Posted on 09/12/2001 9:59:56 AM PDT by patent
Edited on 04/29/2004 1:58:44 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
NEW YORK (CNN) -- New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Wednesday estimated the final death toll in the World Trade Center attacks could rise above 4,000.
"The numbers we are working with are in the thousands," Giuliani told reporters at a briefing, the day after hijacked airliners crashed into the twin 110-story trade center towers. He said that while people were able to flee, "The best estimate we can make ... is that there will be a few thousand people left in each building."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
patent
Elephant In The Living Room.
Everyone is tiptoeing around the obvious - here you have two towers that normally have between 20,000-50,000 people in them on an ordinary workday. Many come to work early. These two towers are dropped into rubble, and the supposed death toll is only 4,000? Yes, "many" managed to escape, but only those who could use the stairwells, and almost certainly ONLY those below the impact points AND only those who could do so in time.
I fear that the ultimate death toll will ACCURATELY never be known. But it's got to be more than the Elephant In The Living Room.
Michael
There were interviews on TV yesterday with people from the 90th floor of the second building hit who, obviously, were successfully evacuated. Given the time lag between the first and second buildings being hit, and the additional lag time before the first collapsed building, it may be that more people were able to get out than we think.
I suspect a third of folks present who heard the announcement in the WTC did in fact depart. the rest were not as "lucky"........Number suggested by NYC officals is low , again IMHO only.
Stay Safe.
CG, I really hope so, but I really don't think so.
I'll pray you are correct. I would love to be wrong here.
Even if it's as high as 10,000 it will be a miracle. Thank God the towers didn't topple over on impact. They would have smashed blocks and blocks of buildings.
The fact that held together for a while, and collapsed inward upon themselves saved thousands.
When I saw that, my jaw literally dropped nearly to the floor. I must admit I didn't know steel became unable to support anything at such a comparatively low temperature.
I can picture lots of people milling around outside the building waiting on their friends still stuck in the building to see if they had made it out okay.
Apparently even the rescue crews weren't expecting the implosion as hundreds of them were killed as well.
Is it possible that charges were placed in the building as well? Just the way it came down, it looked as if it were a demolition job. From what I understand, you don't need much if they are placed in the proper places.
Any architects, engineers out there?
I don't know why they collapsed so neatly. There must be a structural reason that they fell that way, but I don't know what it is. I'm sure we'll find out more soon.
Its probably time to train and ARM the cockpit crews of US carriers who agree to the program. Pilots and FOs who do not want the responsibility can be exempted. It was, after all, the folks controlling the aircraft who were the targets on Terrible Tuesday.
During the rash of hijackings of a few decades ago, the feds put armed AIR MARSHALS on many flights. While some correctly argued that a fuselage punctured by a bullet at 35,000 feet MIGHT repeat MIGHT bring the plane down hijackings fell off.
One thing we know for sure about the four craft hijacked on 9/11: They ALL CAME DOWN and THEY ALL DIED!!
And to those who will inevitably and stupidly argue that pilots and FOs just cannot be trusted with the decision about when its time to pull a trigger, better tell the up to 400 folks sitting in the back that the guys up front are judgment-impaired!
Personally, Id prefer to take my chances with a rapid decompression than watch some madman take MY flight into a building or the ground at 500 mph. That was the final experience of 266 fellow humans on 9/11. I KNOW I like they wont survive that!
Its again the old, old story: There arent TOO many weapons out there. Its that the touchy-feely, warm-fuzzy PC crowd now sees to it that ONLY THE WRONG PEOPLE HAVE THEM!
********
Its almost a certainty that our reprisal for Terrible Tuesday will be to return portions of the middle east to sand dunes. While Im not saying that such action is NOT fully justified, wed better be prepared for the list of Those Who Hate America to lengthen. For every madman we take out, there will be a dozen in line behind him ready to take his place. That means there will certainly be MORE such attacks HERE!
Which brings me to say that if the NJ/NY Ports Authority rebuilds the WTC on the same scale as the one now spread over much of Manhattan, the new design should incorporate large BULLSEYES on the sides.
Ive spent my career designing steel structures and told my son before the SECOND plane hit the second tower that the FIRST building was toast. There was NO WAY those heat weakened columns would hold. And when the second plane hit the second tower, taking out the columns on one side, I knew IT was history. I cried as the second tower struck crumpled in the direction of the sliced columns and, shortly after, the upper 20 floors of the first tower pan-caked into the lower 90 after THOSE columns buckled.
Im not some anti-techno Luddite: Even BEFORE the events of 9/11, I was growing weary of watching bodies fall from burning high-rise buildings as rescue workers stood helplessly in the street below, poised to clean up the carnage. I wonder how many high-rise dwellers are today looking for farms in Kansas?
The evidence is growing that we need to seriously rethink our compulsion to concentrate populations in taller and taller, easy-to-hit targets which are also built to be efficient chimneys.
The loss of life in the WTC will be staggering. Compare that number to the final body count at the Pentagon. Then think about the differences in those two buildings.
I rest my case!
Ashleigh Banfield from MSNBC went to within a block of the towers last night in a police car. She said that the debris was ONLY two stories high. Imagine that. We'll never know, IMO, but it will be high.
Is it possible that charges were placed in the building as well? Just the way it came down, it looked as if it were a demolition job. From what I understand, you don't need much if they are placed in the proper places.Discussion on that here.
patent +AMDG
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