9/11 debate help

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
Of course bldg 7 was different. I missed the airplane bumping into it and dropping fuel down the elevator shaft. I missed the part where high temperatures via airplane fuel were melting beams on bldg 7. s.
[/QUOTE]

Did you actually bother to read the link I posted?

WTC7 was struck by large amounts of debris when the towers collapsed. This was caught on video. WTC7 suffered sever structural damage as a result of being struck by debris, damage which included a gash running at least half the height of the building. This is shown in the link I posted. WTC7 had a 12,000 gallon diesel tank in the basement, and multiple smaller tanks in the structurally critical floor 5-7 area. Examination of the debris and the ground afterwards during the cleanup found little to no evidence of any of this fuel remaining, suggesting most or all of it was consumed in the fires before the building collapsed. What part of this progression are you having trouble with?

22

[QUOTE=AndrewL]
Did you actually bother to read the link I posted?
[/QUOTE]

He doesn’t read links…I suspect even the one’s he himself posts in his usual drive by’s. :stuck_out_tongue:

-XT

23

[QUOTE=AndrewL]

WTC7 was struck by large amounts of debris when the towers collapsed.
[/QUOTE]

And are we to believe the master controllers waited seven hours (seven hours!) to destroy WTC 7, when they knew cameras would be trained on it, instead of destroying it in the seclusion of either WTC 1 or 2’s significant dust cloud produced upon collapse? Also, in order for the masters to convince the population that WTC 7 collapsed due to a significant amount of WTC 2 debris hitting it, causing instability which was complicated by fires, they would need debris from WTC 2 to actually hit the building. It then is very fortuitous that WTC 2 debris actually did hit WTC 7. I wonder how the masters managed that?

Concerning WTC 1 and 2:

The collapse of both buildings initiated at the exact point of aircraft impact. How did the explosive charges needed to initiate collapse survive aircraft impact and subsequent fires?

24

[QUOTE=xtisme]
He doesn’t read links…I suspect even the one’s he himself posts in his usual drive by’s. :stuck_out_tongue:

-XT
[/QUOTE]

BS again xt. The post came after I posted .It was not not here when I replied. Don’t you ever tire of insults.
The info is new to me. When I got on the net I found nothing like it band I will carefully check it out. I was under the impression the bldgs came practically down in their footprints. The dust and light debris were wide spread. But they would not harm a bldg. I will check it out.

25

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
BS again xt. The post came after I posted .It was not not here when I replied. Don’t you ever tire of insults.
[/QUOTE]

Um…gonzo? His link is in post #17 bro (your second comment is, er, post #19). Check it out.

-XT

26

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
The info is new to me. When I got on the net I found nothing like it band I will carefully check it out. I was under the impression the bldgs came practically down in their footprints. The dust and light debris were wide spread. But they would not harm a bldg. I will check it out.
[/QUOTE]

Well, looking at all the video of the towers coming down you can say that they do fall pretty much straight down, as opposed to tipping over like a felled tree. However it’s important to keep in mind the sheer magnitude of the buildings.

WTC1 and 2 were both approximately 200 feet on a side (that’s one acre per floor) and 110 stories tall.
(File:World Trade Center Building Design with Floor and Elevator Arrangement.svg - Wikipedia)

The concrete floor slabs were about 4 inches thick. Leaving out every other part of those buildings, all the beams, trusses, exterior, contents, everything and that’s still well over 50,000 cubic yards of cement per tower. This is an unimaginably enormous amount of stuff, falling as far as 1400 feet to the ground.

Imagine taking that amount of stuff up into the air and dumping it. Yes it will fall down, but stuff will shower all around “ground zero” - how far away would you want to be from the 200x200 footprint to feel safe?

Watching the videos it looks like it’s only a cloud of dust but again the sheer scale is messing with your perception - what looks like a speck of dust might well be a desk, or a steel column. Watch the videos again and look at how stuff showers all over the place and the dynamic nature of what’s going on literally blows stuff out to the sides.

WTC7 was located approximately 100 meters from the base of WTC1 if the scale of this picture is accurate. Compared to the size of the towers, that’s way too close for comfort - I would not volunteer to stand a football field away from that load coming down.

