New York City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM), which is located in World Trade Center Building 7, organizes a bio-terrorism drill where militant extremists attack the city with bubonic plague and Manhattan is quarantined. The “tabletop exercise” is called RED Ex—meaning “Recognition, Evaluation, and Decision-Making Exercise”
—and involves about seventy different entities, agencies, and locales from the New York area. Federal legislation adopted in 1997 requires federal, state, and local authorities to conduct regular exercises as part of the Domestic Preparedness Program (DPP). The US Defense Department chose New York City as the venue for RED Ex due to its size, prominence, and level of emergency preparedness. Various high-level officials take part, including Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, OEM Director Richard Sheirer, Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, and Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. Agencies and organizations that participate include New York City Fire Department, New York City Police Department, the FBI, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The exercise is supposedly so intense that, according to one participant, “five minutes into that drill, everybody forgot it was a drill.”
[New York City Government, 5/11/2001; New York City Government, 9/5/2001, pp. 74 
; New York Sun, 12/20/2003; 9/11 Commission, 5/18/2004] According to OEM Director Richard Sheirer, “Operation RED Ex provided a proving ground and a great readiness training exercise for the many challenges the city routinely faces, such as weather events, heat emergencies, building collapses, fires, and public safety and health issues.”
[New York City Government, 5/11/2001] In his prepared testimony before the 9/11 Commission, Bernard Kerik later states: “The City, through its OEM, had coordinated plans for many types of emergencies; and those plans were tested frequently.” The types of emergencies they prepared for, he states, included “building collapses” and “plane crashes.”
[9/11 Commission, 5/18/2004 ] Considering Richard Sheirer’s comments, RED Ex appears to be one example where the city tests for building collapses. Details about training for airplanes crashing into New York City remain unknown. The second part of this exercise, called Tripod, is scheduled to take place in New York on September 12, 2001, but is cancelled due to the 9/11 attacks.
Summer 2001: FBI Officials Warn New York Officials about the Possibility of a Major Terrorist Attack Occurring
John O’Neill, special agent in charge of the FBI’s national security division in New York, and two other senior FBI officials meet New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to discuss the threat of an imminent terrorist attack. O’Neill attends the briefing along with Kenneth Maxwell, the FBI agent in charge of counterterrorism in New York, and Barry Mawn, director of the FBI’s New York office. The three men present evidence indicating an imminent terrorist plot. Maxwell says everything suggests a big attack is being planned. At the end of the briefing, Kerik asks, “Could that happen here?” Maxwell says the attack is more likely to occur abroad than in the United States. “I can’t say for sure that it wouldn’t, but historically al-Qaeda has always attacked us overseas,” he replies. All the same, he adds, “They’re definitely planning something huge.” FBI agents are currently trying to determine what is happening with the summer’s high level of al-Qaeda threats (see Summer 2001). “Things were happening; people were on standby,” FBI agent Abby Perkins will later comment. But, Perkins will say, “Everyone thought it’d be an international attack.” [Graff, 2011, pp. 298]
Summer 2001: FBI Agent O’Neill Tells New York Police Commissioner Kerik Something ‘Enormous’ Will Happen
