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Leaked FEMA/ASCE Draft Report On WTC Collapse

Posted by Hemos on from the structure-integrity-good dept.

securitas writes "The New York Times obtained a copy of the World Trade Center draft report by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Society of Civil Engineers about the engineering failures that caused the towers to collapse. Among the findings: 'Fireproofing, sprinkler systems and the water supply for hoses were all disabled and the fires generated heat equivalent to the energy output of a nuclear power plant' reports the NYT (Yahoo link). Amazingly, if it wasn't for the fire (or another secondary catastrophic force), the towers would have remained standing."

2 of 475 comments (clear)

  1. TLC/Discovery Special -- Question ... by pgrote · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They ran an hour long program where they interviewed two key people ... the mechanical engineer who built the towers and a forensic mechanical engineer who was looking at the wreckage.

    Each had unique viewpoints. The designing mechanical engineer is haunted to the core over this. Most of his sentances trailed off as he was reliving what happened.

    The forensic scientist identified the fact that the fireproofing material was blown off from the original impact. This hastened the collapse. He also commented that the support structures for the floors were the first things to fail.

    My question is did anyone really think they were going to fall? Remembering back to the day no one in the media raised the question. None of my friends or family I was talking to that day even thought of it as a remote possibility.

    This raises a very interesting question about our expectations vs. reality. After the shuttle disaster I think this stands as one of the most shocking slaps in the face to us concerning technology.

    Of course the buildings weren't going to survive, but our faith in technology made us think that day that the buildings collapsing wasn't a possibility.

  2. Prolonged, uncontrolled fire & structural dama by phillymjs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In the History Channel's WTC documentary, they showed large backup generators whose purpose was to briefly power the entire complex in an outage. There were also large tanks of diesel fuel to supply the generators. I'd say it's likely that setup was in 7 WTC or one of the other ancillary buildings.

    And now a quick Google search reveals this: Engineers Suspect Diesel Fuel in Collapse of 7 World Trade Center.

    ~Philly