549 - Let’s Action!

0:00This is exactly right. Welcome aboard season six of the Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky. A beautiful woman smiles and hands you a scotch. But you have no idea just how messed up her job actually is. It was the most sexist job I think you could have. Until one day, a group of stewardesses spark a revolution that reshapes America. Listen to the Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Two Aussie lesbian lovers touched down in 1990s London and become the toast of British high society. One of them touts an exclusive investment opportunity, and soon the money is rolling in.

1:01Rich businessmen and England's horse-loving elite fall under their seductive spell. They even meet Queen Elizabeth, but the millionaire duo are concealing a dark past and dastardly intentions. From USG audio, Blanchard House, and exactly right media. This is Royal Swindle. Listen to the entire series now on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a bookshelf and you're a 4U page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture. With your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. So obsessed. Listen to pro society on the iHeart Radio app,

2:02Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hard Start. That's Karen Killcaref, and we're here to present to you a podcast with five beverages. See how many we can drink? Go. Sugar caffeine. I have been kind of chugging coffee all day. Then I find myself in kind of a pit of despair. And you know, like when you're just kind of like why? Because you've only had coffee and it's four p.m. How is it four p.m? And I've only had coffee in an uncrustible. Like this doesn't. This isn't who's keeping track of me. Are you me? Baby? Why won't anyone keep track of me? Why can't they nourish myself? Why does it slip my mind to do the thing I've had to do for 50 plus years in a row?

3:04Yeah. Slips my mind. Lunch is a showering. Showering sard. Lunch is hard. Yeah. I mean, it's just day after day. Like every day at the end of the day when Vincent and like what are we having for dinner? And it's like we decided yesterday. Yeah. We did this. It's that the rest of the time. Beast forever. I'm so sick of chewing. Like every day is chewing. You know, what else sucks? I think this is called depression. Or are we just venting it as in our artistic process before we really give people what they mean? Because I think it's like it is important to say here in Los Angeles, no one can drive. Three different cars tried to kill other cars on my way here. In a way where at the third one I was like, I got to get off this. It's just people veering. And just over there and honking. I got really angry at a woman on my way here. And I was like, wow, that was crazy. And I pulled over into a cabeta blocker. Because I was like, that was over the tile. Like that wasn't necessary. Are we checking your levels on those beta blockers? We need to make

4:08sure your liver is okay. So fuck up your liver? Yes. Those are serious fucking drugs. Oh, well, I stopped drinking so I can do whatever I want to. Now 74 today. 74 days. Please, I beg you. If you would just listen, oh my god. No, we're just trying to be relatable. No, that's right. Snacks, driving drugs and driving. Like, but reality is we have private planes that take us to our house and to our office. Just like a Jenner. That'd be incredible. Where would the commute you would most wish you could get private plane to in Los Angeles? I want to go to the beach and I won't ever do it or like the coast. Yeah, somewhere along there, hiking and Santa Monica Mountains. Like you just don't do that. No, it's a fucking schlep. And it's an angry schlep. Yes, it is. And when you get there, the elements are against you. Yeah, because it doesn't. Yeah, don't get me. Okay. We have it. It doesn't get interesting. Here's the thing about the West side. Let me quote both of your nephews when I say the 101

5:09to the 110 to the 4034 to the 405. May I just all of this goes because who cares about highway talk? Right. Highway talk with Karen. With Karen. Oh my god. It was car talk, the original podcast. I think so. Because they had like, they talked to the audience. It was real back and forth. It was like not on video. Yes, these people. Wait a second. Yeah. We had a lot of great people talking to us about the death of Dully Parton. Yeah. And what it meant to them. But I just wanted to share a couple because this is actually kind of supposed to be a short episode. Oh, right. Well, it's a solo. It's a solo episode. You're going to go. I went last week. You're going to go this week. This is mine. Yeah. But we thought it would be fun just because there was such good comments. Obviously, many, many, many people loved admired, respected, if not worshiped her. Absolutely. But we got some good ones. We boiled them down to these three. Sugar camp shop from Instagram wrote, may her memory be a fire lit beneath our asses to do good

6:13in the world. Wow. I love that. Which is in this world. I love that too. It's very true. Somebody posted something that said, this is a person who broke records in the music industry like and listed out. Yes. And that, but we're talking about all the good she did for people. Totally. So amazing. It's really good. Then Mary Becker from Facebook, she wrote in and said, there were so many things I didn't know. She was one of the producers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Really? Yes. Amazing. Her production company, Sand Dollar. Oh my God. It helped out in that, I guess. And then the last one, which we really love, Von Narr, GNAR on Instagram, wrote a whole mini-sode of Dolly encounters would be welcomed. Please and thank you. Great idea. Great. Do you have a Dolly Parton story? Exactly. Send it to us at my favorite murder at GML, do the mini-sode. Dolly's butterfly bus break down in front of your home. And she had to come in and eat dinner with you and all your cousins. Did you get one of her baking boxes? And like you said, your whole family for a week off of it? Did you get sent a free book once a month for your whole childhood? And now because of Dolly Parton,

