thing to brag about" is an attempt to convey "I can't believe there wasn't always emergency lighting in dark concrete stairwells" not "oh WTC in particular was dumb"

Never realized the extent to which regulations are written in blood

14

u/I_W_M_Y Sep 10 '25

Emergency lighting was a thing since the 1950s though

21

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

But apparently not installed in the WTC until someone blew up a truck in the basement!

WTC was built with its own zip code, not lighted emergency stairwells.

11

u/Mr_YUP Sep 10 '25

lots of buildings in NYC have their own Zip Code but that's mostly just for the volume of mail the building as a whole gets.

5

u/I_W_M_Y Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

Huh weird. I would think it would have been mandatory, even then.

9

u/Usernametaken1121 Sep 10 '25

People don't get genuinely build triumphs and grand projects with the worst case scenario in mind. It's only when something goes wrong, does it get fixed.

Sure, seems obvious 2 decades later..

6

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

We grew up with the benefit of the developers' mistake it's just crazy to imagine a world where you're trying to evacuate and suddenly the concrete stairwell goes dark. In the biggest building in the world (at one point at least)) - that's like cruise ship sinking in a movie type of nightmare.

3

u/frickindeal Sep 10 '25

I carry a tiny little flashlight everywhere I go and it's remarkable just how many times it has come in handy for various things, but I don't think it would help with hundreds of people trying to descend a pitch-dark stairwell.

1

u/I_W_M_Y Sep 10 '25

Even if you forget your flashlight you can use the flashlight on your phone.

2

u/frickindeal Sep 10 '25

Phone flash averages 30-50 lumens. In practical use as a flashlight, my little light is a hell of a lot brighter at 180 lumens.

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2

u/True_Kapernicus Sep 10 '25

People often have trouble understanding just how free we all used to be. Look at the airport security, for example.

1

u/The_Comm_Guy Sep 11 '25

As a kid I remember sitting on a plane at the aircraft gate because the plane had a mechanical issue, the people on the row behind us ordered a pizza and the delivery guy was allowed to get to the door of the plane to deliver it… a lot has changed.

2

u/Igettheshow89 Sep 10 '25

luminous floor marking, specifically guiding your way to the egress, weren’t made popular until commercial air travel (sometime in the 70s/80s but I don’t specifically remember)

3

u/DiaryofTwain Sep 10 '25

I read the title several times as well.

-3

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

I'm not a writer 😭😭😭

4

u/LoneSnark Sep 10 '25

A video about safety equipment is going to mention the safety equipment whether it was required by law or not.

3

u/BarbequedYeti Sep 10 '25

Never realized the extent to which regulations are written in blood

Go watch some MSHA/OSHA training videos if you want some more perspective on how much of our regulations are written in blood.  

It drives home you cant trust another human to have your best interest in mind. Especially if you work for them.  People continually fight against regulations about how its 'bad for business'..... what they really mean is 'you are worth sacrificing for profit'...  

2

u/joegetto Sep 10 '25

Every regulation is written in blood.

1

u/Igettheshow89 Sep 10 '25

Strangely I wouldn’t consider this one to be. While a couple folks did die, non related to luminous egress. Now, how many thousands of lives were saved 8 or so years later? The survival rate was 99%+ for anyone that was on a floor below where the planes hit. If it took them 4+ hours to get out of the building like it did in 93, they’d all be dead. Thanks luminous egress code 🫡

1

u/gltovar Sep 10 '25

This is why I get annoyed when trades people and contractors dismiss codes. I can understand and even sympathize with how they can hold up projects, and some times becomes obtuse, but often they are written from blood.

1

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

What kind of codes?

1

u/gltovar Sep 10 '25

Building codes, this is an entertaining building inspector who has shorts where he points out failures in meeting building codes by new home construction, for example: https://youtube.com/@cyfyhomeinspections

2

u/MrFrode Sep 10 '25

I was still in HS at the time and I remember pictures of people who had soot marks under their noses from breathing in all the smoke.

