[tw]

Originally posted by sycamore
Unfortunately tw, the world does not completely work in simple dry rationale. You bring up the cold hard facts, which are certainly important. But the underlying emotional factor in all this is DEFINITELY going to figure in, whether it should or not.

Question: Would a newer building have survived something of this magnitude? What I mean is, aren't today's newer buildings built to withstand substantial earthquakes? Would these standards help buffer against a crash by a 757? Did the WTC towers have these standards? (Wasn't it one of the designers or engineers who last week said in Germany that it was built to withstand a 707 crashing into it?)

The world does work when using dry rationale. It is emotion that causes instability. There is an emotional factor in building a new WTC - described as honor. As noted previously, "honor - which is a valid point but not sufficient to answer the question."

Honor must be dealt with as just another dry pragmatic reason and definitely not as the primary reason for action.

The WTC center survived more than a 707. Each tower survived a direct strike from a Jumbo Jet. But when a fire compromised structural integrity of one floor, then the entire building was lost. It is a compromise necessary to build them that high.

Trump wants to extend the Chicago Sears Tower to be the world's highest. IOW to expand those above floors, then so much steel is required in lower floors as to result in less office space. First the building is so tall that any one floor failure collapses the entire building? Second, to make them taller, the total square footage of the building is reduced? Yes. Emotion - being the tallest - is more important to some than other pragmatic factors. Making the Sears tower tallest clearly demonstrates the foolhardiness of using only emotion - honor or pride - to make decisions.

IOW maybe new buildings will appear at ground zero. But need they be so tall as to be so unstable? Is honor that important - or are there any other reasons? Honor alone is a foolhardy reason to rebuild the towers.

As for using elevators to evacuate - when the second plane crashed into the South Tower, many people were found burned in the lobby. The fireball simply exploded down elevator shafts into the lobby. One man, Ken, was in the revolving door trying to get away from crashing debris outside. Instead, he ran directly into a fireball from elevator shafts. How many others were cooked inside those shafts? The only way to get out of a building is fire stairs with fire rated doors and special ventilation. Elevators are death traps in any fire if the integrity of the entire elevator shaft cannot be established. Also insufficient elevators could be provided in any such building.


A 30 something floor skyscraper burning in Philly about 10 years ago adjacent to city hall. The 22nd floor fire started in linseed oil rags collected after painters cleaned up on Saturday evening. After ignoring multiple fire alarms, and not calling 911, a guard decided find out what was happened using an elevator. Once on the 22nd floor, he ran right into a fire - trapped. The elevator would not move. Fortunately, he had taken a transceiver. His partner was at a control desk with another radio turned on. His partner overrode elevator controls. But the building burned right to the top where it finally ran into sprinklers.

Listening to fire radios, the Fire Marshall was constantly checking building integrity because the fire was so hot and uncontrolled. This building's extremely hot fire did not destroy any floor's integrity. The building was small enough that if integity was compromised, then firemen had time to get out. But since long term strength could never be determined, instead the building had to be removed - after 8 years. Since not so excessively tall, then the entire Philly fire department fought the fire (finally abandoned the building - they let it burn) without a building collapse. Even with a fire that hot, a building collapse was not immediate and would have provided sufficient time for all firemen to get out.

Yes, the WTC suffered a hotter fire. So why did both towers last so damn long? WTC was so overbuilt. It was so overbuilt and still look what happened. It was so overbuilt that a 1993 bomb should have destroyed both towers, but did not. It was so overbuilt and still lost of intregity in only one floor that took out the other 100+ floors.

Elevators are dangerous in case of fire. Also building could never provide enough elevators to empty the building.

Do we really need so many eggs in one unstable basket just in the name of an emotion called honor? IOW how many people really understand this integrity problem? Therefore how many people can really answer this question - "Should the WTC be rebuilt?"