Post #9,195
9/14/01 6:30:34 PM
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I talked with a business associate in Boston today ...
... and he said that a freind of his worked on the 80th floor but she had not left for work yet before she saw the plane crash on TV. Four of her co-workers were there but got out, but not before some delays. As they were leaving the building, the second plane crashed and sent debris upon them, causing bruises, cuts and a layer of dust.
It seems that everyone in the New England states has a story to tell about someone they knew that was involved.
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Post #9,196
9/14/01 6:36:19 PM
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I discovered today...
That I fight for parking spaces in the morning with the firm that architected the World Trade Center.
Regards,
-scott anderson
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Post #9,198
9/14/01 6:44:57 PM
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Well... they might need to hear from someone
that they did a really good job. Those beams *were* insulated; much was anticipated. They just could not have covered 50x the volume of flammables flying around 30 years later.. (and still built anything there).
:[
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Post #9,211
9/14/01 9:01:26 PM
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Actually only insulated so much
One of the articles I've read indicated that the beams were asbestos insullated.... up to the 64th floor, when the asbestos scare set in and they switched to another insulator.
There is some chance that if the entire structure's metal had been insulated with the asbestos sheathing used for the lower 64 floors (the sheathing process used, BTW, has never been found to be harmful), perhaps the towers would have endured another couple hours. Or maybe even survived, who knows?
That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment to use arms in defense of so valuable a blessing [as freedom], on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion; yet arms ... should be the last resource. - George Washington
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Post #9,225
9/14/01 9:49:55 PM
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On program I saw, another factor -
As the height increases, size/weight is reduced, just as we would suppose - and everything's weight is factored to the ounce (!).
This presentation of numbers and engineering points, mentioned that the planes were directed at most vulnerable location == lowest possible. Nearby buildings kept planes at 60+ level, and second one struck essentially at, 'treetop' level :[
Had they hit higher? the lesser weight of nearby floors .. might also have extended the lifetime some useful amount, as the stored potential energy (the original K.E. of lifting against gravity) would have been less; less of a 'hammer' to the next lower floor, etc. (the fuel was going to burn in any case, and collapse was inevitable).
Note that first strike hit higher - lasted longer.
(can't recall which, but re 757, 767 - one holds ~9K gallons max, other ~13K gallons max. Another difference in the strikes)
A.
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Post #9,233
9/14/01 10:30:11 PM
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Re: On program I saw, another factor -
Note that first strike hit higher - lasted longer. But the second strike hit more viciously; if you see the replays (as you probably have), that fireball and debris cascading out the other side of the building was worse than happened with the first building. I don't remember seeing an "exit wound" from the first strike. (But I was at work at the time and was not able to see much coverage; we had a television set in a conference room, but I only saw bits and pieces.) And the second strike certainly had fire crawling down the sides of the building, unlike the first one where it seemed confined to the upper floors. I think your thought is predicated on an invalid assumption, anyway - there's no way to know at the moment whether the terrorists even imagined they would bring down the entire complex. Massive damage and loss of life, sure, they wanted and expected that. Terror from terrible fires, yes. But to bring the entire thing down? I've seen the report from the professor in England who knew it was "inevitable" that the towers would collapse, but he seems to be the only one on the Web who claims to have known in advance. Perhaps they were hoping the towers would fall over (imagine the top of a tower falling over two or three blocks! ow!). But I suppose we won't know unless/until we catch and interrogate one of the designers of the scheme. I base some of my thinking about the scope of the expected damage from their strike on the Pentagon. If they had expected a Trade Tower collapse type of thing, surely they would have found a richer target than the Puzzle Palace. By the way, I've read and heard several reports about some of the other buildings buckling and perhaps collapsing themselves but other than building 7, I've not been able to find any reports about what exactly is down, damaged, or decrepid. Anyone have links? That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment to use arms in defense of so valuable a blessing [as freedom], on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion; yet arms ... should be the last resource. - George Washington
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Post #9,241
9/14/01 11:16:31 PM
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I agree that 'intentionality' is a mere guess,
but a good one IMO. And "bringing it down" has been the aim since '93, expressed by now many of their folk.
It is also a bit patronizing I think - to imagine these did not do their homework and with technical advice. They are not ignorant savages. Just sociopaths of the Religious scale.
You're right re speed too; IIRC first plane wasn't moving as fast, nor did it make an obvious 'exit wound' - but fire soon pretty well encompassed all sides (?) We can be sure that there will be engineering studies of all facets, from the data known now in such detail and photographed second by second.
Somebody's PhD.. a la Dallas 1963.
A.
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Post #9,258
9/15/01 2:25:07 AM
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I agree, they had good advice
And that advice would have told them the towers were designed to absorb airplane impacts.
On the other hand, perhaps they had someone like this England professor on their payroll. As yet, nobody knows.
That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment to use arms in defense of so valuable a blessing [as freedom], on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion; yet arms ... should be the last resource. - George Washington
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Post #9,261
9/15/01 2:48:13 AM
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5 collapsed so far
[link|http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/build.map.html|Damage Assesment] from CNN
Darrell Spice, Jr.
[link|http://home.houston.rr.com/spiceware/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
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Post #9,270
9/15/01 8:24:33 AM
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Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks
That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment to use arms in defense of so valuable a blessing [as freedom], on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion; yet arms ... should be the last resource. - George Washington
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Post #9,200
9/14/01 7:10:02 PM
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Doing business...
Well, it's a pretty small world. Me, I just work in the backroom in a darklit area, with little contact to other humans - usually preferring the company of machines and their predictability. Even with such isolation, it's hard to escape how intertwined our lives are.
We had three of the people from [link|http://www.aon.com/about/news/PressRelease.asp?ID=66841901BE4879E886256AC7006F2DEB|Aon] visit my managers on Monday down here in Dallas as they have been putting our benefit packages together - Aon's main HQ being the 101st floor of 2WTC. We've received word that the three that they've worked with survived but the company itself has over 200 employees that are still not accounted for.
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