Perspective: long term questions

[jaguar]

Yea lisa that did come to mind - thats why I said beanbag shotguns. The other idea that cmae ot mind is come kind of alarm or button the pilot can press to give contorl excluseivly to the ground of the aircraft whci h would completely foil an attack because there is noone on board they can threaten.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by tw
Before asking "Should the WTC be rebuilt?" with so much confidence, one must first learn an overabundance of details and have accurate details in support of those conclusions. IOW 'know' before you mock another with an answer. Should we build structures so tall that a collapse of any one floor results in the destruction of the entire building? Should we build buildings so tall as to take a half hour just to get out of the building?

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 purpose of the skyscraper, as I understand it, is to create more space by building upward instead of outward. Nowadays, it seems more like competition as to who has the tallest building, and what is and isn't considered part of the building. The WTC towers were #5 and 6 on the world's tallest list, but apparently were the most utilized in terms of office space. In looking at the bare bones of the situation, New York City has lost some significant office space. Sure, businesses are moving to New Jersey...but it's already the most densely populated state, and now businesses will add to the clutter.

I don't think we should abandon the skyscraper, as they serve a practical, and an aesthethic purpose. Furthermore, if we did not build large buildings, this could result in more smaller buildings, which IMO, would create even more urban sprawl. As to how tall they should be, the only thing that could reasonably be done is to gauge future demand for space and build accordingly. But how practical would this be?

As far as reducing evacuation time, could we create an elevator that would be safe to use in a fire? Or should we utilize elevators in a fire now? Perhaps emergency chutes that would bring people to safety fast, but not cause them to accelerate at alarming speeds. (I'm not trying to sound ridiculous, but I am ignorant to the reasoning as to why we are supposed to use stairwells now.)

[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?"

[jaguar]

*sighs*
I like skyscrapers. My ultimate city - big skyscrapers here and there, undergournd/above transport and parks all the way on ground.

Did it only lsoe one floor? I mean by the look of thsoe holes i would have assumed 3-4 floors would have gone, i'm no doubt missing something but...

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by tw
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."

I can appreciate what you are saying. Building a skyscraper, from a bare bones perspective, doesn't require emotion. But how many of these skyscrapers have been built w/o some sort of fanfare? The WTC towers were built as a revitilization project for Manhattan. Weren't Liberty One and Two here in Philadelphia built as a revitilization project for Center City? The skyscraper in and of itself is a marvel that can stir emotion.

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.

If I understand correctly, the main reason of the collapse was b/c the temperature of the steel hit 800 degrees, which is the melting point, correct? Is it possible to make a building element that can withstand higher temperatures? And not to sound stupid, but I'm assuming that the sprinkler systems were either futile, or damaged in the attack, correct?

Trump wants to extend the Chicago Sears Tower to be the world's highest.

They still insist they're the world's tallest building, although it involves some controversy over what is considered part of a building and what is not. With their spires, the Petronas Towers put the Sears Tower down to #3. Not to mention, I remember at one point hearing rumors about the Sears Tower being half-empty.

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.

That is true. However, you don't really think that the rebuilders will work without emotion, do you?

Thank you for the enlightenment on the elevators.

[Hubris Boy]

originally posted by tw
During destructive events, loadbearing members of smaller skyscrapers fail, that floor collapses, yet what remains is intact. But to build them higher, then load bearing members cannot withstand a collapse of just one floor. If any one floor collapses on excessively tall buildings, then entire building pancakes. However and for some unknown reason, Hubris Boy 'knows' that if any one floor of any building collapses, then it is normal for all buildings to pancake. That is normal? What about those buildings in Kobe Japan? His conclusion - buisness as usual because he 'knows' it would cost too much to build as smaller skyscrapers are constructed and because there will be a demand for real estate. He just 'knows' without a doubt.

Once again, we have left-wing militant extremists holding forth, at great and tedious length, on subjects about which they know nothing. In this case: engineering.

Hubris Boy KNOWS that a body at rest tends to remain at rest, and a body in motion tends to remain in motion. Anybody else who was awake in high school physics class KNOWS this too; apparently, tw is not a member of this elite group.

Hubris Boy also paid close attention in his Strength of Materials I & II classes when he was a freshman engineering student. Consequently, Hubris Boy KNOWS that steel, when heated to around 800° C or so, starts to melt.

These two facts are important, because they are the reasons behind the collapse of the WTC towers. I will explain in terms so simple that even tw will be able to understand:

When the militant extremists crashed their aircraft into the building, the worst thing they did was not the impact of the aircraft itself; rather, it was the introduction of about 24,000 gallons of burning jet fuel into the structure. As the jet fuel burned, it heated to structural steel members nearby to the point that they began to melt. When they began to melt, they became unable to support the cumulative weight of the floors above them.