John O’Neill, special agent in charge of the FBI’s national security division in New York, tells New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik that something “enormous” is going to happen, but it is likely to occur abroad rather than in the United States. The two men talk at a meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Washington, DC, which is about terrorism. They have a long discussion during which O’Neill says there is “an enormous amount of chatter,” Kerik will later recall. “There is something that’s going to happen,” he says, and “it’s going to be big, it’s going to be enormous.” According to Kerik, O’Neill believes this event—presumably a terrorist attack—will occur somewhere other than in the US. “His assumption at the time and what he told me personally” is that “whatever was going to happen was going to happen outside of this country,” Kerik will say. [9/11 Commission, 5/18/2004] O’Neill and Kerik are members of the terrorism committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. [City of New York, 9/20/2001; US Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, 12/11/2001; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2006] O’Neill is also “the FBI’s top expert on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden,” according to New York magazine. [New York Magazine, 12/17/2001] The two men have “a very good relationship,” Kerik will comment. [9/11 Commission, 4/6/2004]
Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: Head of the FBI’s New York Office Orders Specialized Teams to Respond to the Crash and Goes toward the WTC
Barry Mawn, director of the FBI’s New York office, sends specialized teams to the World Trade Center site after hearing Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower, even though he initially thinks the crash is an accident. Mawn is in his office on the 28th floor of 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan and has just heard the explosion when Flight 11 hit the WTC, at 8:46 a.m. (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Kathy MacGowan, his secretary, shouted: “The World Trade! The World Trade!” Mawn now goes to her window, from where he can see smoke billowing from the North Tower. MacGowan says a commercial jet has crashed into the building. However, it supposedly does not occur to Mawn that the incident was a terrorist attack. [Kessler, 2002, pp. 1-2; CNN, 2/18/2002; Wright, 2006, pp. 357] “At that point, I thought it was an accident,” he will later recall. [Washington Post, 10/20/2001] Mawn’s colleagues look to the director for guidance. “People were turning to me and asking, ‘What are we going to do next, boss?’” Mawn will recall. Mawn instructs MacGowan to call the FBI evidence response team. Despite thinking the crash is an accident, he adds, “Just in case, call the SWAT [the FBI special weapons and tactics team] and the Joint Terrorism Task Force,” which has exclusive jurisdiction over local terrorism investigations. He tells MacGowan to send the teams to Church and Vesey Streets, and says he will head that way himself. Before he leaves his office, though, he is called by David Kelley, chief of Manhattan US Attorney Mary Jo White’s terrorism unit. [Kessler, 2002, pp. 2; Wright, 2006, pp. 357; Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, 9/10/2016] White has instructed Kelley to go to the WTC site. [New York Metro Super Lawyers, 7/2006] Mawn agrees to meet him and then goes and joins him outside his building. The two men make their way toward the WTC, which is eight blocks away from the FBI office. They stop at the corner of Church and Vesey Streets, at the northeast corner of the WTC site. There, they join Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and other law enforcement officials. [Washington Post, 10/20/2001; Kessler, 2002, pp. 2] Mawn and Kelley will be at the WTC site when Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower, at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001), and Mawn will then realize that the US is under attack (see After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Daily News, 10/1/2001; CNN, 2/18/2002; New York Metro Super Lawyers, 7/2006]
8:47 a.m.-9:20 a.m. September 11, 2001: Mayor Giuliani Learns of First WTC Crash, Yet Doesn’t Go to Special Emergency Command Center
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is promptly informed of the first WTC crash while having breakfast at the Peninsula Hotel on 55th Street. He later claims that he goes outside and, noticing the clear sky, immediately concludes, “It could not have been an accident, that it had to have been an attack. But we weren’t sure whether it was a planned terrorist attack, or maybe some kind of act of individual anger or insanity.” Only after the second plane hits at 9:03 will he be convinced it is terrorism. After leaving the hotel, he quickly proceeds south. In his 2002 book, Leadership, he will claim that he heads for his emergency command center. This $13 million center is located on