Structure Magazine explains one
probable cause of the WTC 7 collapse. "Single Point of
Failure: How the Loss of One Column May Have Led to the
Collapse of WTC 7"
Conspiracy theorists say World Trade Center 7 is the best
proof for controlled demolition because it wasn't hit by
airliners and only had a few fires. They also claim that
there was a confession from the building owner who said he
"pulled" it. But this is deceptive because while building 7
wasn't hit by an airliner, it was hit by the large perimeter
columns of the Tower collapse. It was 400 ft away but the
towers were more than 1300 ft tall. As the tower peeled
open, it easily tilted over to reach building 7. Below is
evidence showing that conspiracy theorists are wrong.
As you can see from the graphic below, all the buildings
just as far away from both towers as WTC7 were hit. The
others were either very short buildings which didn't have to
support a massive load above or had no fire. Only Building 7
had unfought fires and the massive load of 40 stories above
them.
Update:
The second
paragraph above has been challenged by conspiracy theorists.
For more information on this and a rebuttal read the update
around the middle of the page.
Below is a photo
of the Bankers Trust building.
As you can see,
the building never caught fire so it was never in any danger
of collapse. It also was constructed differently, with a web
column design. The interior columns were not pushed out to
the perimeter.
Note the WTC
columns laid out as if there were a path to the building.
There are no concrete slabs attached to columns. This is yet
another example of pancaking. With the floors pancaking
straight down, the perimeter walls were free to lean over in
tall sections before breaking off and coming down. That's
what gave them distance.
So we know the
building should have been hit given the debris field above.
But what of the damage to the building? Conspiracy sites say
there were small fires. And what of Silverstein's comments
in the PBS special? He used the term "Pull" to describe a
decision made. Conspiracy theorists say "Pull" is a term
used by demolition experts. This is one of those many half
truths conspiracy theorists use to convince the ignorant.
"Pull" is used when they "Pull" a building away from another
with cables during demolition.
Yes, that worker certainly does say
they’re getting ready to “pull” building six. Then we
have a quote from Luis Mendes, from the NYC Department
of Design and Construction:
“We had to
be very careful about how we demolished building 6. We
were worried about building 6 coming down and damaging
the slurry walls, so we wanted that particular building
to fall within a certain area.”
Interesting. They needed to be sure that
building 6 came down in a “controlled” way. But wait a
second: the video clip that Alex Jones presents – the
clip that’s shown on all the conspiracist websites –ends
abruptly at this point. Huh? Where’s the money shot?
Why’d they cut it there?
Here’s why:
Because
the following scene shows how building 6 was “pulled”:
with cables attached to the hydraulic arms of four
excavators, not with explosive charges.
“We’ve got
the cables attached in four different locations going up.
Now they’re pulling the building to the north. It’s not
every day you try to pull down a eight story building with
cables.”
Narrator
Kevin Spacey: “The use of explosives to demolish World
Trade Centers 4, 5 and 6 was rejected for fear workers would
risk their lives entering buildings to set the charges.”
Why do they pull that part of
the documentary out of the conspiracy story? This is yet
another example of outright deception by the so called
"truth" movement and its leaders like Alex Jones. They draw
their stories around the truth like a child drawing around
their hand.
However, was the
fire more severe than conspiracy theorists let on and was
Silverstein's quote taken out of context? The two are
related and are explored below.
The
above photo is very different than the photos you
usually see on conspiracy sites.
Silverstein's
Quote:
"I
remember getting a call from the Fire Department
commander, telling me they were not sure they were
gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, you know,
'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the
smartest thing to do is just pull it.' And they made
that decision to pull and then we watched the building
collapse."
-Fact which is undisputed by either side,
he was talking to the fire
commander
-Fact which is undisputed by either side,
both are not in the demolition
business
Silverstein's
spokesperson, Mr. McQuillan, later clarified:
"In the
afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the
Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade
Center. The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there
were several firefighters in the building working to
contain the fires. Mr. Silverstein expressed his view
that the most important thing was to protect the safety
of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have
them withdraw from the building."
He could be lying, right? But here is the
corroborating evidence...
"They
told us to get out of there because they were worried
about 7 World Trade Center, which is right behind it,
coming down.
