Stairway C
Engine 22’s surviving report places members assisting civilians while evacuating through Stairway C.
Lost:
Thomas A. Casoria
Michael J. Elferis
Vincent D. Kane
Martin E. McWilliams
September 11, 2001
Inside the
North Tower.
A restrained reconstruction of Engine 22 and Ladder 13 based on surviving company operations records and corroborating memorial sources.
This is not a simulation. It does not attempt to recreate fear, sound, impact or collapse. It follows only what the historical record allows us to say with care.
Selected moment
8:46 A.M.
ENGINE 22Stairway C
Four members lost
E22
Responding from East 85th Street.
LADDER 13Stairway B
Five members lost · one survived
L13
Responding from East 85th Street.
01
8:46 A.M.
American Airlines Flight 11 strikes the North Tower.
New York City’s emergency response begins to grow. Engine 22 and Ladder 13 respond from the East 85th Street firehouse.
Company locations are shown only where the record supports them. “~24th” is approximate.
Two companies. Two stairways.
The routes were different.
The surviving company reports do not place Engine 22 and Ladder 13 together inside the tower. Their documented operations diverged.
Stairway B
Ladder 13’s report records the company searching downward while evacuating through Stairway B after the evacuation order.
Lost:
Walter G. Hynes
Thomas J. Hetzel
Dennis P. McHugh
Thomas E. Sabella
Gregory M. Stajk
Survived:
Joseph Graziano Jr.
Near the end of the descent
Joseph Graziano Jr. was helping a civilian down Stairway B.
The Ladder 13 company report states that he exited the North Tower seconds before it collapsed. It records that he last saw the other members of Ladder 13 near the lobby and Stairway B.
Read The Brother Who Came Home10:28 A.M.
The North Tower collapses.
Nine firefighters from the East 85th Street firehouse are killed: four from Engine 22 and five from Ladder 13.
There is no collapse animation and no sound here. The absence is intentional.
Historical record
What this reconstruction does—and does not—claim.
This timeline distinguishes between documented fact and approximation. The Ladder 13 report records an assignment to the 44th floor and says the crew reached approximately the 24th floor. Engine 22’s surviving report documents civilian assistance and Stairway C but does not justify assigning the company an exact floor at each moment.
Where the record is silent, this memorial remains silent too.