7:16you can read books. Oh my God. Did that? Okay. You were just talking about her the other day. You just went to Dollywood. I know. It's so crazy. It couldn't have lasted forever. It lasted so long. She was a star forever. And if you think about her, those pictures of her as a little girl, like her little face, like she was meant to be a gigantic star from Dolly. Oh my. Gorgeous, but such a kind spirit and so. And smarty. And so smart. So smart. Okay, so we have a podcast network just like Dolly Parton had a network. Oh my God. It's full circle. We've finally done the thing that we always wanted. Yeah. It's called exactly right media. That's right. Which is such a great name. I'm so glad you came up with that. Like really, we're talking about here. I'm like, fuck yeah. It fits. It does fits. It's perfect. It's great that nothing else was available that we thought of before that. And I know we've talked about this on the show, but we thought of I would say 35 different titles before we landed that were all taken in some way. I think your sister was like, yeah, I either called your sister and said, what about this? And she was like, that's it.

8:17Yes. Or she suggested it. I can't remember. But she remembers. Laura's behind all of it. Yeah. Yeah. It's called exactly right media anyways. And here are some highlights. If you love the new podcast brief recess, how can you not? Yeah. You're going to want to be there for the premiere of the Trader's new blood next Thursday, September 17th. So you can watch our own Michael foot begin his journey to reality TV. Start him. He's going to be a fucking star, speaking of stars. He is just the most delightful person. Yeah. He's he's like that in real life. He's exactly what you think he's like. He's just like Dolly Parton. I'm just going to do that. That's entire. That's right. And if you haven't joined the fan call yet, what are you waiting for? Members get every episode of my favorite murder ad free plus merch discounts, exclusive content and access to the murdering a discord had to fancult.supercast.com to join. Please. And thank you. And in case you missed it, our own Nick Terry is back with a new MFM animated. This one features Trixi, the pamphlets crispy face baby doll that was discovered inside the walls of a 100-year-old

9:21house. So good. So good. You can watch Trixi and the rest of the MFM animated gang over at youtube.com slash exactly right media. Welcome aboard season six of the Girlfriends. Flight or fight, which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky. There's great food, comfortable chairs, and attentive stewardesses. The stewardesses were so beautiful. But in reality, the stewardess job is far less glamorous than it appears. It was the most sexist job I think you could have. In this era, the airlines told these stewardesses they have to be single. They had no good excuse for why they wouldn't let women be married. They have to be skinny. We were starving ourselves. And they have to be young. You would retire at age 32. But one day, a group of stewardesses said,

10:24this is gotta stop. They risked it all, turning a fight for fairness into a revolution. Listen to the Girlfriends, Flight or Fight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. All right. So this is a solo. So excited. Sit back. I'm gonna get cozy. Take some sips of water. So this show comes out on September 10th. I saw a TikTok about these heroes from September 11th. Oh my god. And I sent it to Marin and she looked up. She's like, I love this story so much. Oh my god. So we are approaching the 25th anniversary of 9-11. So today, I'm gonna tell you one of the many incredible stories of heroism that took place on one of the darkest days in American history. It's Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. It's a beautiful late summer morning in New York City. And 49-year-old architect Frank D. Martini has just arrived at work. He's a construction manager for the Port Authority. And that's the entity that manages all of the

11:28trains and the harbors and the buses and the bridges and the bus terminals and all the other kind of travel elements that take place between New York and New Jersey. And that is the entity that developed the World Trade Center. Frank's been working for them since just after the 1993 terrorist bombing. And that happened in one of the World Trade Center's basements. I don't know if you remember that. It was like, yeah. So Frank was hired then to assess structural damage. It was a temporary gig that it led to a permanent one. Frank's wife Nicole saying, quote, he fell in love with the buildings. For him, they represented an incredible human feet. He was awed by their scale and magnitude, by the innovative design features and by the efficiency of the use of materials. End quote. Nicole D. Martini is in her early 40s. She's also an architect. And she first met Frank in design school. They had since been married. Now they have two children and a home in Fort Green, Brooklyn. And Nicole works for the engineering company that built the World