the 23rd floor of Building 7 of the WTC, and was opened by Giuliani in 1999, specifically for coordinating responses to emergencies, including terrorist attacks (see June 8, 1999). Referring to it, he writes, “As shocking as [the first] crash was, we had actually planned for just such a catastrophe.” At around 9:07 a.m., Giuliani meets Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik at Barclay Street, on the northern border of the WTC complex. [Giuliani, 2002, pp. 3-6; 9/11 Commission, 5/19/2004; Barrett and Collins, 2006, pp. 7] Yet they do not go to the command center. According to Kerik, “The Mayor and I… determined early on that the City’s pre-designated Command and Control Center… was unsafe because of its proximity to the attack.” [9/11 Commission, 5/18/2004 ] Instead, they head to West Street, where the fire department has set up a command post, and arrive there at around 9:20 a.m. However, in his private testimony before the 9/11 Commission in 2004, Giuliani will apparently change his story, claiming he’d never even headed for his command center in the first place. He says, “Even if the Emergency Operations Center had been available, I would not have gone there for an hour or an hour and a half. I would want to spend some time at the actual incident, at operations command posts.” [9/11 Commission, 5/19/2004; Barrett and Collins, 2006, pp. 44-45 and 340-341] Other accounts indicate that the emergency command center is mostly abandoned from the outset, with emergency managers instead heading to the North Tower (see (Soon After 8:46 a.m.-9:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
9:45 a.m.-10:45 a.m. September 11, 2001: Witnesses First Notice Military Jets over New York, Later than Claimed in 9/11 Commission’s Account
According to the accounts of numerous witnesses on the ground near the World Trade Center, military fighter jets are first noticed flying over Manhattan either shortly before or soon after the second collapse, at 10:28 a.m. Some witnesses recall fighters arriving just before this collapse: 
Emergency medical technicians Dulce McCorvey and Michael D’Angelo hear fighters flying over Manhattan at unspecified times after the first tower’s collapse. [City of New York, 10/3/2001; City of New York, 10/24/2001] Fire Lieutenant Sean O’Malley and firefighters Pete Giudetti and Dan Potter notice jet fighters flying overhead soon before the second collapse. [City of New York, 10/12/2001; City of New York, 12/6/2001; Smith, 2002, pp. 49-50]
Other witnesses say the fighters arrive soon after this collapse: Deputy Fire Chief Robert Browne, police officer Peter Moog, and emergency medical technicians Richard Zarrillo and Jason Katz notice fighters overhead immediately after, or fairly soon after, the second tower’s collapse. [City of New York, 10/24/2001; City of New York, 10/25/2001; City of New York, 12/20/2001; Fink and Mathias, 2002, pp. 79-80] Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, and Office of Emergency Management Director Richard Sheirer are heading north together after leaving their temporary command post on Barclay Street (see (9:50 a.m.-10:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001). In some accounts, all three of them recollect hearing the first military jets overhead soon after the second tower’s collapse. [Kerik, 2001, pp. 339-340; Giuliani, 2002, pp. 14; 9/11 Commission, 5/18/2004 ] However, according to another account, Giuliani hears the first jet slightly earlier, at around 10:20 a.m. And, in his private testimony before the 9/11 Commission, Kerik claims to have heard a fighter jet coming when he was heading to the temporary command post on Barclay Street, i.e. shortly before 9:50 a.m. [Barrett and Collins, 2006, pp. 348-349]
A few witnesses claim the fighters arrive earlier on, before the first collapse at 9:59 a.m.: Emergency medical technician Frank Puma and Port Authority Freedom of Information Administrator Cathy Pavelec say they see fighter jets overhead at unspecified times before the first collapse. [City of New York, 12/12/2001; Fink and Mathias, 2002, pp. 68]
The fighter(s) are presumably the F-15s launched from Otis Air Force Base at 8:46 a.m. (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). However, the 9/11 Commission will claim that these arrived over Manhattan at 9:25 a.m. (see 9:25 a.m. September 11, 2001), which is significantly earlier than most of the witnesses on the ground recall.