We were up on the upper floors of the Verizon building
looking at it. You could just see the whole bottom
corner of the building was gone. We could look right out
over to where the Trade Centers were because we were
that high up. Looking over the smaller buildings. I
just remember it was tremendous, tremendous fires going
on. Finally they pulled us out. They said all
right, get out of that building because that 7, they
were really worried about. They pulled us out
of there and then they regrouped everybody on Vesey
Street, between the water and West Street. They put
everybody back in there. Finally it did come down. From
there - this is much later on in the day, because every
day we were so worried about that building we didn't
really want to get people close. They were trying to
limit the amount of people that were in there. Finally
it did come down." - Richard Banaciski
Here is
more evidence they pulled the teams out
waiting for a normal collapse from fire...
"The most
important operational decision to be made that afternoon
was the collapse (Of the WTC towers) had damaged 7 World
Trade Center, which is about a 50 story building, at
Vesey between West Broadway and Washington Street. It
had very heavy fire on many floors and I ordered the
evacuation of an area sufficient around to protect our
members, so we had to
give up some rescue operations that were going on
at the time and
back the people away far enough so that if 7 World
Trade did collapse, we [wouldn't] lose any more people.
We continued to operate on what we could from that
distance and approximately an hour and a half after that
order was [given], at 5:30 in the afternoon, World Trade
Center collapsed completely" - Daniel Nigro, Chief of
Department
"Early on,
there was concern that 7 World Trade Center might
have been both impacted by the collapsing tower and had
several fires in it and there was a concern that it
might collapse. So we instructed that a collapse
area -- (Q. A collapse zone?) -- Yeah -- be set up and
maintained so that when the expected collapse of 7
happened, we wouldn't have people working in it. There
was considerable discussion with Con Ed regarding the
substation in that building and the feeders and the oil
coolants and so on. And their concern was of the type of
fire we might have when it collapsed." - Chief Cruthers
"Then we
found out, I guess around 3:00 [o'clock], that they
thought 7 was going to collapse. So, of course,
[we've] got guys all in this pile over here and the main
concern was get everybody out, and I guess it took
us over an hour and a half, two hours to get everybody
out of there. (Q. Initially when you were there, you
had said you heard a few Maydays?) Oh, yes. We had
Maydays like crazy.... The heat must have been
tremendous. There was so much [expletive] fire there.
This whole pile was burning like crazy. Just the heat
and the smoke from all the other buildings on fire, you
[couldn't] see anything. So it took us a while and we
ended up backing everybody out, and [that's] when 7
collapsed.... Basically, we fell back for 7 to collapse,
and then we waited a while and it got a lot more
organized, I would guess." - Lieutenant William Ryan
"Firehouse:
Did that chief give an assignment to go to building
7?
Boyle: He gave out an assignment. I
didn’t know exactly what it was,but he told the chief that we were heading down
to the site.
Firehouse: How many companies?
Boyle:
There were four engines and at least three trucks.
So we’re heading east on Vesey, we couldn’t see much
past Broadway. We couldn’t see Church Street. We
couldn’t see what was down there. It was really smoky
and dusty."
But they had a hoseline operating. Like I said, it was
hitting the sidewalk across the street, but
eventually they pulled back too. Then we received an
order from Fellini, we’re going to make a move on 7.
That was the first time really my stomach tightened up
because the building didn’t look good. I was
figuring probably the standpipe systems were shot. There
was no hydrant pressure. I wasn’t really keen on the
idea. Then this other officer I’m standing next to
said, that building doesn’t look straight. So I’m
standing there. I’m looking at the building. It didn’t
look right, but, well, we’ll go in, we’ll see.
So we gathered up rollups and most of us had masks at
that time.
We headed toward 7. And just around we were about a
hundred yards away and Butch Brandies came running up.
He said forget it, nobody’s going into 7, there’s
creaking, there are noises coming out of there, so we
just stopped. And probably about 10 minutes after that,
Visconti, he was on West Street, and I guess he had
another report of further damage either in some
basements and things like that, so Visconti said nobody
goes into 7, so that was the final thing and that was
abandoned.
Firehouse: When you looked at the
south side, how close were you to the base of that side?
Boyle: I was standing right next to the building,
probably right next to it.
