On September 11th, several hours before the attack started, Stevens sent a message to the State Department warning the situation was getting worse. Later, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was not aware of what was happening at the time. The reason she gave is the State Department receives more than a million messages a year. After the attack started, a rescue team (called the commander’s "In-extremis" Force) started getting ready. But the ambassador was dead before the team was ready to leave Italy. After the attack 30 or more Americans were evacuated from Benghazi.