Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE):
Free Americans Reaching Out to Amerika's Huddled Masses Yearning
to Breathe Free. NOTE: One of the very most valuable sites for
convincing juries that 9/11 was a Bush Junta conspiracy is
<www.wtc7.net>; here's a sample of their fine presentation. --
kl, pp
======================================================================
What Was Building 7?
Building 7 was one of New York City's larger buildings. A sleek
bronze-colored skyscraper with a trapezoidal footprint, it occupied
an entire city block and rose over 600 feet above street level.
Built in 1985, it was formerly the headquarters of the junk-bond
firm Drexel Burnham Lambert, which contributed to the Savings and
Loans collapse, prompting the $500-billion taxpayer-underwritten
bailout of the latter 1980s. At the time of its destruction, it
exclusively housed government agencies and financial institutions.
It contained offices of the IRS, Secret Service, and SEC.
It also housed then-Mayor Giuliani's Office of Emergency Management,
and its emergency command center on the 23rd floor. This floor
received 15 million dollars worth of renovations, including independent
and secure air and water supplies, and bullet and bomb resistant
windows designed to withstand 200 MPH winds. 1 The 1993 bombing
must have been part of the rationale for the command center, which
overlooked the Twin Towers, a prime terrorist target.
How curious that on the day of the attack, Guiliani and his Entourage
set up shop in a different headquarters, abandoning the special
bunker designed precisely for such an event. 2 References 1Terrorism
and Anti-Terrorism,Gotham Gazette,9/12/01 2Giuliani Improvises After
Command Center Gets Hit,Washington Technology,10/08/01
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Building 7's Location
Building 7 occupied a city block immediately north of the suberblock
occupied by the World Trade Center complex. WTC 1 through WTC 6
were on the superblock bounded by West, Church, Liberty, and Vassey
Streets. Building 7 occupied a block wedged between the Verizon and
U.S. Post Office buildings across Vassey Street from the WTC complex.
It straddled an electrical substation that filled the first two
stories of about half the block.
People who have heard of Building 7 tend to assume that 'ancillary
damage' from the collapses of the Twin Towers had something to do
with Building 7's collapse. It is important to note that Building
7 was no closer to the towers than any of several other large
buildings outside of the WTC complex.
The wall of Building 7 closest to the WTC complex was 300 feet from
the nearest wall of the North Tower. It appears that nearly all of
the heavy fallout from the disintegration of the North Tower landed
short of Building 7. Building 6 stood between the North Tower and
Building 7.
Building 7 was the only of the 7 buildings with a World Trade Center
address that was on a different block. It, along with the 6 other
buildings, were completely or largely destroyed on September 11th.
No buildings outside of the two turquoise zones in the map to the
right suffered more than superficial damage.
==================================================================
The Fires in Building 7
Fires supposedly broke out in Building 7 following the impact of
Flight 175 with the South Tower. Small fires burned inside the
building throughout the day until its sudden collapse at 5:20 PM.
Photographs of the building's north side show only small, barely
visible fires. Fires with flames emerging from the building were
only seen in an isolated section of the 11th floor on the east face
of the building. (In contrast, other skyscraper fires have exhibited
emergent flames throughout several floors.) FEMA's report claimed
that significant fires were visible on the building's south side,
without providing any evidence. The photograph below, taken in the
afternoon, shows the upper half of Building 7 from the south. There
are no signs of fire.
Despite the fact that the fires in Building 7 were insignificant
compared to other office fires, a decision was made not to fight
them. The government has never explained that decision.
================================ The Vertical Collapse of Building
7
Building 7 collapsed in a nearly perfectly vertical motion at near
the rate of free-fall. The first sign of the collapse is the falling
of the penthouse, immediately followed by the falling of the whole
facade, as seen from either the north and south. The middle of the
building's north wall fell slightly faster than its edges.
The straight-down fall of the building's top can be clearly seen
in photographs and videos. In the pair of images above, note that
the position of Building 7's right wall remains in almost exactly
the same horizontal position despite having fallen over 100 feet.
Dust engulfed the building when the roof had fallen to within about
15 stories of street level.
The nature of the collapse past that point can be inferred by the
shape of the rubble pile and the fact that it was covered by the
remains of the exterior walls. This means that, not only did the
building continue to fall vertically until the end, the outer walls
were pulled inward so that they fell on top of the rubble pile.
In short, Building 7 imploded. Buildings are not designed to implode.
They are designed to remain standing. To achieve a precisely vertical
collapse, in which the remains of the building fall inward, is the
objective of controlled demolition.
============================================= Videos Show Building
7's Vertical Collapse.