Unfortunately, the floors above them weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 tons. At this point, the floors above the fire began to move. Downward. As explained above, they continued to move downward until they came to rest on the ground, there being no intervening structural members of sufficient strength to arrest the movement. The whole event could be described with 3 or 4 simple and elegant formulas, but I won't bother because I don't want to confuse readers like tw.

FIRE is what destroyed the WTC. Not the impact of the aircraft. Not the height or weight of the building. Fire. There's not a building in the world that could have survived the sort of punishment that was inflicted on the WTC. Fire is a factor that Kobe didn't have to contend with. Comparing the performance of the WTC to the performance of the buildings in Kobe, Japan is sort of like comparing the performance of a lawnmower to the performance of a volleyball. It's really not a very meaningful comparison. Any engineer will tell you the same thing. TW is not an engineer.* TW is not qualified to have an opinion on the subject. TW's "writing" on the subject is irrelevant gibberish, and educated Cellar consumers will notice this and proceed accordingly. (*At least, I certainly HOPE tw isn't an engineer. If tw IS an engineer, his license should be revoked.)

originally posted by tw
Hubris Boy probably also does not know that most financial firms had been considering moves to NJ anyway because they did not have to be located in expensive NYC. IOW there is a shortage of class A real estate - in Jersey. Not in crowded, expensive, and now to be even more expensive NYC. NYC real estate insurance rates will increase substancially.

Hubris Boy is well aware of the fact that many large companies, headquartered in NY, threaten to do this all the time. They usually do it when militant extremists on the New York city council threaten to raise taxes in order to support their militant extremist agenda. The companies never really leave, though. Manhattan is too much fun.

originally posted by tw
(contrary to Hubris Boy's erroneous comments on building insurance)

There's nothing erroneous about my comment. Only one of the WTC towers was insured.

[tw]

Originally posted by Hubris Boy
Hubris Boy KNOWS that a body at rest tends to remain at rest, and a body in motion tends to remain in motion. Anybody else who was awake in high school physics class KNOWS this too; apparently, tw is not a member of this elite group.

According to our 16 year old engineer, a falling WTC floor should have kept falling until it got to China. Hubris Boy cites bodies floating in free space whereas floors on the WTC were subject to boundary value conditions.

In many earthquakes where a floor has pancaked, the rest of a building remains intact. In Philadelphia, structural members were subject to equivalent temperatures without any collapse. Structural failure of one floor, either from heat or from vibration, should not result in the complete and immediate destruction of a building.

Furthermore, a building should be designed so that occupants have sufficient warning to escape. IOW a building so tall as to require over 1/2 hour to evacutate is simply not an intelligent design. Design - something that a radical and emotional high school student would not yet understand.

Right wing radical extremist: anyone who does not agree must be a left wing militant. Fortunately some high school kids do eventually grow up. Otherwise we would have more terrorists.

[jaguar]

Ohhh *puts hand up* I just did this last semester - the line i'm sure you both knew you missed is a body will remain in motion(or not in motion) till another forces acts on it. One of newtons laws, I forget which..

So Hubris is correct - just missed that line, no doubt because he thought it was obvious =P.

And can we all please stop throwing round right/left wing radical/militant extremists?

Now correct me if i'm wrong and this will sound vauge but skyscrapers you a kind of steel curtain effect to stay up, meaning if this is compramised in this way the entire weight of the above floors will be on the floor below - ie: what hubris says..?

Never did like engineering.

One thing that did get me....

educated Cellar consumers

Consumers? This ain't a product.....

[russotto]

Originally posted by tw

According to our 16 year old engineer, a falling WTC floor should have kept falling until it got to China.

Or until it hit something able to support that kind of weight. Such as the Earth, specifically the land known as Manhattan Island. Or the rubble of the floors below it.

Hubris Boy cites bodies floating in free space whereas floors on the WTC were subject to boundary value conditions.

Which boundaries they hit.

[/b]
In many earthquakes where a floor has pancaked, the rest of a building remains intact. In Philadelphia, structural members were subject to equivalent temperatures without any collapse.
[/b]

ONE floor didn't pancake. Several stories did. You do understand that if the structure in the MIDDLE fails, the floor just below that is subject to the impact of not just the single floor above it, but to the impact of the entire building above that point, right?

Further, the structure in Philadelphia (1 Meridian Place) was NOT subject to equivalent temperatures.

[tw]

Originally posted by russotto
Further, the structure in Philadelphia (1 Meridian Place) was NOT subject to equivalent temperatures.

