Posted on 02/15/2002 10:16:49 PM PST by Shermy
A photo ID pass for Sept. 5 found on one of the men charged with fraudulently obtaining a Tennessee driver's license from a Memphis woman gave him access to the six underground levels of the One World Center building.
But which tenant hired Sakher 'Rocky' Hammad, 24, to work on its sprinklers is lost, said Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Alan Hicks on Friday.
Hammad told federal authorities that he was working on the sprinklers six days before the twin towers were brought down by terrorists, court testimony revealed this week.
But Hicks said the Port Authority, which owned the building, did its own sprinkler work, and that any other work involving sprinklers would have been arranged by an individual tenant.
"We don't know (which one) because all our records were destroyed in the World Trade Center, as were some of the people who know that," Hicks said.
Small details about the five Middle Eastern men arrested Feb. 5 with Tennessee driver's license examiner Katherine Smith are slowly surfacing. Smith died Sunday in a fiery car crash, a day before she was to appear in court. It appears that Khaled Odtllah of Cordova shared the same 2840 Morning Lake Drive address at different times over the past year with Rocky Hammad, according to an online people finder database.
Odtllah and Hammad also spent time in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn in 2000 and lived about 22 blocks apart near New York Harbor.
Calls to the telephone number for Magic Plumbing and Heating Inc. on 93rd Street in Brooklyn were answered Thursday and Friday by a recording that said "Rocky's" voice-mail box was full. Hammad had the firm's business card, according to a government exhibit introduced at this week's detention hearing.
Hammad also had a New York City Police Benevolent Association card, a plastic Detectives Endowment Association Inc. for the Police Department of the City of New York card, two video rental cards, an ATM card and a First Consumers National Bank MasterCard.
Hammad's cousin, Abdelmuhsen Mahmid Hammad, also obtained a Tennessee driver's license last year. He's in the country illegally after overstaying a visa.
Venezuela-born Mohammed Fares, 19, allegedly told authorities that he needed a Tennessee driver's license to drive for Big Boss, an export-import clothing store in New York's garment district. Big Boss Enterprises bookkeeper Hussein Nasser said by phone Friday that he had received several recent inquiries about Fares, but that he'd never worked there. [CYA? Or did he apply for a job there?]
So far almost nothing is known of Mostafa Said Abou-Shahin, 26, a self-employed Egyptian carpenter living in the United State illegally.
All five men are being held without bail at the pretrial facility of the Federal Correctional Institution in Memphis.
- Bartholomew Sullivan: 529-2317
sullivan@gomemphis.com
From FDNY's Battalion Chief John J. Salka, Jr. "Initial Report on FDNY's Response to the World Trade Center Attacks":
When the first plane crashed the incident was already a "gigantic, once in a lifetime operation." However, the already enormous operation was instantly multiplied by the second plane attack and the ensuing collapse of each tower.
Massive fire was visible in the towers, burning throughout five-floor sections in some areas and in locations as far as 20 floors below the places of impact.
The fire came down with the collapses and created secondary fires all over the surrounding area in buildings and cars. The most involved was the 47-story building next to the WTC, of which 35 floors were on fire.
Because so many water mains had been destroyed, two fire boats were vital in pumping enough water from the Hudson River to supply the firefighting operations at Ground Zero.
You've got a time machine?
Since the scrap is being shipped to CHINA, I guess we'll never know, will we...
I'm not an engineer, so I don't really know. But I would think not since the fire burned so hot and so long. I'm just wondering (speculating) if the terrorists weren't taking any chances and disabled the sprinkler system to ensure maximum casualties.
Have you considered how vulnerable it is where it is -- in 130 (or more) separate storage facilities or waste pools?
Yep, sure do. It starts today. You have a pile of stuff no one wants. You move ahead when you stop adding to it. Tomorrow will soon be today.
A large amount of "Nuclear Waste" is extremely low-level stuff that isn't a danger to anyone, but public preception of radiation dangers requires that special measures be taken in disposal.
Most of it could be washed, shredded, and recylced without danger. Technology is quickly providing us with more options for waste handling annd disposal.
We've been moving nuclear materials for a long time, whether they be fuels, medical materials, waste, or the weapons grade flavor. Nuclear material transportation is pretty well thought out and executed. You would not believe what goes into moving the weapons grade stuff. A small (and well equipped) army would have trouble getting their hands on one of those shipments (yes, this is beside the point as we are talking about waste materials..).
On a personal level I am more concerned that the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality often associated with burying it all away will prevent us from being able to better process our existing wastes into a more stable and safe form.
Move them by rail.
Fewer movements, safer routings.
The '93 WTC bombers allegedly added cyanide to their explosives, but it burned up in the explosion and did not poison anyone. I wonder why they didn't use poison gas on 9/11.
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