Firehouse: When you
had fire on the 20 floors, was it in one window or many?
Boyle: There was a huge gaping hole and it was scattered
throughout there. It was a huge hole. I would say it was
probably about a third of it,
right in the middle of it. And so after Visconti
came down and said nobody goes in 7, we said all right,
we’ll head back to the command post. We lost touch
with him. I never saw him again that day.
This proves
there was a big hole on the south side of the building. From
the photographic evidence and these quotes which aren't
meant to be technical, I suspect there was a large hole in
the center of the building which may have gone up 10 stories
connected to a large rip on the left side of the building
which continued up another 10 or more stories. Together they
would make "a
hole 20 stories tall".
Hayden: Yeah. There was enough there and we were marking
off. There were a lot of damaged apparatus there that
were covered. We tried to get searches in those areas.
By now, this is going on into the afternoon, and we were
concerned about additional collapse, not only of the
Marriott, because there was a good portion of the
Marriott still standing, but also we were pretty sure
that 7 World Trade Center would collapse. Early on, we
saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10
and 13, and we had put a transit on that and we were
pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually
could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about
three floors. It came down about 5 o’clock in the
afternoon, but by about 2 o’clock in the afternoon we
realized this thing was going to collapse.
Firehouse: Was there heavy fire in there right away?
Hayden: No, not right away, and that’s probably why
it stood for so long because it took a while for that
fire to develop. It was a heavy body of fire in there
and then we didn’t make any attempt to fight it. That
was just one of those wars we were just going to lose.
We were concerned about the collapse of a 47-story
building there. We were worried about additional
collapse there of what was remaining standing of the
towers and the Marriott, so we started pulling the
people back after a couple of hours of surface removal
and searches along the surface
of the debris. We started to pull guys back because we
were concerned for their safety.
Firehouse: Chief Nigro said they made a
collapse zone and wanted everybody away from number 7—
did you have to get all of those people out?
Hayden: Yeah, we had to pull everybody back. It was
very difficult. We had to be very forceful in getting
the guys out. They didn’t want to come out. There were
guys going into areas that I wasn’t even really
comfortable with, because of the possibility of
secondary collapses. We didn’t know how stable any of
this area was. We pulled everybody back probably by 3 or
3:30 in the afternoon. We said, this building is going
to come down, get back. It came down about 5 o’clock or
so, but we had everybody backed away by then. At that
point in time, it seemed like a somewhat smaller event,
but under any normal circumstances, that’s a major
event, a 47-story building collapsing. It seemed like a
firecracker after the other ones came down, but I mean
that’s a big building, and when it came down, it was
quite an event. But having gone through the other two,
it didn’t seem so bad. But that’s what we were concerned
about. We had said to the guys, we lost as many as 300
guys. We didn’t want to lose any more people that day.
And when those numbers start to set in among everybody…
My feeling early on was we weren’t going to find any
survivors. You either made it out or you didn’t make it
out. It was a cataclysmic event. The idea of
somebody living in that thing to me would have been only
short of a miracle. This thing became geographically
sectored because of the collapse. I was at West and
Liberty. I couldn’t go further north on West Street. And
I couldn’t go further east on Liberty because of the
collapse of the south tower, so physically we were boxed
in.
WTC
Building 7 appears to have suffered significant damage at some point
after the WTC Towers had collapsed, according to firefighters at the
scene. Firefighter Butch Brandies tells other firefighters that
nobody is to go into Building 7 because of creaking and noises
coming out of there. [Firehouse Magazine, 8/02]
Battalion Chief John Norman later recalls, "At the edge of the south
face you could see that it is very heavily damaged." [Firehouse
Magazine, 5/02]
Heavy, thick smoke rises
near 7 World Trade Center. Smoke is visible from the upper floors of
the 47-story building. Firefighters using transits to determine
whether there was any movement in the structure were surprised to
discover that is was moving. The area was evacuated and the building
collapsed later in the afternoon of Sept. 11.
That alone
should end this debate. The fire department didn't have
orders from on high. So that leaves the fire department
lying to cover up a demolition for Bush or the firefighters
made a good call.