9:50 a.m.-10:10 a.m. September 11, 2001: Mayor Giuliani Goes to Temporary Command Post but Soon Evacuates It
After spending about 40 minutes at the disaster scene, on the World Trade Center site, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani relocates to a small office building at 75 Barclay Street, about two blocks from the WTC, hoping to establish a command post there. His usual command center, in WTC 7, was evacuated at around 9:30 a.m. (see (9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). With him are several colleagues, including Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and Office of Emergency Management Director Richard Sheirer. [Kerik, 2001, pp. 334; Giuliani, 2002, pp. 10; 9/11 Commission, 5/18/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 5/19/2004; Barrett and Collins, 2006, pp. 10] While at Barclay Street, Giuliani is able to get in touch with the White House, and speaks to Chris Henick, the deputy political director to President Bush (see 9:58 a.m. September 11, 2001). Immediately afterwards, he receives a phone call from Vice President Cheney, though this is cut off before either one is able to speak. Giuliani also claims he is given advance warning of the South Tower’s collapse while at this command post (see (Before 9:59 a.m.) September 11, 2001). After the South Tower collapses outside, Giuliani and his colleagues all decide to evacuate, going through the basement into a neighboring building, 100 Church Street. They will then leave this and head north, being joined by cameras and press. [Fink and Mathias, 2002, pp. 112; 9/11 Commission, 5/19/2004; Barrett and Collins, 2006, pp. 348]
After 10:28 a.m.-12:00 pm. September 11, 2001: Mayor Giuliani Establishes a Temporary Headquarters
After leaving 75 Barclay Street (see (9:50 a.m.-10:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001), New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the group accompanying him search for somewhere to establish a new temporary headquarters. Soon after the North Tower’s collapse, they break into a vacant firehouse at the corner of Houston Street and Sixth Avenue. Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who is part of the group, wants the location kept secret. He gives out the order: “Okay, we’re going to establish a command center [here]. We’re not going to let anybody know. I don’t want it over the radio. We don’t know what’s happening. We don’t want them [presumably meaning the attackers] to know where we’re all going to be.” Giuliani is able to find a phone, and speaks with New York Governor George Pataki, the White House, and the Defense Department. At around 10:57 a.m., he speaks to the television channel New York 1 and offers a message of reassurance to the people of New York City. [Fink and Mathias, 2002, pp. 108; Giuliani, 2002, pp. 15-16; 9/11 Commission, 5/19/2004; Barrett and Collins, 2006, pp. 13] Deciding that they need to be somewhere larger and more secure, Kerik suggests they move to the Police Academy on East 20th Street. [Kerik, 2001, pp. 342] Thus, Giuliani’s group—which now numbers more than 20 people plus a press contingent—gets into cars and drives to the academy, arriving there around midday (see (2:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [Giuliani, 2002, pp. 18-19; Barrett and Collins, 2006, pp. 13] This will remain as the city’s command center for several days, until it is replaced later in the week by a larger space at Pier 92 on the Hudson River. [Center for Biosecurity, 2/3/2003; 9/11 Commission, 5/19/2004]
After 10:30 a.m. September 11, 2001: Suspicious Man Found in the WTC Is Passed on to the FBI, but the Detective Who Arrested Him Is Told to Keep Quiet
A man who was found behaving suspiciously in the World Trade Center and arrested is passed on to the FBI, but the detective who arrested him is subsequently told to stay quiet about what has happened. [Appel, 2009, pp. 174-175] Several officers belonging to New York Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit (ESU) encountered the suspicious man as they were making their way down the stairs of the North Tower of the WTC. The man, who looked Middle Eastern, behaved aggressively toward the ESU officers and so one of them, Detective Timothy Morley, arrested and handcuffed him (see (Between 10:00 a.m. and 10:25 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Appel, 2009, pp. 125-128]
Detective Headed out to Find the FBI – When the ESU officers reached the bottom of the North Tower, Morley told his colleagues, “I’m gonna take this guy and hand him over to the first FBI agent I see.” He then headed out with the suspicious man, accompanied by his colleague, Lieutenant Venton Hollifield, and a Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) sergeant who carried the man’s belongings. The men soon encountered Police Chief Allen Hale from Manhattan North. Hollifield told Hale about the man they were escorting and his strange behavior in the WTC. Some intelligence officers with Hale talked to Morley about the suspicious man and took notes.
Suspicious Man Tried to Pull Away When the North Tower Collapsed – When the North Tower started to collapse, at 10:28 a.m. (see 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001), Morley and the PAPD sergeant grabbed their prisoner and tried to run with him for cover. But the man dug his heels into the ground and tried to pull away from them. Morley was eventually able to drag the man along and find protection behind a fire truck. [Appel, 2009, pp. 131-133] Sometime after the collapse, Morley encountered Hale again. Surprised to see that Morley was still escorting the suspicious man, Hale fetched a van, and drove Morley and his prisoner to Stuyvesant High School, where the ESU has set up a command post.
FBI Agents Interview the Prisoner – Now, at the school, some FBI agents show up to debrief Morley’s prisoner and they take him to an office to do so. They also ask Morley to write down for them everything that has happened. After a time, the FBI agents decide they want to take the man to the Police Academy. Morley, Hale, the FBI agents, and the prisoner therefore go to the Police Academy, where Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik are now based (see (After 10:28 a.m.-12:00 pm.) September 11, 2001).