The survival of several video recordings of Building 7's collapse,
though of low resolution, allow study of the building's motion and
the time of collapse.
Each of the following videos shows the entire visible portion of
the building falling with a vertical precision otherwise seen only
in controlled demolition. Moreover, they show that the collapse
took only about 6.5 seconds from start to finish. That rate of fall
is within a second of the time it would take an object to fall from
the building's roof with no air resistance.
video broadcast by CBS - 1.4MB - mpeg This 36 second video shows
Building 7 from an elevated vantage point to the distant northeast.
Content-Type: image/jpeg;
x-unix-mode=0666;
name="wtc_7_cbs_s.jpg"
Content-Disposition: inline;
filename=wtc_7_cbs_s.jpg
video from an NBC news camera - 1.5MB - mpeg This 9 second video
shows the Building 7 collapse from a vantage point about mile to
the northeast on West Broadway.
video broadcast on CBS - 1.7MB - mpeg This 9.6 second video shows
the Building 7 collapse from a vantage point only about 1000 feet
to the north.
Content-Type: image/jpeg;
x-unix-mode=0666;
name="wtc7_collapse2_s.jpg"
Content-Disposition: inline;
filename=wtc7_collapse2_s.jpg
Video Credits Thanks for Krsto herenda for finding the CBS video,
and to plaguepuppy for transcribing it to MPEG.
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Building 7's Rubble Pile
Less than seven seconds after Building 7 began to implode, all that
was left of the steel skyscraper was a rubble pile. The rubble pile
is notable for several features:
* its location - It was exactly centered around the vertical axis
of the former building.
* its size - The pile from the 47-story building was less than two
stories high.
* its tidiness - The pile was almost entirely within the footprint
of the former building
What does the shape of the rubble pile indicate about the events
leading to the collapse of building 7?
Consider the rubble piles produced by other collapses. The only
examples of total collapses of steel frame highrises (excepting WTC
1, 2, and 7) involved either severe earthquakes or controlled
demolition.
Total collapses due to earthquakes are extremely rare. The rubble
piles of the few documented cases had none of the above features.
Total collapses due to controlled demolition generally have all of
the above features. In fact, to achieve such a small, consolidated
rubble pile is one of the main objectives of a controlled demolition.
================================ The Destruction of Building 7's
Remains
Engineering is a science that melds theory and experience to create
robust structures. Unintended structural failures are rare events
that warrant the most careful scrutiny, since they test engineering
theory.
That is why the NTSB carefully documents aircraft crash scenes, and
preserves the aircraft remains, frequently creating partial
reconstructions in hangers. If an investigation reveals a mechanical
or design fault, the FAA usually mandates specific modifications
of equipment or maintenance procedures system-wide, and future
aircraft are designed to avoid the fault.
Unintended structural failures are less common in steel frame
highrises than in aircraft. Being the only such building in history
in which fire is blamed for total collapse, Building 7's remains
warranted the most painstaking examination, documentation, and
analysis.
Building 7's rubble pile was at least as important as any archeological
dig. It contained all the clues to one of the largest structural
failures in history. Without understanding the cause of the collapse,
all skyscrapers become suspect, with profound implications for the
safety of occupants and for the ethics of sending emergency personnel
into burning buildings to save people and fight fires.
There was no legitimate reason not to dismantle the rubble pile
carefully, documenting the position of each piece of steel and
moving it to a warehouse for further study.
No one was thought buried in the pile, since, unlike the Twin Towers,
Building 7 had been evacuated hours before the collapse.
The pile was so well confined to the building's footprint that the
adjacent streets could have been cleared without disturbing it.
Yet, despite the paramount importance of the remains, they were
hauled away and melted down as quickly as possible. The steel was
sold to scrap metals vendors and most was soon on ships bound for
China and India. Some of the smaller pieces and a few token large
pieces of steel marked 'save' were allowed to be inspected at
Fishkills landfill by FEMA's BPAT volunteers.
This illegal evidence destruction operation was conducted over the
objections of attack victims' family members and respected public
safety officials. Bill Manning, editor of the 125 year old Fire
Engineering Magazine, wrote in an article condemning the operation:
1 Did they throw away the locked doors from the Triangle Shirtwaist
fire? Did they throw away the gas can used at the happy land social
club fire? ... That's what they're doing at the World Trade Center.
The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately.
Dr. Frederick W. Mowrer, an associate professor in the Fire Protection
Engineering Department at the University of Maryland, was quoted
in the the New York Times as saying: 2 I find the speed with which
potentially important evidence has been removed and recycled to be
appalling.
Officials running the "cleanup operation" took pains to make sure
the structural steel didn't end up anywhere but in blast furnaces.
