n elected official and some relatives of those who died at the World Trade Center called yesterday on federal investigators examining the disaster to subpoena documents that New York City has so far refused to turn over — materials that include firsthand accounts from firefighters and audio tapes of 911 calls from people trapped in the twin towers.
The demand, made on the steps of City Hall, came a day after the National Institute of Standards and Technology disclosed that the city had so far failed to make the documents available, citing the confidential nature of some of the material. The federal agency, which has been charged with investigating the nature of the collapses and the success of the emergency response, first asked for some of the material about a year ago.
"We owe it to the victims of 9/11 to learn everything we can about why the World Trade Center collapsed and what we can do to make sure it never happens again," said Representative Anthony D. Weiner, a New York City Democrat who co-sponsored legislation last year that gave the standards agency the money and authority to conduct its investigation.
The federal investigators are trying to determine why the towers at first stood after they were hit by planes, yet then fell, and whether the evacuation of the towers could have been handled in a way that would have saved more civilian lives, while costing fewer lives of firefighters and police.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/19/nyregion/19TOWE.html