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Are the ingredients in place for a dirty bomb at the Fleet Center in Boston?
7-12-04 | Doug from Upland

Posted on 07/12/2004 11:08:58 AM PDT by doug from upland

Edited on 07/12/2004 11:16:39 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]

The headline reflects one of the many possible scenarios considered by the radical Islamists who want us all dead. They don't care if they kill Republicans or Democrats, hawks or war protestors, Rush Limbaugh or their pal Michael Moore.

Do they have a scenario for an attack on the DemocRATic National Convention at the Fleet Center in Boston scheduled for July 26-29? Consider the following:

ITEM: On or about April 8, 2004, a 9200-gallon fuel transport truck was stolen from TK Transport Terminal in Pennsauken, NJ. It has not been recovered.

ITEM: On April 21, 2004, two pieces of highly radioactive fuel rods were stolen from the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. They have not been recovered.

ITEM: Hussain Al-Hussaini, implicated in the Oklahoma City bombing by Jayna Davis in her blockbuster, THE THIRD TERRORIST, has a last known location in, you guessed it, Boston, MA. Al-Hussaini has had several jobs at gas stations. He only works the graveyard shift, a shift at which a tanker truck might be filled over time without too much notice.

ITEM: Those in charge of security at the DNC convention are so worried about the close proximity of I-93 to the Fleet Center, that the freeway will be closed in both directions the four nights of the convention.

What are the plans to stop a fully loaded tanker truck? How close might it be able to get to the Fleet Center?

I am sure that DNC security officials, the FBI, local and state agencies, and the Secret Service have considered hundreds of scenarios. This is probably one of them.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: alhussaini; boston; dirtybomb; dnc; dncconvention; fleetcenter; gasstation; jihadinamerica; mumblessayscall911; tanker
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To: kjam22

you can suck vacuum all day if you want, but unless there is a pipe into the liquid in the tank, you ain't getting nothing the way the hoses attach to the tanks. Delivery trucks for gas stations almost never have vacuum equipment. I just checked the 4 gas delivery trucks in the yard next door and they do not have any vacuum equipment.

A truck full of gasoline will not even explode unless you agitate the fuel into air and a confined chamber to allow pressure to develop, so the partially full is more explosive than a full truck, but you will get a lot longer burn time with a full truck.


81 posted on 07/12/2004 12:13:41 PM PDT by Fierce Allegiance ( "Stay safe in the "sandbox", cuz!)
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To: doug from upland
The Fleet Center, site of the '04 Democratic Convention, is in the upper right of this picture.

You can see the corner of the Fleet Center on the extreme right hand side, middle of this picture.


82 posted on 07/12/2004 12:17:23 PM PDT by Cooter
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To: Richard Kimball
LNG stands for liquified natural gas. It's a cryogenic (super-cooled to -275 degrees or so) natural gas. It's super-cooled to turn it into a liquid for transportation and storage purposes (takes up a lot less space, that way)

LNG is liquified natural gas, and it is cooled as described to "liquify it". Although it doesn't stay cooled. Once it is fracked it is put in storage tanks which typically sit in the sun and have a temperature inside of 100 degrees or so. This causes a high pressure inside the tank because the temp of the contents has exceeded it's boiling point. Pressures may be in excess of 400 pounds per square inch. It all depends on the chemical makeup of the liquified natural gas. Percentages of propanes, ethanes, methanes etc.

Think of it this way.. the propane in the tank for your charcoal grill is constantly in an aggravated state of boil. It is boiling frantically inside that tank, but the tank keeps it from escaping. To make it stop boiling, if it's "pure propane" you need to put the tank in an environment that is below -39 degrees. Liquified methane requires even lower pressures to stop the boiling process.

83 posted on 07/12/2004 12:17:24 PM PDT by kjam22
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To: Fierce Allegiance

Many if not most tank trucks have vacume equipment, and they have the ablility to load into the tank through the same hoses that they offload.


84 posted on 07/12/2004 12:18:27 PM PDT by kjam22
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To: doug from upland
The furthest hotel for all the delegates is 3.5 miles from the Fleet Center.