Both you and I know that. However I posted in response to temperatures cited by our 16 year old engineer. 1 Meridan Place was also subject to temperatures that he posted - and remained intact. I was going to let him demonstrate again his lack of engineering knowledge.

However the point remains - a structure that requires more than one half hour to evacuate must be able to stand far longer than either WTC tower did. Russotto is correct. Real temperatures inside that or any other building would have eventually resulted in a floor collapse. The problem is that no one floor on the WTC could withstand the collapse of the floor above - in order to build excessively high. That is not true of smaller skyscrapers. A single floor collapse does not result in wholesale building destruction. An so I ask again whether it makes sense to build them too high.

Furthermore smaller skyscrapers confronted by the same temperatures would have given occupants sufficient time to escape.

BTW, my estimate puts the missing in my hometown at about 7% of the households. Yes, some of those pictures of people searching for love ones - I went to school with them.

[mbpark]

Several things about that building:

1. It got hot, but not as hot at 24,000+ gallons of jet fuel igniting. That's hot enough to melt structural steel.

2. One Meridian Plaza got hot enough to melt some steel, but it didn't have the "igniter" of all that Jet Fuel. Plenty of gasoline, however.

3. The main reason the building collapsed was all that jet fuel melting and making very soft a large amount of structural steel, causing our friend from physics, g, to take over at 9.8 meters per second downward. Using a few basic physics equations, we can determine that no structure man has built would be able to withstand 100,000 tons of steel and concrete moving downward that fast, even if the period of acceleration was only a few meters. ANY building would go bye-bye really fast.

4. The real reasons One Meridian Plaza took so long to demolish was environmental violations. That fire, combined with the large amounts of toxic chemicals in the building, caused it to be so unsafe that they had to send in specialized cleanup teams to isolate and scrub down the building's interior while wearing moonsuits. It was a Superfund cleanup, due to the toxicity.

They were actually considering reopening floors 1-12. They were structurally okay. However, due to the stigma, they decided to rip the entire building down. I remember this much from reading over what happened. They actually did have an okay from one of the oversight agencies to reopen floors 1-12.

Also, the entire tunnel system underneath would have made a complete demolition horrific, due to potential damage to the Septa tunnels and other basements.

I work 2 blocks away from it. If it was so damaged, why is there an underground parking lot still in use from One Meridian Plaza?

5. Using basic physics again, we can see one other thing from this horrible disaster. The entire foundation that many buildings besides the World Trade complex were built on, due to the force of several million tons hitting it at a very high rate of speed, are probably cracked beyond repair.

6. Using more knowledge, the infrastructure of NYC, especially that part, extends over 100 feet underground, and encompasses, electrical lines, gas lines, subway lines, as well as fiber-optic lines. Many parts of that infrastructure around World Trade for a certain radius are damaged, since the shock wave registered outward for a significant amount. These just were not built to take that level of shock. There will be foundation cracks up to several blocks away, since this was not an expected event, not to mention the need to possibly demolish a large amount of buildings, namely World Financial Center possibly, after a civil engineering firm comes in and does foundation studies.

What's even crazier is that many of these buildings were built on reclaimed land, especially WFC, from the construction of World Trade.

In other words, it's not clean, and a total mess to clean up.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by tw
The greatest threat to Washington - National (now Reagan) Airport puts landing planes within thousands of feet to the Capitol, Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, Supreme Court, and White House. Maybe politicans will drive out to Dulles instead of to personal parking spaces in National? Heaven forbid that politicans should inconvenience themselves. Close National Airport now. Republican extremists may be too attached to the airport's name to be so pragmatic.

I've been meaning to address this one for a while. Government leaders are not the only people that used this airport.

National Airport (I'm not calling it Reagan...f**k that) provided convenience not only to government leaders, but also provided another choice for Washingtonians. It's a stop on the blue and yellow Metro lines. Furthermore, service there would have multiplied, as the 1000-mile flight limit had recently been rescinded. Not to mention, Bolling AFB is directly across the Potomac from the airport.

Dulles is in East Bumf**k, accessible only by car. The Washington Flyer is a nice service, but can get costly. You have to pay tolls just to drive the road out there.

BWI is more accessible, as MARC and Amtrak take you right there (via the free shuttle from BWI Airport station). I-195 ends right at the airport, and it's free (unless you're coming from the east side of the Harbor, then you pay a mere buck for the Tunnels or the Key Bridge). And for people on the east side of the Potomac, it's closer than Dulles. But it's still 30 miles from Washington.

At the speeds that airplanes can travel, distances don't seem very relevant. Perhaps I do not understand the seriousness in keeping National closed, but given that the plane that crashed into the Pentagon came from Dulles (15-20 miles away), I don't see the harm in reopening National.