They installed GPS locater devices on each of the trucks hauling
loads from Ground Zero at a cost of $1000 each. One driver who took
an extended lunch break was dismissed. 3
References 1Firefighter Mag Raps 9/11 Probe,, 2The Towers,New York
Times,12/25/01 3GPS ON THE JOB IN MASSIVE WORLD TRADE CENTER
CLEAN-UP,securitysolutions.com,
======================================================================
The Investigation of Building 7's Collapse
What did the government do to investigate the unprecedented collapse
of a steel frame building from fires? It gave FEMA the sole discretion
to investigate the collapse, even though FEMA is not an investigative
agency.
FEMA assembled a team of volunteer engineers, the Building Performance
Assessment Team (BPAT), to write the World Trade Center Building
Performance Study. The engineers were not granted access to the
site of the catastrophe. Rather, they were allowed to pick through
some pieces of metal that arrived at the Fishkills landfill.
Most of the steel was never seen by the part-time investigators.
It had been sold to scrap metal vendors, and was being shipped out
to overseas ports as quickly as the newly constructed infrastructure
could handle.
FEMA's BPAT, the only official organization that reported on Building
7's collapse, was completely indecisive. Their report stated The
specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building
to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel
fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best
hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research,
investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue.
The report was published in May of 2002, just after the last building
remains had been scrubbed from Ground Zero.
================================ FEMA's WTC Building Performance
Study
The only government entity that purported to examine the collapse
of Building 7 was the Building Performance Assessment Team (BPAT)
composed of volunteer engineers selected and supervised by FEMA.
In May of 2002, BPAT published their World Trade Center Building
Performance Study Chapter 5 of the report is devoted to Building
7. The report makes unsubstantiated claims and uses a variety of
deceptive techniques to make the total collapse of Building 7 due
to fires seem less implausible than it is. A copy of Chapter 5
marked up by an anonymous author exposes many of these deceptions.
================================ The Silence Surrounding Building
7
The American Public was treated to wall-to-wall television coverage
of the September 11th attack throughout the day and for nearly the
entire following week. Yet most Americans remember only two skyscrapers
collapsing in Lower Manhattan on the day of the attack:
the Twin Towers. The total collapse of the third huge skyscraper
late in the afternoon of September 11th was reported as if it were
an insignificant footnote. The television networks played video of
the jets impacting the Twin Towers hundreds of times. But most
people never saw video of Building 7's collapse.
Building 7 was neither hit by an airplane nor heavy fallout from
the collapse of either of the Twin Towers. If you believe the
official story that it collapsed from fires, it would be the first
case in history in which fires leveled a steel frame building.
Shouldn't that have been newsworthy, given its implications for
building safety and rescue and firefighting operations? Incredibly,
it is virtually impossible to find any mention of building 7 in
newspapers, magazines, or broadcast media reports after September
11th.
================================ What Caused Building 7's Collapse?
The answer to this question would appear to be the greatest question
in engineering history. In over 100 years of experience with steel
frame buildings, fires have never caused the collapse of a single
one, even though many were ravaged by severe fires. Indeed, fires
have never caused the total collapse of any permanent steel structure.
What was done answer this most important question? The only official
body that admits to having investigated the curious collapse of
Building 7 is FEMA's Building Performance Assessment Team (BPAT),
who blamed fires for the collapse but admitted to being clueless
about how fires caused the collapse.
People who have seen buildings implode in controlled demolitions
are unlikely to be as challenged as FEMA's team in understanding
the cause of Building 7's collapse. They will notice, upon watching
the videos, that Building 7's collapse showed all of the essential
features of a controlled demolition.
Despite having the appearance of a controlled demolition, is it
possible that Building 7 could have been destroyed by some combination
of damage from tower debris, fuel tank explosions, and fires? Let's
consider the possible scenarios.
The evidence does not support the idea that Building 7 was damaged
by fallout from the tower collapses, nor that there were diesel
fuel tank explosions. Fires were observed in Building 7 prior to
its collapse, but they were isolated in small parts of the building,
and were puny by comparison to other building fires. Let's imagine,
contrary to the evidence, that debris from the tower collapses
damaged Building 7's structure, that diesel fuel tanks exploded,
and that incredibly intense fires raged through large parts of the
building. Could such events have caused the building to collapse?
Not in the manner observed. The reason is that simultaneous and
symmetric damage is needed to produce a collapse with the precise
symmetry of the vertical fall of building 7. This building had 58
perimeter columns and 25 core columns. In order to cause the building
to sink into its footprint all of the core columns and all of the
perimeter columns would have to be broken in the same split-second.