Kerry's house is within walking distance.

85 posted on 07/12/2004 12:18:53 PM PDT by Cooter
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To: Fierce Allegiance
A truck full of gasoline will not even explode unless you agitate the fuel into air and a confined chamber to allow pressure to develop

Adding air to a tank truck does not increase the pressure on the truck, unless you add compressed air. "agitating the fuel into the air" is a silly statement that has no meaning.

86 posted on 07/12/2004 12:20:26 PM PDT by kjam22
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To: doug from upland
Doug, you know I have never and will never condone terrorists or anyone else committing murder.

I did suggest that terrorists would favor Kerry as president, not Bush. But we all know that is tantamount to wondering what a goldfish is thinking.

I still submit that Democrats in general and possibly as a whole, would benefit from the Center's tangential namesake:


87 posted on 07/12/2004 12:22:51 PM PDT by Lady Jag (Used to be sciencediet (AKA Tad Rad) but found the solution)
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To: mak5
John Kerry said that the threat of terrorism had been overstated, so I guess that means that everything is safe. /sarcasm off.

Well, there's nothing that's impossible to overstate.

The threat from the Japanese was overstated after World War II began....despite the bloody attack on Pearl Harbor and the long war that followed.

After PH every US magazine and newspaper, including all the respectable ones, were filled with lurid maps and diagrams about how the Japanese were going to invade the West Coast and what routes they'd take. People were sighting the Japanese invasion fleet off the West coast dozens of times every night. (I consider this a pretty fair parallel to all the "50 suitcase nukes already in the US" nonsense.)

Turns out the Japanese never had any plan to do so; in fact, they never even DISCUSSED it, ever, as it was so obviously impossible. They barely had the beginnings of a plan to invade Hawaii, but never even considered it.

A couple of Japanese subs lobbed a few small shells at California refineries, and there was a Rube Goldberg attempt to float incendiary bombs to the US with ballons (which actually managed to kill a couple people.) That was it.

I actually don't feel the Bush Administration has overstated the terror threat at all. There could be a pretty bad attack tomorrow, or next month.

But certainly there are people who have. This will cause the Threat Matrixers to soil themselves in paroxysms of rage, but I'm sorry, there aren't tens of thousands of AQ sleeper agents in the US. It's totally inconsistent with the number of attacks in the US. One of them can't even motivate himself to make a belt bomb and blow himself up in a mall? If someone on Sep. 12th 2001 had posted on this board that in the next 2 1/2 years the sum total of US attacks and attempts would be the shoe bomber (technically not in the US but in a plane headed there) and then the LAX airport ticket counter shooter and the snipers (both with dubious-to-non-existent actual AQ connections) you would have been viciously flamed and/or laughed at.

And the main threat in the US to my mind is the plain ol' truck bomb. I'd welcome AQ spending time, money, and effort on dirty bombs or chemicals as opposed to regular explosives (if those are the only two choices, of course, my first choice would be for no attacks at all) as they'll kill a heck of a less people with dirty bombs or chemical weapons than explosives, given the same level of funding, manpower, and time.

88 posted on 07/12/2004 12:23:52 PM PDT by Strategerist
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To: Fierce Allegiance

Any one worried about fuel/air ratio is forgetting OK City. A tanker truck can have pelletized ammonium nitrate added to it. The resulting rolling bomb would be at least 5 times as big as McVeigh's deathmobile.


89 posted on 07/12/2004 12:24:05 PM PDT by Go_Raiders (Haz Mat is my specialty...)
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To: Go_Raiders
Any one worried about fuel/air ratio is forgetting OK City. A tanker truck can have pelletized ammonium nitrate added to it.

Very true.

90 posted on 07/12/2004 12:25:10 PM PDT by kjam22
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To: Poohbah
....the truly dangerous ones decay rather quickly.

Exactly! The half-life is a function of the beta decay of a nucleus. A longer half-life would means fewer neutrons flying out of the nucleus per unit of time, therefore less actual radiation exposure for the subject per same unit of time.

91 posted on 07/12/2004 12:26:14 PM PDT by webheart
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To: bert
...the jewish owned American press...