12:29Trade Center. And her office is in the South Tower on the 35th floor. But this morning, she's with Frank in the North Tower at his office because their commute went quicker than expected. There was light traffic and a seamless drop off at the kids school. So they got to work at 8.15. And they're 45 minutes early. You know, they both start working nine. So Nicole decides she's going to spend the next half hour with her husband. She'll later say, quote, we were in his office and had a cup of coffee and discuss typical everyday life kind of things. And that's when the plane struck just above us. Jesus. So it's 8.46 a.m. on September 11th and a Boeing 767 crashes into the North Tower at floors 93 through 99. This is about 50 feet above where Frank and Nicole are sitting at the time. Wow. This is the story of the evacuation of the World Trade Center's North Tower and all the acts of courage and selflessness that saved so many lives that day. And the main sources used today are the book 102 minutes by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn and the documentary 9.11 heroes

13:35of the 88th floor and the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So it's 8.46. We're in Frank's office. Frank and Nicole hear this huge boom. They feel a jolt. And then they see flames and debris just spilling down the side of the building outside of Frank's office windows. Then the power cuts out. So they go out into the hallway and that's where everybody is congregating from the 88th floor. There's about between 30 and 40 people all trying to figure out what's going on talking to each other. Some people are saying they think a generator exploded on the upper floor or that the North Tower water pump that's known to malfunction is somehow exploded. Some people say it's a bomb but no one really knows and no one's really panicking. This building is designed to absorb serious shock and this group knows that better than most because after that terrorist attack in 1993, they learned it was the heavy smoke that pulled in the emergency stairwells that presented the most danger to evacuee safety more than actual structural damage. And in the years since 1993,

14:42they started having fire drills, training employees to gather on their floors or a couple floors down depending if theirs is directly affected by something like fire. And to wait for further instructions over the building's emergency intercom system versus just running out and immediately evacuating. So in these hazy surreal first moments of the September 11th terrorist attack, many people just wait for those updates or just standing around waiting to see. They don't know communications have been completely hobbled by this plane's impact on the building. And so crucial minutes tick by was no word from the building's fire safety directors. They just don't hear anything. Also, I think all the kids so crazy that someone could be 25 years old and not have experience 9-11. Yeah, you know, yes, but that we didn't text message them like if we did it was like a very basic. Yes, alpha numeric. Yes, it was impossible to time. Yeah, and you just didn't do it. It just didn't. It took forever and you couldn't get on the internet from your phone. There was CNN, obviously breaking news, but it didn't go the way it goes. Now it was it was 25 years ago.

15:47It's so surreal. Speaking of those people that weren't around at this time, we have a picture of what the skyline in New York City looked like, especially down there. That was the normal skyline for so long. Yeah, crazy. So both of the world trade towers had 110 floors. The 88th floor, which is where Frank and Nicole are, is only five floors beneath the impact zone is what they end up calling it, which is everything from the 93rd floor to the 99th floor. So being that close, smoke immediately starts filling the 88th floor. And through the haze, the group can hear someone who's yelling for help. And it turns out 49-year-old Port Authority administrative assistant Elaine Duke just moments before when the thousands of gallons of jet fuel ignited in the crash and sent a huge fireball down the elevator shaft. She was standing like steps away from the elevator. And so she was completely engulfed in flames. Oh my God. And she basically

16:50like gets away, people run over, they put the flames out with their hands. All of her clothes have been burned off. Oh my God. She's just like was in a fireball essentially and survived. Elaine's colleague, Doreen Smith, later remembers, quote, her hair was still smoking and she was walking around as if she was a zombie. Her clothes were completely blown off and her glasses were blown off. End quote. Holy shit. But she is alive. Now it's been less than five minutes into this disaster. But smoke is building in the air and the people on the 88th floor are starting to get scared. But before that fear can bubble over into panic of any kind, Frank D Martini steps forward. His coworker Joanne Chickalello will say, quote, Frank just appeared. I'm not even sure where he came from. He seemed to immediately assess what needed to be done. He eased everybody's fears. End quote. But I feel like Frank is a classic civil servant where he's like he's the guy that has to go in like on the city street and go here's the problem. How do we fix it? Yeah. And those guys

17:56are always those guys where it's like don't let people stand around and theorize what they think might have happened. Let's action. Yeah. Let's action. Let's action. Frank style. So Frank speaks to the group in a calm, even voice as he shepherds Elaine who's just been terribly burned. And they actually give her a sweater so that she can like have clothes on. Yeah. It's not bad. His wife Nicole and the 30 or so coworkers that are standing around and he shepherds them into the biggest least smoky office they can find that's on the southern side of the building because the plane struck the North face. And when they get in there, Frank asks if anyone else has hurt or if anyone else needs help. And it turns out his own secretary 56 year old Judas Reese, she signals she does. She has asthma and she's struggling to breathe. So Frank finds some emergency flashlights and he hands them out to the group. He has a walkie talkie on him that he keeps trying to use to communicate with like the brown. Yeah. But all the poor authority reps are trying to communicate at the same

