he first thing that hit my senses was the quietness of it all," remembered Inspector Timothy I. Norris of the Port Authority Police Department. Seconds after the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, he was in the basement, near the usually bustling PATH Square. "It was surreal. Then as we panned our flashlights about, we observed the devastation that had taken place.

"There was also a large fire in the area from what seemed like a broken gas line. I was just about to turn around and leave the area when my flashlight illuminated a bloody arm waving from underneath a debris pile." Inspector Norris and others lifted a man out. "The man was semiconscious and heavy, and it seemed like an eternity before we emerged in the light and fresh air of Vesey Street."

That is one recollection among scores documented by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from its police officers in the months after the disaster in Lower Manhattan that claimed more than 2,700 lives, 84 of them Port Authority employees, with 37 of those Port Authority officers. The records were released Thursday along with transcripts of radio transmissions from the twin towers, after The New York Times had sued to make them public.

The accounts, some written out longhand, others cut short by the writer's inability to go on, include exchanges with officers who would never make it out of the towers and a description from inside the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel as the dust cloud filled the underground tube and overwhelmed rescuers.

One account shows that as officers fired their guns to break through windows for escape, the shots were mistaken for part of the terrorist attack, and another officer was hit by a ricochet. Some officers, in their immediate need to respond, cut loose suspects in their custody. Another recounted a rare moment of exuberance as a Port Authority officer, thought to be among the dead or missing, was carried through a door to a command center.

The records are filled with personal observations, both of the terrible carnage and of minute details that somehow lodged in the memory. Some recalled the tattered stockings on the people fleeing without their shoes; others remembered officers stripping off their gun belts to put on rescue gear. One officer remembered a squabble in a stairway with a firefighter.

There are also tales of searches in the darkness, of following the sounds of voices and the contours of walls and of holding hands with unseen comrades.

"I entered the command bus and saw the driver's window was open and the cloud was entering the bus," wrote Sgt. William J. Zika, who was inside the bus after the first collapse. "While at the driver's window, trying to close it, I heard screams for help. Voices screaming, `Help, I can't breathe.' I yelled out to them to come to my voice. After a few moments I saw hands reaching into the window. I pulled an unknown number of people who were covered with debris into the bus through the window."

The accounts also offer interesting, though often incomplete, additions to the knowledge of the emergency response. In one report, an officer recalls how the captain of the Port Authority police precinct at the trade center ordered an evacuation of the entire complex — even before the second plane had struck — a message that was not carried out throughout the ranks.

A Port Authority spokesman, Harry Spector, said yesterday that the accounts were voluntarily submitted by officers at the request of their superiors. "They were collected as part of the historical record," he said.

SGT. FRANK GIARAMITA

Inside the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel: "For a moment I thought it was water. The vehicles in front of us were turning around and driving against traffic to escape the tunnel. A number of them crashing into the tunnel walls to accomplish this. Our bus was too large to turn around, so we began to go in reverse to get out of the tunnel. At this point I thought that the tunnel itself was damaged or had been the target of an additional terrorist act."

POLICE OFFICER DANIEL M. McCARTHY

Shortly before the collapse of the first tower: "Captain Whitaker arrived at the command post and advised all members of the department who were present not to enter the building. Captain Whitaker further stated `that building is not stable, I don't want any more of our guys going in there.' A short time later the building collapsed . . . I strongly believe Captain Whitaker was instrumental in saving the lives of approximately 40 more police officers."

POLICE OFFICER MICHAEL SIMONS