Agencies account for most employees at World Trade Center

Federal officials are still unsure if any federal employees were hurt or killed in the attack on the World Trade Center Tuesday morning, although most agencies with offices in the World Trade Center complex reported that they had safely evacuated all of their employees. The IRS had audit teams in the twin towers at the time of the attack, but all members of the teams made it out safely, according to IRS spokesman Bruce Freeland. Freeland could not say how many IRS employees made up these teams. The General Services Administration, which acts as the federal government's landlord, did not lease office space at the twin towers, according to a spokesman, but GSA could not be sure that federal agencies had not leased space in the towers on their own. CoStar Group, a private firm that tracks building tenants, has released a list of tenants in the World Trade Center that shows no federal agencies were renting space in the twin towers on Tuesday. GSA did lease portions of buildings No. 6 and 7 within the World Trade Center Complex that housed at least 2,800 federal employees. The U.S. Secret Service, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Internal Revenue Service, and Defense Department had 760 civil servants in building No. 7, which collapsed Tuesday afternoon after being hit by debris from the twin towers. More than 300 employees with the Securities and Exchange Commission also worked in Building No. 7. The Defense space in the building was a satellite office used by the Defense Investigative Service and was empty on Tuesday, according to a Defense spokeswoman. Building No. 6 had more than 2,000 federal employees with the Customs Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Export-Import Bank, Foreign Commercial Service within the Commerce Department and Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration of the Labor Department. The U.S. Customs Service is still trying to account for a few employees that worked in Building No. 6, according to a spokeswoman. Five employees of the U.S. Export-Import Bank are safe and accounted for, bank officials said. All employees with the EEOC, ATF, OSHA, Foreign Commercial Service, Secret Service and Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration were successfully evacuated and are unharmed, according to spokesmen for the agencies. Officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission said they are "reasonably confident" that all of that agency's more than 300 employees were safely evacuated Tuesday.