18:57time. And basically everybody needs medical attention. Yeah. So many people are radioing in at the same time that no one can get through. Yeah. Down in the lobby, first responders are flooding into the building carrying 60 pounds of equipment on their backs. They begin to work their way up the smoky stairwells. These stairwells are pitch black. There's no emergency lighting. There's none of the normal things that would be taking place in like a fire in one of the offices or what are yeah, those things aren't happening. So the firemen are going up as people are trying to evacuate down from all from the same stairs in the dark in the smoke. Meanwhile, fire safety directors are attempting to send evacuation orders throughout the building. But of course, they're using those same radios and they can't reach anyone. So now Frank sets off with a small team of colleagues to investigate what is actually going on among these are two men who are often described as Frank's best friends, engineer MacHanna and construction superintendent Pablo Ortiz. So these guys, they're all around the same age. They're all married with small children and they

20:01all know this building better than almost anybody. And also there's two other men whose movements aren't as well documented, but they should be mentioned 41 year old Carlos de Costa and 34 year old Pete Negron. They also step up into this group of let's go out and figure out what's happening. So the 88th floor is 40,000 square feet of office space. That's almost an acre of office space. That's enormous. Wow. And so these guys basically move through it as quickly as they can, making sure no one is trapped or stuck somewhere. So they kind of split off some search for staffers who may have been separated. Others go try to figure out what like is happening downstairs or what's going on in general. And as they go, the men see the extensive damage that the building has taken even on that floor. The ceiling above their main hallway has collapsed completely. The walls around the elevators are gone because of that fireball. And a fire is broken out on the north eastern side. And as the fire rages on the floors above, the smoke from those flares pour down and get

21:07thicker. This has just been 10 minutes since impact of all the 88th floors exit routes, which used to include the elevators and three centrally located emergency stairwells. Only one of those stairwells is now functional. So Frank and the others get back to the larger group and tell them we can't wait any longer. We have to go down this stairwell. It's the only one we have. So they send everybody over there as fast as they can. And Joanne Chickalello says, quote, everyone had total trust in whatever he was telling us to do. We were going to do it because we knew he would get us out safely. We just knew it. He's the guy you want. He's the guy. Do we take a look? Yeah. This is Frank D. Martini. Oh yeah. I'll follow him. That guy knows where the flashlights are. He knows where the correct emergency stairwell is. Totally. He knows how to use a power tool, but he's also like he's doing big picture stuff. Totally. And it's the kind of thing where he, the rarest experience of he went in after the 1993 attack and knows things that you couldn't have known.

22:09Welcome aboard season six of the girlfriends flight or fight, which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky. There's great food, comfortable chairs and attentive stewardesses. The stewardesses were so beautiful. But in reality, the stewardess job is far less glamorous than it appears. It was the most sexist job I think you could have. In this era, the airlines told these stewardesses they have to be single. They had no good excuse for why they wouldn't let women be married. They have to be skinny. We were starving ourselves. And they have to be young. You would retire at age 32. But one day, a group of stewardesses said, this has got to stop. They risked it all, turning a fight for fairness into a revolution. Listen to the girlfriends flight or fight on the

23:12I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Dancing with the Stars is looking for a new pro. And since last season, I came in eighth place. I'm basically an expert. I'm Daniel Fischel. And I'm Vouch Merkowski. And we have a new podcast called Stepping on Toes with Daniel and Val. Every week, we're breaking down Dancing with the Stars the next pro. To find out who I'll be sharing the born with next season. Listen to Stepping on Toes on America's number one podcast network, I Heart follows Stepping on Toes and start listening on the free I Heart Radio app today. Hey, Portlandia fans. Kerry Brownstein and Fred Armasyn here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia A.O. Rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest Stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysel, the mayor himself Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

24:18Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvise not just words, but a song about it. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia A.O. Rewatch on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So the group, they get over to the stairwell, but they have to climb over mangled building materials and debris to get there. It's not just like we're going to walk across the office. Elaine and Judith, who are the two people with the most pressing medical issues, are moved to the front of the group. They're being helped out by the colleagues. So this is a long way down to the ground floor. What's the floor again? 88. I've done this in an emergency drill when I worked in an office on the 31st floor. And it took fucking took forever. It felt like this is never going to end. Yes. And then it wasn't even an emergency, a real one. Right. That sounds. And I would imagine fully lit. Yeah, fully lit. Clear air. I wasn't freaking the fuck out. Right. Yeah. So going down from the 88th floor is more than