[tw]

Originally posted by sycamore
Government leaders are not the only people that used this airport. ... It's a stop on the blue and yellow Metro lines. ... Dulles is in East Bumf**k, accessible only by car. ... At the speeds that airplanes can travel, distances don't seem very relevant. ... , I don't see the harm in reopening National.

A plane landing at National need only make a left turn and crash into any Washington building in 5 seconds. No response could ever defend Washington or even evacutate VIPs. Any plane 5 seconds from any Washington DC building is totally unacceptable.

A plane from Dulles would provide a full 10 minutes of warning since the plane would not climb, would immediately violate its flight plan, and would turn immediately into restricted airspace. 10 minute is sufficient for an appropriate response. Look at FAA maps. Currently the restricted airspace over Washington is a joke - which is why so many aircraft have already crashed on White House grounds without any warning. Long overdue is to make Washington DC restricted airspace - and to elimate all that airline noise that does not belong over Washington. Last time I was there, we had to repeat a conversation that was drowned out by a National bound airplane.

Every major security service has been complaining about Washinton security for decades - even before the first aircraft tried to crash into the White House. Why are noisy airplanes only a few thousand feet from the Lincoln Memorial? Why do airplanes continue to operate out of an airport that is also considered dangerous? Congress.

Why does the Metro not stop in Dulles? Plans for it were repeatedly killed since National exists. Kill National, and the Metro will suddenly appear in Dulles where it should have been anyway. Dulles access is only more difficult because National exists - for reasons of Congressional convenience - Washington DC safety be damned. There is no other powerful body interested enough in National to keep it open.

30 miles is standard traveling distance to any airport - and woefully insufficient reason to justify an airport so dangerously close to this city.

Planes 10 miles out and headed for Washington - no problem. Planes a few thousand feet out and apparently pretending to land in National - extremely dangerous.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by tw
A plane from Dulles would provide a full 10 minutes of warning since the plane would not climb, would immediately violate its flight plan, and would turn immediately into restricted airspace.

But the West Wing was not evacuated until after American Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. That flight took off from Dulles. And is the area around the Pentagon not restricted airspace? (Not being sarcastic...I am unfamiliar with just what is and is not restricted airspace in DC.) I understand what you're saying in that a plane making a routine landing at National could blow past the runway and hit the city. But we've already seen what a plane can do from Dulles.

Why does the Metro not stop in Dulles? Plans for it were repeatedly killed since National exists. Kill National, and the Metro will suddenly appear in Dulles where it should have been anyway. Dulles access is only more difficult because National exists - for reasons of Congressional convenience - Washington DC safety be damned.

Actually, there was talk of making an offshoot of the Metro to reach Dulles...this was as of mid-2000.

30 miles is standard traveling distance to any airport - and woefully insufficient reason to justify an airport so dangerously close to this city.

Are you referring strictly to Washington on this?
As I said, I now better understand why National is an accident waiting to happen. My only concern with that rationale though is this: Washington is the capital of the nation, but New York runs the economy. LaGuardia is not that terribly far from Manhattan...should we move it further away? (Although LaGuardia has already had its own troubles). And as I've already mentioned, Bolling AFB sits right across the water from National. Not to mention, the plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge back in the early 80s. The 14th Street Bridge sits practically next to the Treasury Dept., and is a hop away from the Capitol.

Realistically, there is no way to guarantee that what happened 3 weeks ago will not happen again. National could be shut down forever as a preventative measure, but truth be told, I believe that DC needs a third airport. 20 million passengers went through Dulles last year, 18 million through BWI, 16 million into National. 7 million people live in the Baltimore-Washington area. Though I've not flown from Dulles, I've flown into BWI...and I felt like I was at O'Hare (although 72 million passengers went through O'Hare last year). So, where do you put a third airport in DC?

[mbpark]

Hello,

I am thinking one of two places:

1. Somewhere out near Dulles. Literally, maybe 30-40 miles south. The area is growing at a massive amount still, and that's the boom area. 30 miles south of Dulles off of I-95 or the Beltway would be perfect.

2. Western Maryland, right on the MARC line. There's already a train line It's not too far from the beltway either. And, it's close to that other boom area in Western MD, and can serve as a regional hub for Harrisburg, Gettysburg, parts of WV, and the DC area. Believe it or not, that area is very good for business, and Citibank is relocating large amounts of operations to Hagerstown, MD. I know of several large construction firms out there, as well.

Reagan is too close to support re-opening. You just can't have jets that close to critical national security. It doesn't work. Look at other countries. Their airports are nowhere NEAR critical government functions, especially Tokyo, Seoul, and London.

Reagan is just TOO close. They'll build that Metro line now, and they'll get the tax dollars they need to do it.