Sorry, casn’t buy that based upon the video evidence. If your explanation makes you happy, enjoy.
Link to a video where we can see each floor being crushed. You can't. They are hidden behind the debris/smoke cloud.
Also, MHG, the claim that there was not much left of the building is another one of those mischaracterizations from those who really do not know what they are talking about so they can sow discord and sell their books.
The pile of debris left after the collapse, according to numerous rescue workers, was between 10 to 20 stories high. . . but that fact was only obvious when they had climbed to its apex and looked around at the buildings around them.
In addition, in the year after 911, almost 1.5 million tons of debris was removed and processed from the sites, just at the Staten Island Fresh Kills land fill site, and there were other land fills used as well as 350,000 tons of steel and several thousand miles of copper electrical cable that was sent for recycling directly from the site:
That's when we saw the incredible things that took place and the amount of bravery that everybody was taking to try and help as best as they can. Bucket lines and people digging. Debris was incredible, how much of it was across the street. You couldn't even tell the street from the sidewalk. It didn't look like a big pile at first, but you realized it later on because it was a gradual outlaying of material. It gradually increased in height as you went along, so it was like climbing a hill, you really don't know how high you are until you are up there.
Q. The perception wasn't real till you saw firemen standing on the pile. You could barely see them.
A. Barely see them.
Q. Then you have a perception of the mass that was there.
A. How deep it was. And how high it is. I mean you were actually standing sometimes 15, 20 stories up. It wasn't that much of a fall, because there was a lot of material along the way. -Firefighter Fred Marsilla nytimes.com
8.1 Appendix 1: Calculation of Debris Amount
While it is difficult to know exactly what was removed from ground zero, there are numerous articles describing damage to the WTC complex and the surrounding areas. There are also numerous photographs available on the internet of the damage as well as the progress of the cleanup at various stages. The calculation shown in Table 17 is a very rough estimate based on a wide range of sources. Sources are not cited as they are too numerous for the scope of this study. Photos are not included because of usage rights issues. Further study could include a detailed analysis of the debris as well as complete presentation of motivations for assumptions as well as detailed sourcing. (MassAndPeWtc.pdf)
New York City has awarded contracts to two private scrap dealers to handle 50,000 tons of steel. Additional contracts are expected to be awarded to private scrap dealers for another 60,000 tons of structural steel, says George Wittich, senior vice president of Weeks Marine Inc., Cranford, N.J. (wasteage.com)
Most of the concrete from the WTC site was pulverized into dust in the Sept. 11 attacks. But huge amounts of structural steel remained scattered in tangled heaps, says Allen Morse, USACE chief debris expert and FEMA technical advisor. (wasteage.com)
At press time [Nov 1, 2001], the amount of debris taken to Fresh Kills totaled nearly 215,000 tons, or approximately 10,000 tons per day. Total estimated debris was 1.2 million tons, including 16,000 truckloads. (wasteage.com)
Collection and storage of steel members from the WTC site was not part of the BPS Team efforts sponsored by FEMA and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). SEAoNY offered to organize a volunteer team of SEAoNY engineers to collect certain WTC steel pieces for future building performance studies. Visiting Ground Zero in early October 2001, SEAoNY engineers, with the assistance from the New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC), identified and set aside some steel pieces for further study. Of the estimated 1.5 million tons of WTC concrete, steel, and other debris, more than 350,000 tons of steel have been extracted from Ground Zero and barged or trucked to salvage yards where it is cut up for recycling. (fema.gov)
The [May 30th 2002] ceremony marked the end of cleanup efforts after eight months and 108,342 truckloads of debris. The cleanup was originally estimated to last a year. (cnn.com)
Hundreds of workers labored around the clock since September 11 to reclaim the bodies of those who died in the attack and to remove the 1.6 million tons of steel and concrete left behind. (cnn.com)
The total weight of structural steel in the each WTC tower is approximently 100,000 short tons. (MassAndPeWtc.pdf)
http://web.archive.org/web/20020224054329/http://www.engr.psu.edu/ae/WTC/dailyItem.html
The initial debris estimate included 125,000 tons of glass, 250,000 of tons of steel, 450,000 cubic yards of concrete, 12,000 miles of electrical cable, and 198 miles of ductwork. Trade Center Forensic Recovery.pdf disaster.pandj.com
The last debris was processed on July 26, 2002, day 321 of the project. At the close of the Staten Island Landfill mission:• 1,462,000 tons of debris had been received and processed
• 35,000 tons of steel had been removed (165,000 tons were removed directly at Ground Zero)
• 806,000 tons of debris had been screened, an average of 75 tons per hour
• 14,968 workers had been through the PPE process
• 43,600 people (39,795 NYPD, 6,212 non-NYPD) had been through the Site Specific Indoctrination
• Over 1.7 million man hours had been worked
• Over 55,000 discrete pieces of evidence had been recovered
• 4,257 body parts had been recovered
• 209 victims had been positively identified
That's from ~1 million tons of buildings for the Towers. . . and a lot of them were turned to dust which was spread all over NYC.
And your concern for the damage to the bathtub dike is well founded because it actually happened and was discovered to have been heavily damaged, finding a 90 foot gash in the ferroconcrete "bathtub wall," when the debris was excavated in 2002:
A Rush to Fix Ground Zero's Damaged Dike
By JAMES GLANZ and ERIC LIPTON—MARCH 21, 2002
Excerpted from The New York TimesWorkers are hurrying to shore up and patch a 90-foot-wide gash in the below-ground retaining wall that encircles much of the World Trade Center site after discovering that groundwater, fed by the Hudson River, is only a precarious foot below the lower rim of the damaged area.
Engineers working at ground zero yesterday said there was no imminent danger of a collapse of the wall, which is called the bathtub, or of an inundation of the pit that has been dug at the site.
But they are already digging wells outside the gash -- in effect a bite taken out of the eastern side of the bathtub -- to relieve the pressure of the groundwater on the wall. And they are designing a giant steel-and-concrete patch, to be anchored in bedrock.
The damage in the bathtub wall occurred on Sept. 11, when the upper floors of the south tower toppled toward the southeast and tore the huge gash. But until recently, this damaged area had been buried beneath debris. Only now that crews are excavating the southeast corner of the site -- one of the last spots at ground zero to be cleared -- did they discover just how seriously the wall had been compromised, and how close it had come to allowing a major flood.
Read more at the link above. . .
Oh, dang, what these "tin-foil hat brigade" website guys claim didn't happen because there wasn't enough building falling on the dike to cause it, actually DID happen. . . because there WAS enough building mass falling on the dike to damage it. . . and it was that tilting section of upper floors that apparently specifically caused this damage. Maybe those floors didn't just disappear.
So if seeing through clouds of debris to observe things which can't be seen makes YOU happy, enjoy.