25:22a thousand steps. Of course, I said pitch black. No emergency lighting. Of course, it's filled with smoke. Frank tells Nicole his wife, quote, I'll be right behind you. But instead, he disappears back onto the 88th floor to join Pablo Mac, Carlos and Pete, who have all decided they need to do another sweep to make sure that no one is stuck up there before they leave for good. So now it's about 9 a.m. This is 14 minutes after the North Towers hit and they finish their search. They had back to the emergency stairwell to start their own descent down and catch up with their group. But as they step into the darkness, they hear banging one flight up. Oh, fuck. It's right on the other side of the heavy door that opens from the stairwell onto the 89th floor. They try to open it. It's jammed. They go back down to the 88th floor. They come back up with a bunch of tools, hard hats, flashlights, and they start hammering at the sheet rock around the door frame. On the other

26:22side of that door, their employees trapped on the 89th floor and those workers have the radio on. So they're actually learning the details of what's going on outside. And the doors block the next, the only exit door is blocks. Right. The only stairwell that will get them out. So what they know and what people are starting to learn at this point is that an airplane struck the North Tower and what they believe to be a terrible accident. Everybody at first thinks it's a terrible accident. This is when my grandma woke me up. Yeah, something happened. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's when you lived with her. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I was 21. It's so long ago. I know. And yet it truly is like absolutely last week. I know. When you talk about it in this way. I know. It was such a weird experience. It's like the world stopped and we all sat there watching it roll out second by second. And it feels like everything past since then has been kind of bad. It's like we've all gotten in a lot of trauma from that day that we just have not talked about in the same way. COVID I think is someday going to be the same thing where it's like how has it been this long? Have we even talked about it or

27:24gotten over it? Right. Not yet. The trauma piles. They're piling and piling. Absolutely. They think that until 903 AM 17 minutes into the disaster when the second plane hits the south tower of the World Trade Center. It's now clear that this is a deliberate attack. We're back in the stairwell now outside of the 89th floor. And Pablo actually manages to pry the door open with a crowbar. The men rush onto the 89th floor. They split up into smaller groups. Unfortunately, this is where we lose any other information about Pete or Carlos. Oh my god. But Frank and Pablo stick together from here on out and then Mac basically kind of joins them in his in and out and you know stays in touch essentially a graphic designer named Thomas Haddad remembers the moment that these men burst into his office. He says quote we followed them out to a stairwell door. I was the last one on 89. The two gentlemen from the port authority were standing on the landing of the stairs. And everyone else from our group had already started down. The two of them were

28:26contemplating following us and one turned to the other and said no, let's go up. I think there's more people upstairs. Oh my god. And those two men are Frank D. Martini and Pablo Ortiz. Later, Pablo's ex-wife, Maureen will explain in an interview that Pablo is a former Navy seal. And she says quote, I believe that the Vietnam War was the thing that really changed his life. You could just see how hurt he was that he lost so many people. He couldn't help them. There was no way in which he was going to let anyone around him get hurt this time. Wow. Yeah. And quote. So then Nicole D. Martini meanwhile describes her husband Frank as quote, not an ordinary person. For him to make that choice to go up rather than go down was just really part of his personality. It was in him. He just had to do it. Like you want to think you'd be a hero or like a good person in that moment. Not that it's not a good person to run. But I think most of us would run. Absolutely. That's survival. Yeah. Right. To go in and to try to help people is just it's big. You don't see it

29:28because you're not in that situation very often. Right. And when it happens. Right. Well, that's the thing of I don't want to give my dad any more credit than he deserves. But that's the whole job is like they joke around and have fun and make dinners and bullshit. And then they run into burning buildings to save people to get them out. Totally wild. And then of course we all know what the FDNY did on this day and the sacrifices that they made and how they just it was like not even a second. That's what they're going to do. Yeah. So by 914 AM, this is 30 minutes after the impact. Frank and Pablo have made it up to the 90th floor where they free another group of trapped workers. So they are making it up. And actually there's people that need their help. It's wild. When they climb up this stairwell to the 91st floor, that's just two floors under the impact zone. They find there's no way to get inside. Now we know that no one above the 91st floor will make it out of that tower that day. In the book 102 minutes, others Kevin Flanon, Jim Dwyer,

