Little Noted: A report on the WTC Towers
It’s easy to understand why some stories might be missed this week, with all of the coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II. But the death of the pope did not stop Fox News from leaping onto a story that touches..hmmmm…two or three lives in California. The only thing that managed to break the Fox TV News continuing coverage this afternoon was a police pursuit in Los Angeles. Two guys in a six-year-old-stolen car trumps coverage of a Papal death.
There’s a new engineering report issued about the collapse of the World Trade Center. And I doubt it will get a lot of mention this week. The report says if fireproofing material inside the WTC had been better, the towers might not have collapsed on September 11th.
The National Institute of Standards And Technology has done a detailed examination of technical factors in the attacks. The impact of the planes apparently knocked much of the insulation off the support beams and allowed the fire to compromise the strength of the steel supports.
I know there will be lots of conspiracy theorists who disagree with the assessment, but I have seen steel act in that manner during other structure fires. One fire chief has written in a national publication that steel supported buildings are quite dangerous in a fire, and many times, fire crews should stay out unless there’s danger to lives.
This new report suggests that builders look for new ways to insulate steel beams from fire. Smaller structures could benefit from the new technology.
But nobody ever builds a structure with the though of a loaded airliner smacking into it’s side. That requires another kind of safety insulation. Insulation from maniacs hell-bent on killing innocent people. I would wager the steel experts will come up with their solution long before there’s a comprehensive plan for that -other- kind of protection.
-foulk
