9/11 Critical Analysis

2,996 people were killed in 9/11, and unfortunately we will never know how many lives could have been saved if better communication was performed. Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn successfully provide readers strong examples of how good communication was important in their book 102 Minutes. Two other sources, the National Commission and Kelly Sharp, also effectively show readers this type of strong information in the 9/11 Commission Report and Sharp’s article “9/11, 10 Years Later.” All of these sources combined effectively show how the lack of quality in communication contributed to the loss of life during 9/11 through specific events that took place. Through these examples it is clear to the reader that quality communication was of higher importance during this event than the amount of communication that was …show more content…
A good example of this is in 102 Minutes when people began calling the PAPD for guidance, this is shown when an officer tells a man in 2 WTC, “I would wait until further notice,”(Dwyer and Flynn, 70). This shows how poor communication puts more lives at risk and if all of the officers had agreed to tell people to evacuate then less lives would be in the line of danger. This was a large contributing factor to the amount of deaths because people did not evacuate due to a lack of consistent information. However, in CNN’s article they provide examples of quality communication between PAPD and citizens, a good example of this is when the officer says, “Just come on down, everybody just come on down. Get down the staircase. Don't take the elevator,”(CNN). This shows that with only one call a PAPD officer was able to provide proper instruction to a citizen and get them out of harm’s way. Both of these examples from two different sources effectively show that quality communication is more important than the amount that is