Posted on 09/11/2001 4:27:20 PM PDT by Looking for Diogenes
So the innocent among the Palestinians should be denied a state because of actions taken totally outside of their control?
What we really need to do is not to crack down on the terrorists responsible for this, but on ALL of them. We need to make the world a dangerous place for them. We need to FORCE all of the Islamic nations to hunt down and KILL every terrorist inside their borders. They know where the terrorists are.
Why "KILL" and not "imprison?" Because usually when the Muslims imprison terrorists, they let them out a few years later. We need to lodge death blows to terror. International terror is a crime against all of civilized society, we need to fight it ferociously. The harder we strike, the more on the defensive they'll be.
The image of the World Trade Center's 110-story twin towers crumbling seemed a scene of impossible destruction.
But the miraculous steel and concrete architecture that made them could not withstand the power of Tuesday's attack and ensuing fire. No building designed today could, said Masoud Sanayei, a
civil engineering professor at Tufts University.
Experts in skyscraper construction said video of the collapse led them to believe the towers were perhaps weakened by the initial impact of the airplanes that hit them Tuesday, but that heat from
the resulting fire was likely the most punishing blow.
Hyman Brown, a University of Colorado civil engineering professor and the Trade Center's construction manager, speculated that flames fueled by thousands of gallons of aviation fuel melted
steel supports.
''This building would have stood had a plane or a force caused by a plane smashed into it,'' he said. ''But steel melts, and 24,000 gallons of aviation fluid melted the steel. Nothing is designed or will be designed to withstand that fire.''
Sanayei said the heat may have disconnected one of the towers' concrete floors from the tubular steel columns that ringed the buildings. If one or two floors collapsed, it would have created a
pancake effect of one massive floor caving into the next.
''In my opinion, the fire weakened the connection between the floor system and the columns on the higher floors and caused a couple of the floors to collapse,'' Sanayei said. ''The floors are very heavy, made of reinforced concrete, so when one hits the next, they cause a domino effect ... and it can go all the way down to the first floor.''
Architect Minoru Yamasaki, who died in 1986, worked with engineers John Skilling and Leslie E. Robertson to design the fabled twin towers, once the world's tallest buildings.
In his 2000 book ''Building Big,'' architect David MaCaulay described the towers' engineering as ''a series of load bearing exterior columns spaced 3 feet apart and tied together at every floor by a deep horizontal beam, creating a strong lattice of square tubing around each tower.''
The core surrounding the elevators inside was much the same, with a giant lattice work of steel covered by poured concrete connecting the interior columns to the exterior ones. The design was free enough for each of the towers to hold 4 million square feet of space unencumbered by columns or load bearing walls.
Sections of exterior wall were wrapped around the outside in 24- and 36-foot high sections, creating a sort of patchwork so that not all the floor joints would meet walls at the same height, according
to MaCaulay.
Both Brown and Saw-teen See, a managing partner in Robertson's engineering firm, said the twin towers were originally designed to sustain a direct hit by a large jetliner, but that such construction couldn't make them fire- or bombproof.
Brown said it appeared the attack was meticulously planned.
''If they did it lower in the building the fire department could have gotten to it sooner. In its simplicity, it was brilliant.''
He said that the two towers have staircases in all four corners of the buildings and were designed to be evacuated in an hour, but it appeared that since the planes crashed into the corners, escape
was cut off for those on the floors above. ''I could never conceive of anybody being able to bring down
those two buildings,'' Brown added.
Minoru Yamasaki Associates issued a statement Tuesday saying the firm was in contact with authorities and had offered assistance.
''We believe that any speculation regarding the specifics of these tragic events would be irresponsible,'' the statement said. ''For obvious reasons, MYA has no further comment at this time.''
In the case of the business executives who were flying with Ron Brown when his plane crashed (or was shot down), the insurance companies were on solid ground to refuse the claims because the U.S. State Department had made an official declaration warning people about traveling in the Balkans. My understanding is that many large life insurance claims were NOT paid in that case.
They have been supplying saddam's regime with fiber optic technology for their military... They are part of this picture. I feel it.
September 11, 2001
Televised images of the attacks on the World Trade Center suggest that explosives devices caused the collapse of both towers, a New Mexico Tech explosion expert said Tuesday.
The collapse of the buildings appears "too methodical" to be a chance result of airplanes colliding with the structures, said Van Romero, vice president for research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
"My opinion is, based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes hit the World Trade Center there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse," Romero said.
Romero is a former director of the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center at Tech, which studies explosive materials and the effects of explosions on buildings, aircraft and other structures.
Romero said he based his opinion on video aired on national television broadcasts. Romero said the collapse of the structures resembled those of controlled implosions used to demolish old structures.
"It would be difficult for something from the plane to trigger an event like that," Romero said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C.
Romero said he and another Tech administrator were on a Washington-area subway when an airplane struck the Pentagon.
He said he and Denny Peterson, vice president for administration and finance, were en route to an office building near the Pentagon to discuss defense-funded research programs at Tech.
If explosions did cause the towers to collapse, the detonations could have been caused by a small amount of explosive, he said.
"It could have been a relatively small amount of explosives placed in strategic points," Romero said. The explosives likely would have been put in more than two points in each of the towers, he said.
The detonation of bombs within the towers is consistent with a common terrorist strategy, Romero said.
"One of the things terrorist events are noted for is a diversionary attack and secondary device," Romero said.
Attackers detonate an initial, diversionary explosion that attracts emergency personnel to the scene, then detonate a second explosion, he said.
Romero said that if his scenario is correct, the diversionary attack would have been the collision of the planes into the towers.
Tech President Dan Lopez said Tuesday that Tech had not been asked to take part in the investigation into the attacks. Tech often assists in forensic investigations into terrorist attacks, often by setting off similar explosions and studying the effects.
I never want to hear a single Palistinian defender on this forum ever again. I never want to hear another Islamic defender on this forum again.
I just saw Osama Bin Ladin on television. An unusual form of murderous rage descended upon me. I want him, I want him very very much.
I'm not so sure about that. The total casualty claims could exceed the $20 Billion of hurricane Andrew, and that almost broke several large companies. These companies may have to refuse to pay in order to stay in business.
Both my home owners policy and life insurance policies state they do not pay for acts of terrorism or war. If the insurance companies don't pay, I'm sure Uncle Sam will just inflate the currency and pay all the bills.
These planes can't be that hard to aim. Pilots manage to aim them successfully at narrow runways hundreds of times daily.
Actually, this was his second suggestion. His first (idiotic) idea was to have a trap door mechanism in the aisle of every plane. If a plane is hijacked, a member of the crew could release a hatch while the hijackers are walking up and down the aisles and drop them out of the bottom of the plane at 32,000 feet.
And all of this must be done clandestinely. This is not as easy as it sounds, even in a relatively open operating environment like the U.S. - This was not an easy operation to mount.
Actually, I believe that what happened is called a "Cascade Failure." It's similar to that concrete walkway collapse that occurred in Kansas City about 10 years ago. Once the top floor collapsed onto the one below it, the weight just kept on gaining as it hit each subsequent floor, like dominoes falling over. The effect was the same you see when demolition contractors implode a building. They study the statics of the building to see which members are key and need to be taken out. I'm amazed that the building imploded, as opposed to falling over, which would have resulted in many more casualties.
What many people also don't understand is that steel structural members heat up much like your stove burners and the heat transfer which occurs is devastating. As each member heats up, it ignites flammables such as wood which are in proximity to it....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.