Reply #148: Actually, "Stay where you are" is standard proceedure in an emergency

[TheWraith]

For any large building or facility that has many people not trained in emergency response, the standard operating proceedure in an emergency is tell everyone to stay where they are and remain calm. If people panicked or tried to escape, they could injure themselves or others in a stampede, do something stupid, or interfere with emergency response efforts, say by getting in the way of firefighters or paramedics. Letting people run around in an emergency could potentially make it worse. Of course, had they known what was going to happen, they'd have ordered everyone to get out of the building as fast as possible, but instead they adhered to protocol.

And to address an earlier point, the WTC buildings were not wired for demolition--the "pull" comment referred to pulling the firefighting teams from WTC7, because the NYFD thought it was about to collapse. They were right.