More from
another blogger…
RealityCheck
“(1) In your own
quote we have a Fire Dept. COMMANDER saying: "....they were not sure
they were going to be able to contain the fire......". How and why
is everyone ignoring the fact that the COMMANDER, obviously based on
his relevant/authoritative experience/knowledge, judges that
the WTC7 fire is OUT OF CONTROL!
I ask any reasonable person to tell me
WHAT POSSIBLE OPINION from ANY 'civilian' could have been persuasive
enough to CHANGE THE COMMANDER'S MIND enough to continue with a
'lost cause'? [....the persistence with which 'lost cause' could
only INEVITABLY have resulted in greater loss of life than if they
"pulled back" NOW and leave it to burn out while concentrate on
preventing its spread further afield, heh? ].
So, whatever Silverstein might have
WANTED, in light of what the COMMANDER said, it is OBVIOUS to any
reasonable person that Silverstein could have had little OTHER
choice than to recognize and acquiesce/concur with the FIRE
COMMANDER'S professional judgment Wouldn't you agree?
(2) As to the term "pull":
Given that the fire department is
organized/regimented along semi-milaristic lines (evidence terms
such as Battalion and Commander), would it seem unreasonable to find
that OTHER traditional 'military' terms are used?......like
withdraw[ or move out or PULL (back) etc. .......in such a
structure/culture as in a FIRE DEPT. COMMAND STRUCTURE
maneuvering/ordering about MANY 'troops' (firemen)? I for one would
find it extraordinary if such an organization did NOT use such
traditional and well understood/useful (and to the point) terms to
ISSUE ORDERS WHICH COULD NOT BE MISUNDERSTOOD EVEN IN THE HEAT OF
'BATTLE' (remember the term "Battalion" which is part of their
organizational/operational structure?).
RC.
As for
Building 7 and the evidence for Controlled Demolition, let's review the
evidence...
What we do have for sure.
1) Fireman saying there was "a
hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors."
"I would say it was probably about a third of it".
2) A
laymen officer the fireman was standing next to said,
"that building doesn’t look straight." He then says "It
didn’t look right".
3) They put a transit on it and
afterward were
"pretty sure she was going to collapse."
4) They
"saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10 and 13".
5) Photographic evidence of a fire directly under the
penthouse which collapsed first.
6) The penthouse fell
first, followed by the rest of the building shortly after.
7) The collapse happened from the bottom.
8) Photographic evidence of large smoke plumes against the back
of B7. Plumes of smoke so large you can't see the entire rear of
the 47 story office building.
9) Silverstein is not a demolition expert
and was
talking to a fire fighter and not a demolition
expert.
Why would he use the word "Pull" to describe the
demolition to a fire fighter?
10) Silverstein denies "Pull" means "Controlled
demolition".
He said it means "Pull" the teams out of the building.
11) Silverstein did not make the decision to
"Pull".
(Whatever that means) "they made that decision to pull and
then we watched the building collapse"
12)
Another fire fighter used "Pull" to describe the decision made to
get him out of the building.
What we don't have...
1) Clear view of the large hole
2) Number of columns and
location of columns taken out by the tower impact
3) Clear
view of all the fires seen on the south side
4) Any sign of an actual explosive.
Maybe none of these things by themselves mean anything but together
it means there is no case. The person who said "Pull" and started
this cascade later clarified. Fireman use the word "Pull" to
describe getting out of a building and the person who made the order
was not Silverstein according to the same first interview.
9/11 conspiracy sites are being dishonest. You have to ask yourself
why?
There
is no doubt "Pull" means pull the firemen out.
Update:
Conspiracy Theorists have once again hung their
hopes on a word. Now the word is "it". Because I did not include the
word "it" - as in Pull "it" - I am purposelly changing the the phrasing
of his statement which implies complicity. I will include his argument
and insert the word to show how silly his argument is.
CT: On your WTC7 page you should truly quote what Silverstein said which is "Pull it"
9) Silverstein is not a demolition expert and was talking to a fire fighter and not a demolition expert. Why would he use the word "Pull it" to describe the demolition to a fire fighter?
I still have a valid argument. Why would Silverstien use a term that
a demolition expert would use to discribe pulling a building away from
other buildings with cables when speaking to a firefighter? Including
"it" doesn't change that fact.
