9/11 WI: WI South Tower evacuated after North Tower impact?

PoD: September 11, 2001

After the first plane hits the North Tower, whoever is in charge at the World Trade Center decides to take no chances and orders the South Tower evacuated immediately, just in case (as opposed to the confusing orders of OTL).

It should be noted that many companies in the South Tower OTL did evacuate employees before the second plane struck the South Tower (some of them went back up due to the aforementioned orders)...

Effects, anyone?
 
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Both towers were very large buildings with many people in them, it would take a while to get everyone evacuated in time, though if there was an immediate evacuation there would have been fewer casualties for sure.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
How long did it take to evacuate those buildings? Had evacuations been rehearsed?

My understanding is almost none of the companies rehearsed the evacuation of the building. I think the thing that changes is we save mid-100s of lives compared to OTL. Not sure much else would change.
 
I think there still would have been just as large of a cultural effect, and its status as a national tragedy not changed much. The deaths of those in the North Tower would have been enough to anger the U.S toward retaliation.

Perhaps something could change centered on the survivors; how they tell their stories and live their lives afterwards. Maybe some would become outspoken critics of the Iraq War. Maybe just the opposite. Depends on how the TL author wants to tell his story.
 
I don't think it would make much of a difference.

There were only about 16 minutes between impacts. Given that even under the best of circumstance it would take some time for anyone to make a decision and communicate it, most people above the floors where the second plane impacted would likely not have gotten out in time.

People below the the impact might have a higher survival rate if they started evacuating a bit earlier, but people were already evacuating. Especially Morgan Stanley managed to evacuate a large number of people from their offices in time thanks to Rick Rescorla.

So the death tool might be lowered by a small fraction but the effect on the American psyche would be pretty much the same.

Additional survivors would cause all sorts of butterfly effects later on, especially people from the financial service industry who may have played significant role in later economic crashes. Perhaps a survivor might enter politics or something, but the immediate aftermath would be pretty much the same.
 
What would have happened if the tower had not collapsed? There's a huge hole in it, and the second tower might still come down burrying the lower floors under rubble, it's hard to see how it could be refurbished with all that damage, or safely collapsed considering the location.
 
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