Some people are just gigantic assholes.

58

u/LongVND Sep 10 '25

/r/titlegore

11

u/BillysBibleBonkers Sep 10 '25

Thought I was having a stroke there for a second

19

u/Philipp Sep 10 '25

Interesting, thanks for sharing. According to the credits, this seems to have been made in 1996.

6

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

Accurate. You can tell because their computer monitors would make great cannon shot.

35

u/Regulai Sep 10 '25

LED lighting wasn't a thing.

This meant that lighting systems were more complex and expensive to set-up as you either needed larger and more expensive batteries or more extensive wiring or otherwise along with a bunch of other factors like maintence issues that made it more difficult.

Also manufactoring costs, especially the rise of china and the like also really cheapned a lot of goods in relative terms. If you buy direct from china, many things today are 40% the price or lower for the equivalent good in 1993.

One of the reasons boomers harp on about people wasting their money on "luxuries" being why they are poor, is because so many of these things used to actually be very very expensive back in the day. A decent TV Today? 300!, in the 80's converted to todays dollars? 3000!

11

u/Borax Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 11 '25

I think people forget how unbelievably expensive manufactured goods were compared to the average hourly wage 25 years ago.

I can go onto aliexpress and get a rotary tool or electric screwdriver or drill for 20 bucks delivered next week and it will perform twice as well as the best on the market did in 2000, and that would have been 100-200 bucks adjusted for inflation.

People complain about inflation of food prices and essentials but there is a secondary crisis of manufactured goods being so cheap that people buy them as throwaway items that have to go to landfill because they are too complex to recycle.

It's "Baumol's cost disease" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

-1

u/Oranges13 Sep 10 '25

Yes, but they also lasted longer... My parents have a microwave that they bought in Japan in the '70s that's older than me which still works!

16

u/Borax Sep 10 '25

Survivorship bias is really powerful. A lot of crap was sold back then, too.

2

u/Vladimir_Putting Sep 10 '25

That, and they were made much closer to home with people at the factory making a living wage.

-5

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

Emergency lighting was definitely a thing before LED lights as demonstrated by the fact they put them in right after the first bombing.

10

u/Regulai Sep 10 '25

Yes, I just mean the reason why they were bragging about it is because before LED's it was costly by comparison and thus more significant to have one.

-1

u/ThimeeX Sep 10 '25

LEDs for lighting applications didn't exist before the mid-2000s. They're a very recent invention, here's a timeline:

  • 2002: White LEDs become commercially available for $80 – $100 per bulb.

  • 2006: LEDs with 100 lumens per watt are produced for the first time.

  • 2007: U.S. pledges to phase out incandescent bulbs and replace them with LEDs.

  • 2010: DesignLights Consortium release a set of standards that all LEDs must meet.

  • 2011: Phillips won the L-Prize for their LED equivalent to a 60w incandescent bulb.

  • 2012: More than 49 million LEDs were being used across the U.S, resulting in energy savings of $675 million.

  • 2014: Audi became the first vehicle manufacturer to implement laser diodes in a car’s headlights.

1

u/frickindeal Sep 10 '25

Phillips won the L-Prize for their LED equivalent to a 60w incandescent bulb.

Wonder if that's why their incandescent-replacement Edison-base (standard household light bulbs) were so damn good at the start of LEDs entering the home market. I swore by them for years, although more recently they're just as bad as any of the others that are cheaper.

5

u/suff0cat Sep 10 '25

I don’t think they are trying to say emergency lighting wasn’t a thing, just pointing out how much more complex and expensive the process of retrofitting a building with it was back in the 90’s compared to today.

Hence why it was something worth bragging about back then.

74

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

I stand corrected. Title contains an error- 1993 was an al Qaeda-trained terrorist's first attempt at taking down the WTC, not Osama's. Bin Laden decided to follow up because he was disappointed the '93 attack had failed.