CT: 10) Silverstein denies "Pull it" means "Controlled demolition". He said it means "Pull it" the teams out of the building.
Pull "it" - the attempt to save the building - is far more believable
than "it" being the demolition of the building. The true error I made
was to use the word "teams". He was obviously talking about the attampt
to save the building and not so much the teams involved in carring that
out. Here are both in context...
I
remember getting a call from the Fire Department
commander, telling me they were not sure they were
gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, you know,
'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the
smartest thing to do is just pull it (blow the building up).'
And they made that decision to pull and then we watched the building
collapse.
We've had
such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is blow the
building up??? That makes sense to someone??? Now read it in context
below...
I
remember getting a call from the Fire Department
commander, telling methey were not sure they were
gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, you know,
'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe
the
smartest thing to do is just pull it (the attempt to
save the building). And they made that decision to
pull and then we watched the building collapse.
I'll let you decide.
CT: 11) Silverstein did not make the decision to "Pull it". (Whatever that means) "they made that decision to pull it and then we watched the building collapse"
Here this conspiracy theorist is adding an "it" to the quote. "they
made that decision to pull" not 'they made that decision to pull it'. In
any event, the context doesn't change with the phrase.
CT: "When you add the correct phrasing and not the convenient one it sounds quite a bit different."
When you add the correct context and not the conspiracy theorist one
it sounds a bit different than what conspiracy theorists suggest.
Update:
Here is an
e-mail from Chief Daniel Nigro
Regarding WTC 7:
The long-awaited US Government NIST (National Institute of Standards
and Technology) report on the collapse of WTC 7 is due to be
published at the end of this year (although it has been delayed
already a few times [ adding fuel to the conspiracy theorists
fires!]). That report should explain the cause and mechanics of the
collapse in great detail. Early on the afternoon of September 11th
2001, following the collapse of WTC 1 & 2, I feared a collapse of
WTC 7 (as did many on my staff).
The reasons are as follows:
1 - Although prior to that day high-rise structures had never
collapsed, The collapse of WTC 1 & 2 showed that certain high-rise
structures subjected to damage from impact and from fire will
collapse.
2. The collapse of WTC 1 damaged portions of the lower floors of WTC
7.
3. WTC 7, we knew, was built on a small number of large columns
providing an open Atrium on the lower levels.
4. numerous fires on many floors of WTC 7 burned without sufficient
water supply to attack them.
For these reasons I made the decision (without consulting the owner,
the mayor or anyone else - as ranking fire officer, that decision
was my responsibility) to clear a collapse zone surrounding the
building and to stop all activity within that zone. Approximately
three hours after that order was given, WTC 7 collapsed.
Conspiracy theories abound and I believe firmly that all of them are
without merit.
Regards, Dan Nigro
Chief of Department FDNY (retired)
In pure
conspiracy theorist form, the second paragraph on this page
has been taken out of context. Yes, building 7 fires were
unfought but that doesn't mean there wasn't firemen on the
scene, does it? Daniel Nigro said there were RESCUE
OPERATIONS that were ongoing. He also says it was HE and
not
Silverstein
who ordered the
firemen out.
I ordered the evacuation of an area sufficient around to protect our
members, so we had to
give up some rescue operations that were going on
at the time and
back the people away far enough so that if 7 World
Trade did collapse, we [wouldn't] lose any more people. Chief
Nigro
There
is more than enough evidence that there were firemen around Building 7
to "Pull" from the area.
We had to be very
forceful in getting the guys out. They didn’t want to come out.
There were guys going into areas that I wasn’t even really
comfortable with, because of the possibility of secondary collapses.
We didn’t know how stable any of this area was. We pulled
everybody back probably by 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon. We said, this
building is going to come down, get back. It came down about 5
o’clock or so, but we had everybody backed away by then. Chief
Hayden
What
part of this is difficult for the people who purport to be scholars?
While my grammar is admittedly poor, the conspiracy theorists reading
comprehension seems to be worse. Or is it? I think they're hoping
everyone else has poor reading comprehension. For those who are reading
comprehensionally challenged let me clear this up for you.
The
firemen started search and rescue operations for people who may have
been trapped or hurt in Building 7. By 2:00PM they knew the building was
going to collapse and PULLED them away. These are the firemen
saying this. Not me, not Bush, but the firemen.