Now here’s an image of the WTC taken on 9/15:

http://www.greatbuildings.com/cgi-bin/gbi.cgi/World_Trade_Center.html/cid_wtc0915_1280-clo.jpg

You can see the size of the debris field - the WTC plaza (that block with WTC1-6 on it) was 16 acres and aside from WTC5 and what’s left of WTC6, the whole plaza appears to be covered with wreckage. 16 acres is 8 times the size of the combined footprints of WTC1 and 2.

WTC7 was hit with a lot of debris (the bottom 10 floors were severely damaged, with damage up to the 18th floor).

Hope that helps clarify it a bit.

27

How many other buildings were damaged and how badly.?

28

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
How many other buildings were damaged and how badly.?
[/QUOTE]

Well geeze, look at the overhead image I provided for starters. WTC1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 are DESTROYED. Down to the ground.

WTC5 is still standing. WTC6 appears to be severely damaged.

That is my five second analysis based on one photo. If you take a few minutes to look up any of the 10 billion online articles showing the aftermath you’ll probably get a clearer listing. Here’s what Wiki notes:

"Best known for its iconic 110-story twin towers, the World Trade Center was beset by a fire on February 13, 1975 and a bombing on February 26, 1993. All of the original buildings in the complex were destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. One World Trade Center (1 WTC) and Two World Trade Center (2 WTC)—the North Tower and South Tower, respectively, collapsed, as did 7 World Trade Center (7 WTC).

The Marriott World Trade Center (3 WTC) was crushed by the collapses of 1 WTC and 2 WTC. 4 World Trade Center (4 WTC), 5 World Trade Center (5 WTC), and 6 World Trade Center (6 WTC) were damaged beyond repair and later demolished. In addition, St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church (not part of the complex) was destroyed by the collapse of 2 WTC; the Deutsche Bank Building was damaged beyond repair and is set for deconstruction."

29

The collapse of WTC7 makes more sense when you consider the unusual structural design of the building. WTC7 was built over a ConEd substation. When the substation was built it was anticipated that a skyscraper would be built over it, so sizeable foundations were laid around it. In WTC7 support columns from these foundation areas supported a complex system of transfer girders and structural floors in what became floors 5-7 of the final building. The design that was picked for WTC7 was larger than that originally planned when the substation was built, and the columns of the building above the 7th floor didn’t line up with those below the 5th, so the floor 5-7 structure essentially had to support the weight of the entire building above it.

The floor 5-7 region was cramped, with heavy beams and structural floors and walls. What space was in there was used for mechanical equipment - generators, diesel tanks for those generators, electrical rooms, ventilation and air conditioning. Additional diesel fuel tanks in the building’s basement fed generators in this area through pressurized feed lines, fed by pumps which were set to automatically start in the case of a power outage and would keep running until the tanks ran dry. The total amount of diesel fuel available was comparable to the fuel load in the planes which hit the towers. There were also vents on the sides of the building in this region to let in air for the diesel generators.

When the North tower collapsed, large amounts of debris struck WTC7. It’s difficult to determine exactly how bad the damage is, mostly due to the thick smoke which was billowing out of the building for most of the afternoon. From photos, video, and eyewitness account it appears that damage extended from the roof to ground floor, including a gouge running from the roof at least halfway down the southern face of the building. Photos, videos, and eyewitness accounts also indicate that multiple major fires were started in the building and burned until it collapsed.

It’s difficult to know exactly how the fires progressed or where the internal damage was. The firefighters determined fairly early on that under the circumstances the fires could not be fought and the building was in danger of collapse, and cleared everyone out of the area. What video and photo evidence we have is taken from a distance and obscured by dust and smoke. We do know that when the rubble was finally cleared the basement diesel tanks were empty, with no evidence of the fuel having leaked into the ground below. This suggests that the pumps kicked in and ran at full capacity, probably due to a rupture in the fuel line, and that this fuel was all pumped elsewhere in the building. A fuel line rupture and fire in the floor 5-7 region would be consistent with the available evidence, although it’s impossible to do more than speculate about that right now.