30:29right quote, above the 91st floor, the stairways were plugged solid to collapse drywall forming an impermeable membrane, a borderline that could not be crossed even for people on the 92nd and 93rd floors, most of which had not been touched by the plane impact. Oh my god. Yeah. So Frank and Pablo one of those beta blockers. What's that? I mean, another one of those beta blockers. Like sweating. We got a process that they can't beta block your way through the worst thing that ever happened. Truly. And also there's people we know people who like lived through it right up close. I mean, like people live through these things. Yeah. So Frank and Pablo are forced to concede that they can't evacuate anyone further up. So they start looking for those in need on their way back down. Below their friends and colleagues are still trying to get down the stairs and out of the building. But as they're pushing forward, more people are filtering into the stairwell from the other floors. And firefighters are continually rushing up the stairs past them. So there's bottle next. And of

31:31course, there's terrible surprises around every turn. Some floors, there's so much heavy damage. They have to actually get out of the stairwell and cross through office space to go to other stairwells, hoping they will be open. So it's like this one was blocked to here, but now maybe we can go down here. And as they do that, they're crossing office areas that are some of them are flooded, some of them are burning, some have exposed wire popping around. I mean, it's like a bad, it's worst case scenario. So Mack is among this crowd of evacuees because he split off from his friends on the 88th floor because he helped a man named Mo Lipson, who is 89 years old. So he's basically shepherding Mo and making sure that he's got the help he needs. So now it's 930. It's about 45 minutes after the impact. Mack is still making his way downstairs. And so is Judith Rees, Frank Secretary, but because of her asthma and her breathing, she's having a terrible time. Her colleague Anita Sarpe says, quote, it was very difficult for her to breathe because of the

32:34smoke. It was very difficult for her to walk. She was very scared. Her face, you could just see she was in pain from the breathing and trying to walk and knowing that she was delaying us from getting downstairs. So the pressure of like holding people up. Absolutely. Poor boy. But some people from the 88th floor have actually finally made it down to the ground level already, including Elaine Duke, the woman who was critically burned. She's immediately rushed to the hospital. And there they believe her prognosis to be so bad that she's actually given last rights by a priest. But somehow miraculously she recovers. She spends four months in the hospital. And then she's released. So she actually makes it through. That's amazing. And Frank's wife, Nicole, also makes it outside. But Frank isn't right behind her like he said he would be. And she will later say, quote, Frank was certainly not going to come down with me. He wanted to make sure everybody else was coming down first. I knew he'd be the last person to come down. It was difficult.

33:37Got it. Yeah. And this killed me when I read this line. So Nicole just starts walking toward the Brooklyn Bridge away from the disaster area, which was the footage that we saw like in California. Of just streams of people on foot crossing the Brooklyn Bridge to get away. No other option just like to walk towards home. Yeah. Ish, right? Or just to walk where other people are. Right away. Just try to get somewhere over there essentially. Moments later at 9.59, this South Tower collapses. Oh God. Nicole says quote, I could not look back. I could not look back. I heard people around me going, Oh my God, oh my God, look what happened. People turning around people looking. And I just could not look. I kept walking. Yeah. She knows. I mean, yeah, before I find here. Welcome aboard season six of the girlfriends flight or fight, which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky. There's great food, comfortable chairs and attentive stewardesses. The stewardesses

34:43were so beautiful. But in reality, the stewardess job is far less glamorous than it appears. It was the most sexist job I think you could have. In this era, the airlines told these stewardesses they have to be single. They had no good excuse for why they wouldn't let women be married. They have to be skinny. We were starving ourselves. And they have to be young. You would retire at age 32. But one day, a group of stewardesses said, this has got to stop. They risked it all, turning a fight for fairness into a revolution. Listen to the girlfriends flight or fight on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the burden of guild season three podcast. This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families.

35:48It's a scorched earth war that shows just how far someone will go to get what they want. Cindy said I had to choose between the truth and my family. And I had to choose the truth. Listen to season three of burden of guild on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Two Aussie lesbian lovers touched down in 1990s London and become the toast of British high society. One of them touts an exclusive investment opportunity. And soon the money is rolling in. Rich businessmen and England's horse loving elite fall under their seductive spell. They even meet Queen Elizabeth. But the millionaire duo are concealing a dark past and dastardly intentions. From USG audio, Blanchard House and exactly right media. This is Royal Swindle. Listen to the entire series now on the iHeartRadio app,

36:51Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. For the evacuees still making their way down the north tower, everything goes from bad to worse now. Hot debris filled smoke is rising up in the stairwell, making things even darker. And it's definitely loud. Thomas Haddad, who is the graphic designer from the 89th floor, he will say quote, if you can imagine a sound that's so loud that it's quiet, that's what it was. There was so much sound that you couldn't hear a thing. Oh, yeah. Because you're in this reverberating stairwell and then there's an explosion. Remaining evacuees are frozen in place for several minutes before they're able to continue down. And Frank Secretary Judith Reese is among them. She's already having to stop and rest. But her poor authority colleague Jeffrey Gertler refuses to leave her, even as the stairwells thin out more and more people are able to evacuate. He's not going down. When they get to the 12th floor,

