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FALLEN_TOWERS

                                             June 18, 2007


   "The notion that fire is insufficient to bring down a
   steel building was already dealt a blow by the
   February 2005 fire at Madrid's landmark Windsor office
   tower. The fire ... caused several of the top floors
   to collapse, and sparked fears that the entire
   30-story tower could implode unless it was quickly
   demolished. There was nothing to indicate that the
   Windsor tower suffered from anything approaching the
   notoriously fragile, unorthodox construction practices
   at New York's late World Trade Center."

                -- Bill Weinberg, WW4 REPORT
                   "9-11 AND THE NEW PEARL HARBOR,     WEINBERG
                    Aw Shut Up Already, Will Ya?"

                   [ref]
                   [ref]

      You don't often see people
      pointing out that the WTC          And also, a glass and
      was a house of cards.              steel monstrosity without
                                         style or grace, except
               (No doubt that            for -- maybe -- the
               would be a grave          observation platform.
               insult to our
               brave boys in                  My favorite detail:
               the Port                       the windows had people
               Authority who                  staring out through
               didn't die in                  vertical metal slots,
               the collapse.)                 without any peripheral
                                              views.

                                                 The polar opposite
                                                 of bay windows.

  Question: Did Robert
  Moses have something
  to do with the WTC
  construction?  No,
  apparently not... but
  various accounts          "The engineers were aware of the danger
  describe the WTC          posed by jet fuel if a plane hit the
  construction as being     towers, but it was not addressed; nor
  much like a Moses         was heat. Decisions by the Port
  project.                  Authority, which was exempt from the
                            city building code, resulted in grossly
                            inadequate fireproofing"

                             -- Thomas Bender, review of
                                "City in the Sky"
                                "The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center."
                                By James Glanz and Eric Lipton (2003)

               [ref]




    Bill Weinberg again:

    "In April 2005, few media outlets took note
    of the release of NIST's long-awaited study
    on the collapse. The report noted that the
    WTC's unusual lack of internal support walls      From other sources
    (a measure to increase office space)              I've heard the point
    contributed to the collapse, and that lives       that asbestos insulation
    were lost due to building occupants               became illegal when
    scrambling to find seemingly inadequate           they got to the 60th
    stairwells. Yet, as one account put it: 'The      floor or so, and they
    report however did not blame the designers        had to switch to some
    or builders for the WTC collapse...'"             other material.

    "This cat was already well out of the                I've heard the claim
    bag. Retired New York deputy fire chief              that this material
    Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of              was just as good,
    Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground             as far as insulation
    Safety, told the New York Times Oct. 17,             goes, but it occurs
    2002: 'There is no other high-rise office            to me that fragility
    building in New York City that would have            would be a different
    pancaked down in 10 seconds. This was a              issue:
    fragile, unorthodox construction that should
    have never been allowed. It was a disaster             How did it stand
    waiting to happen.'"                                   up to shock, and/or
                                                           thermal expansion?

                                                              And this
                                                              asbestos
                                                              cladded steel
                                                              concept is
                                                              total junk
                                                              compared to
                                                              the old-
                                                              fashioned
                                                              girders
                                                              embedded in
                                                              concrete...


                                                     If you want
                                                     to prevent
                                                     further WTC
                                                     disasters,
                                                     the obvious
                                                     thing to do
                                                     is stop
                                                     building WTCs.

                                                        Right?





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