Shortly before the final collapse, the eastern mechanical penthouse on the roof of the building sank into the building. This mechanical penthouse was a sizeable structure in its own right, directly supported by columns running down to the floor 5-7 transfer structure. Its collapse was probably due to the failure of a single one of those columns, and once it started falling it wouldn’t stop until it hit the transfer structure. The impact of that structure falling 40 floors, hitting a girder structure already weakened by fire and debris impact, probably caused the entire transfer structure to fold inwards, pulling the support out from under all the remaining structural columns holding the building up.

30

What you are telling me is the Architect and builders did a terrible job on the buildings. It would appear that most buildings would not drop to the ground under these circumstances. Has the company that put them up sufferered due to the crappy construction. ?
A majority of buildings can withstand fire without collapsing. Were these buildings so unusual in construction that they were more vulnerable. Somebody must be responsible.

31

The buildings would have been fine under any normal emergency or ordinary fire. They weren’t designed to survive the kind of damage or massive, uncontrolled fires suffered on 9/11. Very few buildings are, and in any event prior to 9/11 there was little case history of large jet airplanes crashing into buildings to study for failure modes. I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know that the new WTC7 and new Freedom Tower have taken lessons learned since then in fire protection and emergency preparedness.

32

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
A majority of buildings can withstand fire without collapsing. Were these buildings so unusual in construction that they were more vulnerable. Somebody must be responsible.
[/QUOTE]

These were not ordinary fires, there was additional structural damage from falling debris, and there was no water to fight the fires. I reject your point that a majority of buildings would be able to withstand this type of fire plus damage.

It may have been suboptimal construction, but there’s no reason to assume the they were unsafe.

33

As to WTC7 I love DanBlather’s post here.

Why would they go through so much trouble to take out WTC7?

34

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
What you are telling me is the Architect and builders did a terrible job on the buildings.
[/QUOTE]

No…thats not what you are being told. As others have said, the building was built with a different set of criteria for sustaining damage due to fire, etc. There is no evidence that the buildings would have failed had the fire been within the parameters it was designed to face. Do you see the distinction? To put it simply, what happened to WTC7 (as well as buildings 1 and 2) were outside of the projected parameters the buildings were designed to face…and so, their failure was essentially inevitable.

Think of it this way…you could build a building designed to actually meet the parameters of an event like 9/11 today…and as stated the new buildings at the WTC site ARE going to meet them. However, if, say a large meteor (or some other event that is outside of those parameters) hits the new building and it exceeds what the building is designed for, IT will fail also…and for the same reason. You simply can’t design a building to meet every possible disaster scenerio.

-XT

35

[QUOTE=Loach]

Why would they go through so much trouble to take out WTC7?
[/QUOTE]

Because destroying two WTC buildings, the Pentagon, and Flight 93, with the subsequent loss of almost 3,000 human beings, was not quite enough to convince Americans that terrorists were evil. We needed that one more empty building to fall that would allow us to drink Bush’s Kool-Aid.
“We don’t have to know why they did it; we just have to know they did it.” is pretty stock CT mentality. Of course they can’t actually prove it was a controlled demolition, they can only prove it looked like a controlled demolition. Well, geez guys, duh.

Here is a recent technical analysis of WTC 1 and 2’s collapse, done, with peer review, by scientists who actually know what they are talking about.

36

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
I was under the impression the bldgs came practically down in their footprints.
[/QUOTE]

I’m not saying you are a CT, but you’d certainly make a good one. Nearly all of them, too, believe in such falsities without doing much research.

37

[QUOTE=Jayrot]

Any advice or suggestions would be helpful on how to proceed?
[/QUOTE]

Time for some heavy artillery:

Screw Loose Change.
A blog to expose the lies the 911 conspiracy theorists are peddling.

http://www.debunking911.com/index.html
Debunking911.
This site has excellent and constantly updated debunkings of even upcoming books by those peddlers.

Even Noam Chomsky has had it with these people:

38

[QUOTE=xtisme]
No…thats not what you are being told. As others have said, the building was built with a different set of criteria for sustaining damage due to fire, etc. There is no evidence that the buildings would have failed had the fire been within the parameters it was designed to face. Do you see the distinction? To put it simply, what happened to WTC7 (as well as buildings 1 and 2) were outside of the projected parameters the buildings were designed to face…and so, their failure was essentially inevitable.

