Unforgettable

Everyone has a story to tell about September 11, 2001. Everyone remembers what they were doing when they first heard that the World Trade Center had been struck by airplanes in a terrorist attack. Everyone remembers the horror of seeing the buildings crumble. And practically everyone wasn't even near the twin towers at the time.

Here's the story of some of those that were.

"102 Minutes," by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, takes us through a timeline from shortly before the moment the first plane hit until shortly after the second tower collapsed. It's at times fascinating, gripping, and of course shattering reading.

The authors don't really need to enhance the material's dramatic properties, so they simply get out of the way and tell the story in a straight-forward manner. They wisely concentrate on the people involved, giving the story all sorts of personal touches -- secretaries kicking off their dress shoes as they started down the stairs, firemen taking breaks as they climbed flight after flight with dozens of pounds of equipment on their backs.

It's easy to say that you know how the overall story comes out, but the smaller dramas of the story carry a bookshelf's worth of suspense. The reader can guess that those trapped about the impact zones aren't going to make it, although they are represented in the book through transcripts of phone calls and e-mails. Indeed, a description of floors starting to crumble on top of the south tower might have been the most emotional part of the entire book.

However, those below the crash locations were scrambling down stairs while the firemen and rescue workers were headed in the other direction. And all the while, the clock kept ticking off on the timeline toward the end of the 102 minutes.

It's also very striking how quick decisions had such an impact on lives. When the north tower was hit, the standard procedure in the south tower was to stay put. Yet many opted to evacuate the building just in case, which ended up saving their lives when airplane #2 arrived. The individual acts of kindness also come through loud and clear here, such as when the disabled are carried down the stairs. Apparently a lot of good takes place when people are faced with the unthinkable.

The individual stories of bravery often are inspiring. Several men were trapped in an elevator, so they used the only tool they had -- the metal part of a squeegee -- to break through the drywall shaft and escape.

Dwyer and Flynn don't do much editorializing here, but there is a little analysis. It's saved for descriptions of the building process, which may have cut some corners in order to make money, and of the communications' abilities of the various rescue agencies, which was non-existent in spots. The best example of that last point came right at the end, when practically everyone was out of the north tower and firemen were ordered to get out, but the word wasn't passed along fast enough.

Still, thousands of people did get out of the building alive. Virtually everyone who could be saved were saved, a detail that may have been slightly overlooked in the weeks following 9/11. Under the circumstances, that's downright remarkable.

This checks in at less than 270 pages, plus notes, so it's a relatively quick read. That was a good decision by the authors, who deal with many characters but don't overwhelm the book with massive amounts of detail. They get the feeling of being inside the towers quite well.

This is not light summer reading, of course, and some may not want to be reminded of the horrors of that fateful day. Still, it's important that a book like this be written. "102 Minutes" is a reminder about the one of the worst days in American history, a testament about good in the face of evil, and a reminder that we have to work to prevent it from happening again.