Unidentified Official Tells the Detective to Keep Quiet – After they arrive at the academy, the prisoner is taken away to be debriefed by some intelligence officers. Meanwhile, Hale walks over to Giuliani and talks to him. He apparently tells the mayor about how Morley came to arrest the suspicious man in the WTC, as Giuliani subsequently walks over to Morley, shakes his hand, and says to him, “Good job.” A police inspector nearby then approaches Morley and asks him why the mayor had been shaking his hand. Morley starts telling the inspector about his encounter with the suspicious man in the North Tower. However, before he finishes his account of what happened, a man who has been standing across from him and eavesdropping on the conversation steps forward and interrupts. The man is dressed in a dark suit and is presumably some kind of government agent. He says to Morley, “If you know what’s good for you, I wouldn’t repeat that story.” Morley is astonished. He asks the man who he is, but the man only replies, “Never mind who I am.” In his anger, Morley decides he will go and tell his story to Kerik. He enters the room where Kerik is seated, but is unable to get the police commissioner’s attention and eventually gives up his attempt to talk to him. [Appel, 2009, pp. 173-176] The following day, the suspicious man that the ESU officers encountered in the WTC will have his arrest voided and be released from custody. [Appel, 2009, pp. 339] Further details of who he is and what he was doing in the North Tower are unknown.
2:00 p.m. September 11, 2001: Temporary Emergency Operations Center Is Set Up at New York’s Police Academy
New York City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) establishes an alternate Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at the New York City Police Academy. The OEM’s original EOC, on the 23rd floor of World Trade Center Building 7, was evacuated at around 9:30 a.m. due to a report that more commercial planes were unaccounted for (see (9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 9/17/2001; 9/11 Commission, 5/18/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 305, 311] Since then, the OEM command bus has served as the office’s command post (see (Shortly After 9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 4/7/2004]
Police Commissioner Recommended Going to the Police Academy – Following the collapse of the North Tower of the WTC, at 10:28 a.m. (see 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001), Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the officials with him considered where to set up their operations. After they spent some time at a firehouse (see (After 10:28 a.m.-12:00 pm.) September 11, 2001), Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik recommended they use the Police Academy as their command center since, he will later recall, it is “a centrally located building of modest height and design, and an unlikely target if the terrorists should strike again.” Additionally, it has “phones and meeting rooms, and could be secured easily.” Consequently, the academy, on East 20th Street, was selected as the new location for the EOC. [Kerik, 2001, pp. 340-342; 9/11 Commission, 4/6/2004; 9/11 Commission, 5/19/2004] Giuliani and his entourage arrived there at around midday and were soon at work, planning the city’s response to the terrorist attacks. [Giuliani, 2002, pp. 19]
New Operations Center Is Activated Early in the Afternoon – Meanwhile, the New York Police Department and the OEM set up the new EOC in the library at the academy. In the space of around two and a half hours, the facility is fully operational, with phone lines and computers available, and spaces for at least 30 agencies. [9/11 Commission, 5/18/2004 ] It is activated at around 2:00 p.m., according to a report by Tricia Wachtendorf of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. [Wachtendorf, 2004, pp. 76]
Phones and Computers Keep Going Down – OEM personnel promptly get to work, in collaboration with other agencies, on the logistics of the rescue operation. Among other things, they set about ordering supplies and equipment for the rescue effort, determining where and how they can move in trucks and heavy machinery, and developing plans for how to move and where to locate the steel and debris from the WTC site. [9/11 Commission, 5/18/2004 ] However, they experience problems as they try to carry out their operations. “The phones kept going down, the little computer network we jerry-rigged kept going down, so everything had to be done with pen and paper,” Henry Jackson, deputy director for administration at the OEM who is responsible for setting up the temporary facility, will complain. The EOC will be located at the Police Academy until September 14, when it will move to a larger space at Pier 92 on the Hudson River. [New York Magazine, 10/15/2001; ArcNews, 12/2001; 9/11 Commission, 5/19/2004]