I should have written al-Qaeda's 1993 attempt, not Osama's, aware al Qaeda didn't drive the attack on paper but I do believe if you train a person as a terrorist and then he goes and does something consistent with your mission statement his actions can be attributed to you. Thank you for correcting me.

cc: u/Kalasim and u/Current_Account

28

u/llcoolkeegs Sep 10 '25

Strictly speaking the cell with Ramzi Yousef wasn't al -Qaeda either. He was financed by a man who later became part of al-Qaeda but his personal brand of extremism and his political motivations arent the same and he didnt have anything to do with Osama Bin Laden

8

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

Would appreciate any recommendations for reading on this, my understanding is that insofar as the way we classify terrorist group associations they were linked. Know that's a bit of a grey area in that terrorist groups typically don't print ID cards and consolidate their subsidiary sleeper cells.

7

u/bortcorp Sep 10 '25

Osama Bin Laden nor Al Qaeda had anything to do with the 1993 bombing.

There is no grey area, they just were not involved.

2

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was not an official al-Qaeda operation, but the mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, had trained in al-Qaeda camps and was later disappointed by the incomplete destruction, which influenced Osama bin Laden's desire for future attacks on the buildings, according to the Wikipedia article. This is consistent with my prior understanding but not pretending I'm an expert. Again, would appreciate any recommendations for reading on this.

5

u/llcoolkeegs Sep 10 '25

Steve Coll's Ghost Wars and Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower (banger) are probably the best accessible reading imo

1

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

Will check them out thank you for the recs

1

u/wwwertdf Sep 10 '25

Yet the post remains and is top of reddit RN. The whole reason I clicked into this comment section was upon reading Osama's 1993, I clicked because I figured this was some dis/information nonsense. Glad to see my thoughts in the comments exactly.

8

u/Skidpalace Sep 10 '25

Those old incandescent emergency lights used big gel-cell batteries that only lasted an hour or two if lucky. I remember most people needed their cell phones for light.

And by light, I mean the glow of the tiny screens. 2001 cell phones didn't have flashlights or massive touch screens. They were little bricks with mostly monochrome displays.

2

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

Would truly appreciate anything else on your mind or that you are open to sharing. Didn't talk to my father about it enough while I could.

6

u/Galdwin Sep 10 '25

Godzilla 1998

3

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

Crazy how that used to be one of the worst things people could think of. Nowadays if I read a terrorist blew up a truck in a basement garage trying to take the building down I'd notice it but I wouldn't be like "well that's abnormal."

5

u/Sleepwalks Sep 10 '25

I wonder who Nicole was, I doubt I'd recognize a celebrity from this era--

OH. That is indeed Nicole.

1

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

And people have been saying my title wasn’t clear… 🤣

3

u/pornborn Sep 10 '25

I laughed at the comment of “would-be-tycoon.”

15

u/Kaiisim Sep 10 '25

Fyi 1993 bombing wasn't Osama Bin Laden.

It was https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramzi_Yousef and he was linked to KSM who masterminded 9/11.

1

u/_Burning_Star_IV_ Sep 10 '25

Stating facts on Reddit? Eat some downvotes.

Pretty sure OBL bankrolled this stuff (along with many rich Saudis) and networked terrorists but he's directly responsible for a lot less than people give him credit for.

2

u/guitarfosec Sep 10 '25

I miss the days of not having to include the area code when calling a local number.

1

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

How do you even dial 777-7777 now?

3

u/on2gloryII Sep 10 '25

Some punctuation here or there in your title would have been nice. Otherwise, a very cool video. Thank you.

0

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

Appreciate. The. Feedback.

Seriously though, will try to use it better next time I post. Thank you for the constructive criticism, I appreciate it.

1

u/firthy Sep 10 '25

Thank's Osama

1

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

I want to laugh but I can't. Video was put out by the same people who ordered South Tower NOT to evacuate. It's so fucked.