37:57Judith starts to panic right as a group of firefighters appears. Jeffrey remembers quote, they said, we're going to carry her down. I said, Judith, we're going to walk with you. Don't worry when we get down to street level, I'll be with you. And the fireman who is in charge steps up close to me and says, you don't understand the building is going to collapse. And if you don't start down those stairs, I'm going to throw you down those stairs. Oh my god. They knew they were going into a building that was going down. Minutes later, Jeffrey makes it out of the building. He turns and waits to see Judith coming out behind him. Meanwhile, Mac, who's helping 89 year old Mo get down the stairs is also still fighting his way outside at 10, 22 AM. Mo and Mac finally reach the ground level. Mac says quote, I was carrying Mo out at the time because the lobby itself was completely damaged. All the chandeliers, all the stores and the lobby were completely damaged. And water was almost one foot deep. As soon as I came out of the building, I was shouting at the police on the other side

38:59of the West Side Highway, telling them, I am exhausted. I am tired. I am carrying a man. It is 10, 28 AM. Then without fully understanding what's happening around him, Mac feels his feet hit the pavement and suddenly he's running as fast as he can to escape a tidal wave of debris billowing behind him. The North Tower has now collapsed. Some sources say that Mac and Mo were the last two people to get out of the North Tower alive. But of course, we can't know that for sure. That's like theory. Well, it's so scary that once you get out of the tower, there's still threat of debris falling on top of you and then the building collapsing. Like God. It's so monumental and also just nothing anyone. It's so interesting. His memory of that where it's suddenly I was running. He's not making decisions. He's survival instinct entirely. Because this isn't something that anyone's experienced in this level. They know that basically about 3,000 people were killed in the terror

40:06attacks of September 11th. And among them are Judy Threese, Carlos de Costa, Pete Nagrone, Pablo Ortiz and Frank de Martini, who are all believed to have died when the North Tower collapsed. We know nothing of their final moments except that Pablo and Frank were last seen on the 78th floor attempting to rescue more people. So of those five courageous men from the 88th floor, only Mac Hanna survives. And obviously and of course, his life is profoundly changed. But in kind of an interesting way, he actually enters the priesthood in 2005. No way. And now his father, Marc Hanna, he devotes his life to helping others. Oh my God. Here's him. The idea that such a catastrophe could happen and like so believe. Yeah. And I know it's fucked up to say, but no, well, from his perspective, it's like he got us survived. Yeah. Yeah. And he helped people and he saved people and it's like, that's what I should be doing. There's a reason. Yeah. Wow. In a 2021 interview, father, Marc Hanna mentions, he still hasn't been able to

41:10visit the World Trade Center Memorial or anything at ground zero. But he does say, quote, I pray to do it before I pass away to honor my friends. Wow. And Mo, the old man that Mac evacuated, he survived getting out. He ended up passing away in 2008 at the age of 96. Wow. So it's believed that that group of men from the 88th floor saved at least 50 people. Wow. And maybe as many as 77 people from the upper floors of the North Tower on 9-11. It's also said that their selflessness and courage had an immediate downstream effect on the people that they were evacuating. Yeah. It set this tone of courage and kindness for everybody making that terrifying descent to the ground level. They offered each other help. They cared for or sat with the injured. People were singing songs to keep everyone's spirits up. When they could hear people trapping outdoors, they did everything they could to get them out. Like those guys really led by example. And it's all, of course,

42:16left the men's loved ones with very complicated feelings. Right. Nicole says, quote, I sort of knew that Frank did not make it out. I did not want to believe it, but I had a feeling that he did not make it out of the time. It must have been several weeks later when we discovered what Frank had done. I was certainly surprised to find out how many people he saved in that relatively short time. It's wonderful that he saved so many people's lives, but he couldn't save his life and his life was important in my life. Oh, God. Yeah. That's the thing about guys like that. Yeah. I'm picturing Vince. And I'm like, don't do it. Don't be a hero. Come with me. I need you. You know, I know, but guys like that, they're too attuned to the good of the group and the world, which is what it is to be human. Yeah. And it also was kind of like those instincts are developable. Yeah. And I wouldn't know, but it probably feels great to have to develop them. Sure. Because then you're kind of like, well, I'll take care of it. Or maybe I can take care of it.