What
about just listening? Do the conspiracy theorists know how to listen?
Do they
really think the immediate area around the building was vacant with not
a soul for blocks? Of course they don't. They pounce on any and all
quotes which have the slightest possibility of being taken as a
contradiction. This is the theme which
runs throughout the so called truth movement.
Here is
evidence they had rescue operations IN Building 7:
We made searches. We attempted to put some of the
fire out, but we had a pressure problem. I forget the name of the
Deputy. Some Deputy arrived at the scene and thought that the
building was too dangerous to continue with operations, so
we evacuated number 7 World Trade Center.
How many
firefighters are they going to call liars? How many?... These heroic
firefighters
who would risk their lives for these opportunists. The personal attacks
on me are to be expected but the attack on these brave men and women
should not go unnoticed. E-mail the conspiracy theorists and tell them
to stop lying about the firemen's quotes for monetary and/or personal
gain.
One of whom is dead and can't defend himself.
What
Silverstein said means nothing in the light of the firemen's quotes.
It's not unreasonable to conclude Silverstein was under the impression
the firemen were containing the fires when in fact the firemen were
performing a rescue operation. There is the real possibility Silverstein
was told by Nigro that (Paraphrasing) 'there are firemen in the building
and I'm going to have to pull them out.' Silverstein may have just
assumed they were fighting the fires, which isn't unreasonable. Maybe
they were fighting fires in the very beginning but when the "attempt"
failed due to a lack of water pressure, they switched to rescue only? So
for the purposes of the report. there were no firefighting in the
building because they had low water pressure. At least I've provided you
with evidence to support this conclusion.
Is that
the evidence of explosives? Do you want to put Silverstein in jail
because he used the word pull "it" to describe getting the firemen out
of the area? Or because he didn't know the task the firemen were
performing in the building? Is that reasonable? Of course not.
Using
conspiracy theorists logic, since conspiracy theorists have created a
small industry around this event, maybe they blew up the towers?
This is
just the latest attempt to take your mind off their collapsing
conspiracy story...
"Just a few small fires..."
Remember that?
This video shows a
large rip in the south side of building 7 before it collapsed. Evidence
the building was far more damaged than conspiracy theorists suggest.
Note the smoke coming directly from the rip and not building 6 as
conspiracy theorists suggest. At 1:33 Min into the video someone says
(Firefighters and police were the only ones allowed in the area so it is
most likely a firefighter or policeman) "Look at the hole in that
building... 7 world... that might come down". Anyone seeing this and
suggesting no one knew the building was going to come down is lying.
Conspiracy sites like to bring up the 'Symmetric Collapse' of building 7
and claim that the building should have fallen over to the south. They
show grainy, dark photos of debris piles which were taken well after
9/11 and a debris pile with a grayish, smoky image of building 7 in the
background. They deceptively show the north side which was relatively
free of damage. As if the Tower should have reached over to the other
side of the building and damaged that side too.
Here is what the
debris pile looked like just after 9/11
Eerily, the
north face is on the debris pile as if a shroud were laid
gently over the dead building. It fell over after the
majority of the building fell. This indicates that the south
side of the building fell before the north. It's almost as
if the buildings last words were "[This] did it!..".
And now comes
the most important and telling fact in this photo. Note the
west side (Right side in this photo) of the north face is
pointing toward the east side (Left side of this photo)
where the penthouse was. What caused this? It would not be
unreasonable to expect the building to fall toward the path
of least resistance. The path of least resistance in this
case would be the hole in the back of the building and the
hole left by the penthouse. Since the penthouse was on the
east and the 20 story hole in the middle, that would make
the east and middle the path of least resistance. The
conspiracy sites agree with this theory but say it never
happened. They say the fact that it didn't happen helps
prove controlled demolition. But you see it happen here...
What will they say now?
"But the building doesn't look like it fell over, it fell
"in its own foot print" you might say. That's because it is
impossible for a 47 story steel building to fall over like
that. It's not a small steel reinforced concrete building
like the ones shown as *Examples* of buildings which fell
over. Building 7 is more like the towers, made up of many
pieces put together. It's not so much a solid block as those
steel reinforced concrete buildings.