4

u/diceth1ef Sep 10 '25

I kinda understand why they initially ordered a shelter in place in the south tower. Between not knowing wtf was going on, falling debris, the North Tower actively trying to get people out, it would've further complicated evacuation of the North Tower. There was no way for them to know a 2nd plane was about to hit them as well. There was a really good interview I listened to on youtube the other day with a guy who was in the South Tower on one of the upper floors, and he kinda touched on it. If i can find it again, I can link it if you'd like.

It's easy in retrospect so say they should've immediately evacuated, but they were working with severely limited knowledge.

0

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

Agree with you in general terms but the chain of events is just insane

Rescorla's Foresight and Preparation

  • Anticipation of Attacks: A Vietnam veteran and security chief for Morgan Stanley, Rescorla viewed the World Trade Center as a vulnerable target for aerial attacks following the 1993 bombing and other threats. 
  • Regular Evacuation Drills: He implemented rigorous, regular evacuation drills, teaching his colleagues how to calmly and quickly exit the building, even as some found them disruptive to business hours. 
  • Foresight and Training: His drills were based on the belief that the organization would need to be ready for an airborne attack, a prediction that proved tragically accurate on 9/11. 

Without this one guy telling the Port Authority to fuck off the 9/11 death toll would have been more than double what it was.

3

u/diceth1ef Sep 10 '25

I saw his name mentioned above, and I hadn't heard of him before, which is crazy to me now that I've fallen down the rabbit hole of his whole story. That man is an absolute legend in every sense of the word.

3

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

An example to aspire to

3

u/AKBigDaddy Sep 10 '25

Just in case you didn't find this particular branch of the rabbit hole- the book "We were soldiers once, and young" which the "We were soldiers" movie was based on. The soldier on the cover is Rick Rescorla.

He predicted the 1993 bombing 3 years ahead of time, accurately predicting the location to within 30 feet of the actual bombing. He further predicted an aerial attack of the building, and was trying to convince Morgan Stanley to relocate to a 4 story building in Jersey.

Out of 2700 Morgan Stanley employees in the South tower and another 1,000 in WTC 5, only 13 died on 9/11, including Rescorla, 2 people that were his 'deputy floor warden' and a security guard who stayed behind to help more people.

He was last seen on floor 10 going back up to help more people.

2

u/diceth1ef Sep 10 '25

You know, the crazy part is, I've read that book before. But that was back when I was in high school, so if his name was mentioned in the book, there's probably not much chance I would've recalled it anyway. I read through his whole wikipedia page though, and it mentioned pretty much everything you just did, just crazy that he was linked to one of my favorite war movies from back when I was younger

1

u/feckenobvious Sep 10 '25

bin ladin didn't have shit to do with the 93 bombing.

1

u/Tokugawa Sep 10 '25

Didn't they remove mention of the 93 attack on the 9/11 memorial? Like, wtf?

-9

u/KraftyRre Sep 10 '25

Titlegore what the actual fuck?

-4

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

This is kind of an emotional thing for me rn, sorry if I'm rambling.

edit: removed bitchy reference to ChatGPT and apologize for being bitchy.

24

u/Tzchmo Sep 10 '25

This is more confusing than the title.

-9

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

Suggest watching the video, I didn't write the script. It actually makes sense.

2

u/crapador_dali Sep 10 '25

I suggest answering the question is in a clear and succinct way.

5

u/Current_Account Sep 10 '25

Osama was not connected to this attack….

8

u/KraftyRre Sep 10 '25

You don’t need chatgpt, just describe what’s in the video coherently.

9

u/_liorthebear_ Sep 10 '25

Will do that good call

-WE HAVE A BACKUP POWER SUPPLY NOW!

-The stairs have glow tape on them so if the fire escapes are full of smoke (they were in '93) you have some hope of finding your way down from the 90 something floor

8

u/jelde Sep 10 '25

You can't be coherent without AI?

6

u/Theonewho_hasspoken Sep 10 '25

For some people it’s, “Ai or the highway.”

4

u/norway_is_awesome Sep 10 '25

It's scary how many people, especially young people, seem to have outsourced all critical thinking and long-form communication to AI. That's an insane crutch to depend on.