I came down from the 55th Floor and in the back of my mind I was kinda thinking the same thing about the firemen going up there. Maybe not as harshly as robocock said but kinda the same point. There were times when you were stopped in the stairwell for minutes not even moving. The smoke was getting kinda thick and some people had trouble breathing. We had to move over for alot of firemen coming up the stairs and it was very hard to look at their faces. There was no announcement to go back to work, there were no fire alarms going off, there was no announcement on what to do. At least in Tower 1 there wasn't. From my understanding the alarm went off in Tower 2 when Tower 1 was hit. Thats why you hear these stories about the announcement to go back to work. The PA told them that in Tower 2 since they really didn't think there would be another plane comming. The PA was working on that fire alarm system for the longest time. I guess I didn't really work the way they wanted it to since the alarm went off in the wrong building. Basically if you were up there, it was a feeling that you were on your own. If you remember a few months before this happened there was a fire on a subway platform that filled the mall up with smoke. They made an announcement in every WTC building and told us what was going on. This time there was nothing. Not even a simple fire alarm going off. I didn't hear an alarm until I got to about the 10th Floor. It's easy to say after everything is over "Why did they even go up there?" But at the time - absolutly no one knew what to do. So robocock - I somewhat understand what you are saying but you are saying it very rudely. You are showing no respect for people who lost their lives.