This evidence supports the NIST contention that the building
collapse progressed from the penthouse out as columns were
weakened by the fires. The slow sinking of the penthouses,
indicating the internal collapse of the building behind the
visible north wall, took 8.2 seconds according to a NIST
preliminary report. Seismograph trace of the collapse of WTC
7 indicates that
parts of the building were hitting the ground for 18
seconds.
This means the collapse took at least 18 seconds, of which
only the last approximately 15 seconds are visible in
videos: 8 seconds for the penthouses and 7 seconds for the
north wall to come down.
Not only does this photo show a firemen who would have
been "Pulled" from the area but the fires which may have
weaken the building below the east penthouse.
In the following
image the east penthouse falls...
Now the west
penthouse falls...
One possible collapse hypothesis. The
investigation is still ongoing and this may not be the way the
building collapsed. I show this only to show a global
collapse by fires on lower floors are not the impossibility
conspiracy theorists lead you to believe.
To put it
simply, the building DID fall over backward and to the
south-east. Just not like a steel reinforced concrete
building would. Another telling photo is this one taken
closer to the event date.
Note just past
building 7 is a small amount of debris on the white building
behind it. (Building 7 is pile in the upper center-left of
the photo. The white building is at the top center-left of
the photo.) That building is to the north east corner of
building 7. Note about 1/3rd of the east side of the
building falling to the north in the photo below.
Here is another
photo from over Building 7. The white building is on the
left. Note the debris from building 7 which crossed the
street and landed on top of the white building.
This suggests
the building was split by the penthouse collapses most of
the way down. One section went to the south-east while a
smaller section went to the north. It wasn't that
symmetrical.
Below are
snapshots from a video taken from the northeast of Building
7 just as it collapses. Note that it has just begun to
collapse and it is already tilting to the south.
Half way through
and it's still tilted to the south. Note the west side of
the building has come away from the west face around what
used to be the 43rd floor. Light can be seen through the
east face windows.
Note the angle
to the south has increased and so has the space between the
west face and the rest of the building. The west face later
lays on the Verizon building to the west. While it looks
like it's about to hit the ground, it's still almost as high
as the white building to the right. That makes it about 20
stories.
If the majority
of the building fell to the south-east based on the
resulting debris locations, as conspiracy theorists point
out, it is evidence for a normal collapse by fire. I think
they're right.
The perpetually
perplexed will show you a photo of the Oklahoma City Federal
Building and say "Gee, that didn't fall. If that didn't fall
with more visible damage why should the WTC 7 fall?".
In someone’s need to question authority and seem smarter
than the rest, they may forget an important fact. The OKC
Federal building wasn't constructed the same as WTC7 and did
not have its lower floors on fire for 6 hours. We can see
clear as day that the building was not a tube in a tube
design. We can see its lower floors weren't on fire. We can
see the columns are covered in concrete. All from the same
photo the conspiracy theorists use to show us how incredibly
intelligent they are.
With the lack of
even the smallest amount of hard evidence supporting their
stories, conspiracy theorists have become more desperate to
find anything which could be twisted to support them. Case
in point: The WTC 7 was seen in the background of a BBC
report while the reporter said the building had already
collapsed. The story is that the reporters were given a
"script" to say and these reporters stupidly read the lines
before the building fell. Plain old common sense can
dispatch this conspiracy story.
Why do
they choose to believe the more unlikely conspiracy story
which suggests that at least some reporters of some news
organizations were given a script? Especially when, much
more logically, miscommunication could easily explain the
video.
Why in the WORLD would they need to
give the reporters a head's up??? Why wouldn't they just
blow the building up and let them report the collapse as
they would have normally?
What most likely, logically happened: While investigating
and updating information on the collapse of the towers,
someone at the BBC was given a report/press release that
building 7 was going to collapse. [Edit: we now know they
were monitoring the news from different outlets and that's
where they learned of building 7.] According to the fire
department, by 2:00PM they knew the building would soon
collapse. Reporters KNEW this well before the collapse
because there are videos of reporters talking about it
before it happened. So we KNOW reporters were given
information on WTC 7's imminent demise. We can conclude from
this evidence that the fire department relayed information
to reporters that the building was going to collapse. By the
time the report reached the reporter at the BBC, it may have
simply been miscommunicatedfrom
"About to collapse" to "Has collapsed". She even starts out
by saying "Details are very, very sketchy". That alone
should put this to rest. She didn't say 'Sketchy'. She
didn't say 'very sketchy'. She said "very, very sketchy".