43:18Well, I'm sure you have that. Some level of growing up watching your dad do exactly that. As a fireman. True, but I mean, I'm scared of fire. That's why I lit that bed on fire. But in general, like, you know, I think I thought you're great in an emergency. I think I might be. Yeah. And I think that's also the growing up in the 70s where it always was an emergency. Right. So it's like, oh, this. And like, take care of your fucking cell. Get it. You know what this made me think of also is they are talking about her. She's saying, I sort of knew he didn't make it out. But remember, like, they didn't know if people made it out or not. Remember, there was all those bulletin boards and all that stuff down. They're missing persons, posters that people were putting up of their loved ones as it like, and then looking through hospitals just to try to identify someone who's unconscious maybe, didn't have their ID on them. Yeah. So heartbreaking. Just waiting to see. So for all the people that had this terrible loss, they also had to go through weeks or maybe months of just not knowing.

44:20Totally. And there's some people who never knew because nobody can account for the missing. It's, yeah, it's a lot to think about. So Maureen, who was Pablo's ex-wife, has said something similar about losing Pablo that quote, we were in denial. We didn't believe that he was dead. I felt proud of him. Certainly very proud of him that he did what he felt he had to do and miserable and angry at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. One of the men that Pablo or T's saved is Thomas Hadad from the 89th floor. And he said quote, I can see their faces as it was yesterday in my mind. They are my heroes. They're the reason I can continue to have a life of any kind. Wow. But Pablo or T's ex-wife Maureen also talks about how connected she feels to the 50 plus maybe even in the 70s amount of human lives that her husband saved. She adds quote, they actually had the last moments of his life. To me, I think they each have a part of him living in them.

45:23Wow. My kids lost their father, but we became a family. And quote, oh my god. And that's the story of the men. Now remember does the heroes of the 88th floor, Frank D. Martini, Pablo or T's, Carlos de Costa, Pete Negron and MacHanna. Wow. I had never heard of that. Me either. That's amazing. Isn't that like in all that darkness, there's a very small silver lining. I love that because when I see a documentary, another documentary about 9-11, I have the hardest time watching it because it's just so triggering and awful and the memories and then also the mystery around it and the corruption. And just it's just so awful. But when there's really lovely stories that come out of it, it's like real human bravery. Yes. That's what I want to hear. Right. It's like those people in that stairwell didn't go out of my way old lady. Like that is where stuff like that usually happens and people usually use that as the excuse of well,

46:23there's no women and children first. I had to get out whatever it is. And it sounds like just the opposite is what was going on in that stairwell. It's that Mr. Rogers saying, look for the helpers. Is that right? Yeah. Well, great job. Good solo episode for. I mean, fifth anniversary. The 25th anniversary. Yeah. You weren't living there then, right? No. No, no. I was in LA. Yeah. And my sister called and said they attacked the White House. And I thought she meant aliens. And I, the beginning of that day was so mind blowing to me. And then I was like, wait, what? And then it was like, it was so strangely real. Yeah. Like you could feel all of us adjusting to this new reality. Totally. When it felt like a movie and then it didn't anymore, because it was reality. Yeah. Wow. Well, good job. Thank you. Good solo. Thank you. Maybe in the spirit of all of that today, tomorrow, these next couple days, just try to be the brave one. See what you can do. I love that. Be nice to people. Maybe? No, don't take that out.

47:26What would Dolly do? It was like, you hated your own idea. Be nice to people. Yeah. That's too much. Don't be crazy. Yeah. But what would Dolly do? What would Dolly do? That, there you go. Okay. Here's what we know Dolly would do. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our managing producer is Molly Smith. Our consulting producer is Kate Schellmbach. Our creative lead is Alice in the Gosty. Our associate producer is Tessa Hughes and our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Leonis Kulachy. Our researchers are Marin McLaughlin and Ali Elken. Email your hometowns to my favorite murder at gmail.com and follow the show on Instagram at my favorite murder. Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Or watch new episodes every week on Netflix. Search for my favorite murder,

48:30add us to your list and hit the double thumbs up button. Goodbye. Welcome aboard season six of the Girlfriends. Flight or fight, which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky. A beautiful woman smiles and hands you a scotch. But you have no idea just how messed up her job actually is. It was the most sexist job I think you could have. Until one day, a group of stewardesses spark a revolution that reshapes America. Listen to the Girlfriends. Flight or fight on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey Quartlandia fans. Kerry Brown seen in Fred Armason here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching podlandia a.o.re watch. Our brand new

49:31podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together. Breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysel, the mayor himself Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann and many more. Kyle is going for it. You fully improvise not just words, but a song about I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to podlandia a.o.rewatch on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're bookshelf and you're for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators and plenty of over thought opinions.

50:31Yeah, I'm obsessed. So obsessed. Listen to pro society on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.