...the "jewish owned" American press...

There, that's better (unless you subscribe to it).

92 posted on 07/12/2004 12:28:28 PM PDT by JimRed (Fight election fraud! Volunteer as a local poll watcher, challenger or district official.)
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To: ken5050
Typically, AQ would hit something most of us didn't expect. I can't speak for out various intelligence, but they are tuned into a lot of what we're thinking and will likely manage to do the fairly obscure. With that kind of thinking, one can't help but wonder how deeply we're penetrated.
93 posted on 07/12/2004 12:30:35 PM PDT by Lady Jag (Used to be sciencediet (AKA Tad Rad) but found the solution)
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To: doug from upland
Boy, Montana really got screwed. NORTHEASTERN?
94 posted on 07/12/2004 12:30:36 PM PDT by 54-46 Was My Number (Right now, somebody else got that number)
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To: kjam22

You do not seem to understand the fact that an environment of pure fuel will not ignite. There are 3 items necessary for a fire. Fuel, air and an ignition source. The mixture of the fuel and air have to be between the lower explosive level (LEL)and the upper explosive level(UEL) (a measure of the amount of amount of fuel in the air expressed as a percentage)

When a truck is full of gasoline, it has a 100% ratio, which is to high for combustion.

True, adding air to the tank truck does not increase the pressure on the truck (DUH< BONEHEAD< I NEVER SAID IT DID)but will allow a certain portion of the gasoline to evaporate into the air and become within the LEL and UEL, and become an explosive mixture. Agitation will allow the vapor to more readily mix in the air to acheive the level necessary for combustion. The containment of the tanker will allow a pressure increase once the gaseous mixture is ignited.

Enough educating the uneducated.








95 posted on 07/12/2004 12:31:59 PM PDT by Fierce Allegiance ( "Stay safe in the "sandbox", cuz!)
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To: doug from upland

If they did, they would likely get no more than 10-20 people. I have a feeling attendance will be very low at the DNC. I am not sure Kerry will really attend. He doesn't want to.


96 posted on 07/12/2004 12:33:27 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (The LINE has been drawn. While the narrow minded see a line, the rest see a circle.)
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To: Lady Jag

I wonder...the basic question is that an attack in the US would, sadly, work to Bush's advantage..( sadly, because that's a terribel price to pay)..people are NOT inclined to change horses in midstream, and of course, there's Kerry's quote about the WoT being mainly a "law-enforcement" issue...me, I think they'll strike in Europe..


97 posted on 07/12/2004 12:33:41 PM PDT by ken5050 (We've looked for WMD in Iraq for LESS time than Hillary looked for the Rose Law firm billing records)
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To: kjam22

What are the specs of a Fruehauf Model T-118; the one which was stolen?


98 posted on 07/12/2004 12:33:45 PM PDT by azhenfud ("He who is always looking up seldom finds others' lost change...")
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To: Go_Raiders

I agree, but similarly, they could just pack the tanker with TNT, c4, or whatever. An ANFO bomb would work pretty well for their intended purposes.


99 posted on 07/12/2004 12:35:52 PM PDT by Fierce Allegiance ( "Stay safe in the "sandbox", cuz!)
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To: Fierce Allegiance
Here's what you don't understand... because you never filled those trucks. BY LAW, and by practicality, a truck is never 100% filled. There has to be room for expansion and a variety of other issues.

We all understand that it takes air to make a fire. Even you.

Every truck going down the road with propane, or gasoline, or drip gas, or ethane, or ethanol or whatever in it has a pressure inside that is greater than the outside of the truck. That is the nature of these products. Even the radiator on your car has a pressure that is greater than the outside of it because the water is nearing it's boiling point. If you add air to the truck, you add an a component that is pressureless unless compressed. A component that is not exceeding it's boiling point. I agree you make the truck "more likely" to explode. But it doesn't change the pressure inside the truck. And there is no such thing as "adjetating fuel into the air". If you think there is... then just go on ebay and buy a "fuel to air agitator" :)

100 posted on 07/12/2004 12:38:28 PM PDT by kjam22
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