Think of it this way…you could build a building designed to actually meet the parameters of an event like 9/11 today…and as stated the new buildings at the WTC site ARE going to meet them. However, if, say a large meteor (or some other event that is outside of those parameters) hits the new building and it exceeds what the building is designed for, IT will fail also…and for the same reason. You simply can’t design a building to meet every possible disaster scenerio.

-XT
[/QUOTE]

Actually the NOVA program suggests that this design was unusual. The support beams were not normal because they were concentrating on maximazing the usable office space with at least a mild cost to building integrity. It was an unusual archetecture. Has the pattern been repeated in new contruction. ? Would a standard construction have survived better. ?This refers to the towers not bldg 7. Shorter bldgs are easier to make safe.

39

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
Actually the NOVA program suggests that this design was unusual. The support beams were not normal because they were concentrating on maximazing the usable office space with at least a mild cost to building integrity. It was an unusual archetecture. Has the pattern been repeated in new contruction. ? Would a standard construction have survived better. ?This refers to the towers not bldg 7. Shorter bldgs are easier to make safe.
[/QUOTE]

This is true. The towers used a novel structural design in order to have large open office spaces on every floor. This meant having the vertical support columns clustered in the core and in the outer wall, and bridging the space between core and outer wall with lightweight steel floor trusses. It was a revolutionary and remarkable design. It may have also been more vulnerable to catastrophic fire-induced collapse than a normal building. It would have been sufficiently safe in any ordinary emergency - an office fire, truck bomb, elevator failure, power outage, or direct hit from a hurricane - but the events of 9/11 were beyond what any office building is expected to endure.

WTC7 may have also had a failure point inherent in its design. Placing diesel generators, fuel tanks, and pressurized fuel lines in the structurally critical floor 5-7 region had a big part in its collapse. But as with the towers WTC7 would have survived any ordinary disaster - the degree of damage and uncontrolled fires were beyond any normal building code requirements.

Would a standard construction style have survived longer? Probably. The new WTC7 is being built with its core structural members, emergency escapes, power and water lines encased in a fireproof concrete core. I expect other large buildings built in the near future are going to take lessons from 9/11 into their design.

40

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
What you are telling me is the Architect and builders did a terrible job on the buildings. It would appear that most buildings would not drop to the ground under these circumstances. Has the company that put them up sufferered due to the crappy construction. ?
A majority of buildings can withstand fire without collapsing. Were these buildings so unusual in construction that they were more vulnerable. Somebody must be responsible.
[/QUOTE]

[bolding mine]

I’ve been reading this thread and its spiritual cousin with profoundly low spirits. Threads like these get me so frustrated that even discussing the matter makes me nearly incoherent. I mean, why? How does it happen that people with the intellectual capacity to turn on and operate a computer, to register for a message board, to type - presumably to perform a job function - can simply, frankly, flatly, refuse to accept reality.

I have often wondered if people are like this in their daily lives. Like, if Ike from accounting knocks the coffee machine over and it breaks, do they spend their time composing breathless e-mails saying that the CEO rigged the table on which the machine was sitting to automatically dump the machine on the floor when Ike walked by, and anyway Ike was in on it with the CEO, and look at the pattern of the glass on the floor!!! And you ask them why, and they handwave? And some physicist who works in the labs comes by and notes that, actually, the pattern of glass on the floor is exactly what you’d expect if Ike did the knocking, so they just kind of say nuh uh and move on to talking about the suspicious way that purchasing handles its coffee machine purchases?

Obviously not. No one can live like that all the time. So why does this happen?

And then I read gonzomax’s post above, and… the sentence I bolded, that’s basically it, isn’t it? 3,000 people are dead, I can’t drive over the GW Bridge without feeling that creeping wrongness even six years later, and somebody must be responsible. And those 20 assholes who actually are responsible, well, they’re freaking dead, in the same pile of rubble as my neighbors, so they can’t be called to account for it. Blaming them gives me no satisfaction.

But somebody must be responsible, right? George Bush? The guy who designed WTC7? Some secret cabal? Right? Right?

Right?