Any debris from the towers impacting Building 7 would have hit its
south side, and any columns damaged by it would almost certainly
be perimeter columns on its south side. Any fuel tank explosion
would only be able to damage nearby structure. The rapid fall-off
of blast pressures with distance from the source would preclude any
such event from breaking all of the columns in the building.
(Furthermore the very idea of a tank of diesel fuel exploding taxes
the imagination, since diesel fuel does not even begin to boil below
320 degrees F. 1) Fires have never been known to damage steel columns
in highrise buildings, but if they could, the damage would be
produced gradually and would be localized to the areas where the
fire was the most intense.
No combination of debris damage, fuel-tank explosions, and fires
could inflict the kind of simultaneous damage to all the building's
columns required to make the building implode. The precision of
such damage required to bring Building 7 down into its footprint
was especially great given the ratio of its height to its width and
depth. Any asymmetry in the extent and timing of the damage would
cause such a building to topple.
References 1DETAILED SPECIFICATIONS PIERCE TRANSIT DIESEL FUEL,,
=======================================================================
Fires Versus Steel Buildings
The official explanation that fires caused the collapse of Building
7 is incredible in light of the fact that fires have never caused
a steel frame building to collapse, before or after September 11th.
Steel-frame highrises (buildings of fifteen stories or more) have
been widespread for over 100 years. There have been hundreds of
incidents involving severe fires in such buildings, and none have
led to complete collapse, or even partial collapse of support
columns.
Recent examples of highrise fires include the 1991 One Meridian
Plaza fire in Philadelphia, which raged for 18 hours and gutted 8
floors of the 38 floor building; 1 and the 1988 First Interstate
Bank Building fire in Los Angeles, which burned out of control for
3 1/2 hours and gutted 4 floors of the 64 floor tower. Both of these
fires were far more severe than any fires seen in Building 7, but
those buildings did not collapse. The Los Angeles fire was described
as producing "no damage to the main structural members". 2
Research indicates that even if a steel frame building were subjected
to an impossible superfire, hundreds of degrees hotter and far more
extensive then any fire ever observed in a real building, it would
still not collapse. Appendix A of The World Trade Center Building
Perfomance Study contains the following:
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 protected. Despite the temperature of the steel beams
reaching 800-900 C (1,500-1,700 F) in three of the tests (well above
the traditionally assumed critical temperature of 600 C (1,100 F),
no collapse was observed in any of the six experiments).
In actual building fires, steel beams and columns probably never
exceed 500 C. In extensive fire tests of steel frame carparks
conducted by Chorus Construction in several countries, measured
temperatures of the steel columns and beams, including in uninsulated
structures, never exceeded 360 C. 3 References 1One Meridien Plaza,,
2Interstate Bank Building Fire Los Angeles, California (May 4,
1988),, 3Fire Resistance of Steel Framed Car Parks,corusconstruction.com,
======================================================================
Controlled Demolition
Buildings do fall vertically like Building 7, when destroyed by
controlled demolition.
The controlled demolition of large structures is a well developed
art and science. Removing a tall building from an urban landscape
without damaging adjacent structures -- a considerable engineering
feat -- is a task that a handful of controlled demolitions companies
specialize in. One such company is Controlled Demolition Inc.,
which, incidentally, was subcontracted by Tully Construction to
coordinate the removal of rubble from Ground Zero and the disposal
of the structural steel in the months following the attack.
The steel skeletons of buildings like WTC 7 are extremely robust.
They are designed to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes, and are
over-engineered to handle several times the maximum loads anticipated
during their lifetimes. Such steel skeletons have local structural
integrity. An event that destroyed one portion of the structure
would not case distant portions to shatter. If some force obliterated
the load-bearing columns well below the top of a 600-foot tall
skyscraper, the top of the building would topple like a tree, not
smash its way down through intact floors and into its foundation.
Controlled demolition destroys vertical steel structures while
overcoming their tendency to topple onto adjacent real-estate. It
does so by shattering the steel skeleton through the precisely timed
detonation of explosive charges.
Demolitions are large undertakings with high stakes. The number of
charges required is at least the number of columns times some
fraction of the number of floors. An error in timing of the detonations
could cause expensive collateral damage.
Most demolitions seek to implode the building, causing the mass to
move toward the center, resulting in a tidy rubble pile. In tall
buildings this is typically done by shattering the interior structures
of the building first or ahead of the exterior structures.
That causes the interior mass to fall first, pulling outer structures
toward the center. Pieces of the outer walls end up on top of the
rubble pile.
Building 7's documented vertical plunge and tidy rubble pile with
exterior wall fragments on top are exactly the kinds of results
that controlled demolitions achieve through careful engineering.
================================