It wouldn't be
the first time reporters got something so completely wrong.
They said it was a small plane at first, remember? They said
Kerry choose Gephardt for VP, remember? They told the family
members of trapped mine workers that their 13 loved ones
were alive, all but one, when it was the other way around.
Those are just a few glaring examples. I could go on...
Reporters rush to be the first one with the news and often
do a poor job of getting the facts straight. History is
littered with examples of this. Even your average knuckle
dragging, cave dwelling Neanderthal knows this. (My
sincerest apologies Geico's Neanderthal man...)
Listen to
Aaron Brown from CNN say the building collapsed or is
collapsing with the building in the background.
I have had on
this site since I started it (just under the 12 things we
know for sure on this very page) the link to a video with
someone from MSNBC saying “What we’ve been fearing all
afternoon has finally happened.”
As the
building collapses. That makes CNN, BBC and MSNBC who knew
the building was going to collapse. I searched for the MSNBC
video because I remembered the media saying the building
would collapse before it did.
Here is that video again...
How many
people knew that building was Building 7 before that day? It
is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect every reporter to
know the names of all the buildings in the World Trade
Center. For all they may have known, building 7 could have
been one of the smaller buildings which were also on fire.
The downright
absurd conspiracy story: The government told many reporters
to report something they would have reported anyway after
the building collapsed.
A little
critical thinking is all that's needed to debunk this
nonsense. Why in the world would they make an already
unbelievably massive conspiracy into one involving reporters
who would LOVE a scoop like that? "Sept. 9, 2001 - EXCLUSIVE
BREAKING NEWS! Government about to murder thousands for oil!
We have the script!" Can you imagine the job offerings after
a scoop like that? Can you say Pulitzer prize? What a hero!
Who would pass that up to help a shadowy government commit
the mass murder of Americans? This would be MUCH bigger than
Watergate! Or maybe this was a planed gaffe to expose this
plot? Are we to believe this gaffe is the only way she could
have told us? A method which could easily be dismissed as
typical poor reporting?
And
here is the kicker...
Did they
really need even MORE people involved?
What was the reason they absolutely
needed to tell the reporters this? Why haven't any of the
other reporters talked? Are most reporters part of a mass
murder scheme? How much can conspiracy theorists swallow?
At best, this
is an attempt to take your minds off the real issue. Why did
the media know the WTC 7 was going to collapse if there were
just a few small fires? This is another part of the
conspiracy story they don't want you to think about.
Do the conspiracy theorist leaders have one shred of REAL
evidence of explosives or anything else which could take
down the buildings? Air samples with trace explosive
chemicals in it? A memo like the Downing Street memo? A
whistleblower who was in on the planning maybe? None of that
involves the so called "whisked away steel". They have
nothing. They're left to scour the internet for the
slightest mistake made by anyone on that horrific, chaotic
day. They're left destroying peoples' lives by suggesting
innocent people are involved in mass murders.
I smell a
deliberate attempt to quiet the media. It is not lost on me
that the
BBC recently
created a story which casts the conspiracy leaders in a bad
light.
What media will want to expose
the misinformation and deception of these conspiracy leaders
if they incur the wrath of a few fringe lunatics?
Apparently, Alex Jones, Fetzer and Co. would like their own
shadowy, loose knit government based on fear. B@@!
Another update:
It seems I
wasn't far off from what the BBC suspects happened. They
even reference the CNN video above.
Here is a first
responder with Building 7 in the background during an
interview. Note the frustration in his voice because he
can't do anything for the building.
First responder:
"You see where the white smoke is? You see this thing
leaning like this? It's definitely coming down. There's no
way to stop it. Cause you have to go up in there to put it
out and it already - the structural integrity is just not
there in the building. It's tough, it's.. it's.. You know we
can handle just about anything, this is beyond...
This new video
explains how the building caught fire and may have weakened
the building well before the initiation of the collapse.
Thanks to ScottS
and David B. Benson for their contributions.
