Eyewitness accounts from inside the WTC 9/11/2001
....also info on the 1975 World Trade Center Tower Fire!!
Stanley Praimnath was on the 81st floor of the south tower: The plane impacts. I try to get up and then I realize that I'm covered up to my shoulder in debris. And when I'm digging through under all this rubble, I can see the bottom wing starting to burn, and that wing is wedged 20 feet in my office doorway.
Donovan Cowan was in an open elevator at the 78th floor sky-lobby: We went into the elevator. As soon as I hit the button, that's when there was a big boom. We both got knocked down. I remember feeling this intense heat. The doors were still open. The heat lasted for maybe 15 to 20 seconds I guess. Then it stopped.
Ling Young was in her 78th floor office: Only in my area were people alive, and the people alive were from my office. I figured that out later because I sat around in there for 10 or 15 minutes. That's how I got so burned.
It is claimed that temperatures in the south tower were hot enough to cause the trusses to fail, but here we have eye-witnesses stating that temperatures were cool enough for them to walk away.
Interestingly, a tape of radio conversations between firefighters exists (but only relatives of the dead men have been allowed to hear it). Kevin Flynn, of the New York Times, reported:
Chief Orio Palmer says from an upper floor of the badly damaged south tower at the World Trade Center. Just two hose lines to attack two isolated pockets of fire. "We should be able to knock it down with two lines," he tells the firefighters of Ladder Co. 15 who were following him up the stairs of the doomed tower. Lt. Joseph G. Leavey is heard responding: "Orio, we're on 78 but we're in the B stairway. Trapped in here. We got to put some fire out to get to you." The time was 9:56 a.m.
So now we know that, just a few minutes before the collapse of the south tower, firefighters did not consider the fires to be that serious, and were in fact able to get right into the impact region without being killed by the heat that was (according to Eagar) so intense that the trusses glowed red-hot and failed.
(10) When fully developed fire conditions (temperatures of over 700°C) are reached, this results in the breaking of window glass. For example, the 1988 First Interstate Bank fire in Los Angeles, which showed greater heating effects over larger regions than those observed in either tower, rained broken window glass down on the streets below, presenting a considerable hazard to those on the ground. The First Interstate Bank did not collapse
guardian.150m.com
....pretty extensive site, lots of info, analysis on WTC structure, fire controls, simulations etc.. including this study about a 747 hitting the WTC.
"This study indicates that the damage caused by the much, much larger and heavier Boeing 747, in a collision with the World Trade Center, would not even be close to that required to bring the central core down. More on this simulation can be found by clicking here. Note that this particular simulation models the core of the WTC fairly well, however, it should be pointed out that the WTC core consisted of a grid, eight columns wide and six columns deep, whereas the model is six columns wide and three columns deep"
....also:
"In the mid-1990s British Steel and the Building Research Establishment performed a series of six experiments at Cardington to investigate the behavior of steel frame buildings. These experiments were conducted in a simulated, eight-story building. Secondary steel beams were not (fire) protected. Despite the temperature of the steel beams reaching 1,500-1,700°F (800-900°C) in three of the tests (well above the traditionally assumed critical temperature of 1,100°F (600°C), no collapse was observed in any of the six experiments [1].
One of the conclusions derived from the Cardington tests, was that fire protection for the beams (trusses) in a composite steel structure, was not necessary. See below for more on this."
this is interesting:
"It is extremely difficult to obtain detailed information regarding the 1975 World Trade Center North tower fire. Here is the one report that I have been able to find.
The 1975 World Trade Center Tower Fire.
This 110-story steel-framed office building suffered a fire on the 11th floor on February 23, 1975. The loss was estimated at over $2,000,000. The building is one of a pair of towers, 412 m in height. The fire started at approximately 11:45 P.M. in a furnished office on the 11th floor and spread through the corridors toward the main open office area. A porter saw flames under the door and sounded the alarm. It was later that the smoke detector in the air-conditioning plenum on the 11th floor was activated. The delay was probably because the air-conditioning system was turned off at night. The building engineers placed the ventilation system in the purge mode, to blow fresh air into the core area and to draw air from all the offices on the 11th floor so as to prevent further smoke spread. The fire department on arrival found a very intense fire. It was not immediately known that the fire was spreading vertically from floor to floor through openings in the floor slab. These 300-mm x 450-mm (12-in. x 18-in.) openings in the slab provided access for telephone cables. Subsidiary fires on the 9th to the 19th floors were discovered and readily extinguished. The only occupants of the building at the time of fire were cleaning and service personnel. They were evacuated without any fatalities. However, there were 125 firemen involved in fighting this fire and 28 sustained injuries from the intense heat and smoke. The cause of the fire is unknown." |
