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To: maceng2 who wrote (82448)	2/23/2002 2:56:27 PM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116753

Not to be excessively cynical, but the WTC towers were built to attract clients to a show building as their sole overriding consideration. The bottom line was not safety or structural integrity, but money in rent. From the get-go these momnumnets to vanity were called monstrosities and fire traps, but the publicity machines the owner's friends operated praised their looks and they became prestige addresses. They were the first structural skin buildings built. Structural skin is fine, but it is a question mark when damage occurs as it always does. The skin, unlike the chrysotile coated steel beams of the Empire State building, is vulnerable to fire. Once fire has done its damage, there is no structural integrity left. Despite the enormous disadvantage of this type of structure, safety wise, the buildings were built to maxiumum height. Normally, this would require special fire exits of large capacity. In reality, the only truly safe fire exit in that type of building would be a separate tube structure, or better still, a beam supported structure, exterior to the building. Perhaps two such structures, and with their own lifts, would be required. In that case, no matter where the fire started, all levels could get out within 1/2 hour. As it was, the fire exits were blockable by fire, narrow and cramped, (as people found out from the first attack 2 years earlier), and had locking doors to boot! Some emergency exit! The people that did get out were just lucky that people with keys came along in time. For many on the stairs, luck was not with them. The delay helped kill them, sans doot. The attacks may have been perpetrated by foreign evil-doers, bent on dealing a blow to America, but the accomplices in the disaster where the developers and architects bent on wringing cash out of clients without regard for the known concerns of these buildings. Even sufficient water pumps or tanks at height may have forestalled these disasters. These were not in the plans for "economic" reasons. I believe those reasons fall under the general categories of greed and avarice. It was demonstrated many years earlier that large planes could hit buildings accidentally, when a B-17 hit the Empire State in the 1930's. The Empire's superior fire resistance of its frame structure, cheap and fast to build, withstood one hour of raging flames from the bomber's fuel, and was not damaged at all. Asbestos coated steel beams saved the day. The real villains of this piece are the people who built these monstrous fire traps in the first place. Let's lay the blame where it is deserved. The Pentagon has more office space; it is the largest office building in the world. Yet when one plane hit there, there were relatively few casualties. Let's be realistic, Hollywood made disaster movies pointing out these eminent concerns; lack of safe escapes, lack of sufficient water tanks for a large fire, no ladders to reach people, no pumping system to replenish tanks or fireman's hoses, etc, etc.. (Towering Inferno) Even outside wall ladders would have helped. Laugh about it, I bet you would not have laughed if you were on that ladder at any height, given the alternatives. We have known the weaknesses of these buildings for some time. If you think people have not thought of this stuff before, you are wrong. Every old brick building has outside steel escapes. The equivalent in a large building is a separate structure. Most modern apartment buildings have no-lock dual outside-wall, asbestos and steel-door 15 foot wide escapes, at only 20 stories and perhaps 400 tenants. All theatres worldwide are constructed the way they are with wide front doors, always unlocked, opening out - for one reason. The 75 or so disastrous theatres fires and subsequent fatal stampedes around the turn of the century. Few towns want over ten story buildings in their core; the reason is fire. Let's face facts, the WTC towers were fire traps and that is in print since 1970. It's litigable now. EC<:-}