Am I the only that thinks NYC was criminally negligent prior to 9/11? It has been ten years so I think I can say this now, without seeming to be talking about the police and firemen of the City. On 9/11/01 I watched the events taking place at the Twin Towers. Before the second plane hit, it had crossed my mind that steel frame buildings were not built to take the intense fire that was happening and a total collapse could happen. After the second plane hit, I even mentioned to my wife that the towers would more than likely fall. Then they began talking about dozens of firemen and police entering the building and making their way up into the towers. I a non-genius, not building contractor knew that those building were more than likely going down. I asked my wife, what in the world the dispatchers were thinking to send those men to their deaths. She thought I was nuts, for another hour. In 1993 a bomb was placed in a basement of the The stated intention of the bombers was to "BRING THE TOWER DOWN". 1994 Three planes are crashed or attempted to crash into buildings this year. A Fed Ex employee tries to crash a DC-10 into a company building in Memphis but is overpowered by the crew. A lone pilot crashes a small plane onto the White House grounds. An Air France flight is hijacked by terrorists linked to al Qaeda, with the goal to crash it into the Eiffel Tower, but French Special Forces storm plane before it takes off. January 1995 Philippines disrupts Operation Bojinka to explode 11 or 12 passenger planes over the Pacific Ocean and to crash others into prominent US buildings. Philippines warns US of targets for attack, including CIA headquarters, Pentagon, nuclear power plant, TransAmerica Tower (San Francisco), Sears Tower (Chicago), and World Trade Center. Plotter Abdul Hakim Murad is handed over to FBI in April 1995 and he identifies 10 other men in flight training who were involved. January 1996 US intelligence receives information of a planned suicide attack on the White House by a plane flying from Afghanistan. October 1996 US intelligence learns of an Iranian plot to hijack a Japanese plane over Israel and to crash it into Tel Aviv. Fall 1998 US intelligence learns of a plot to attack New York and Washington DC with airplanes ... learns that plans to attack are preceding well and 2 individuals have successfully evaded checkpoints at a New York airport. September 1999 US intelligence suggests Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al Qaedas Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land aircraft packed with high explosives ... into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House.... Report is made by the National Intelligence Council which advises the President and US intelligence on emerging threats. May 2001 Pentagon practices for crashed 757 into Pentagon. These are a very very few of the events before 9/11/01. They do not even include the accidental flying of a B-25 into the Empire State Building in 1945. Planes into buildings is not anything new. It is old hat. Planes have been hitting buildings since before they really could fly. There are old films of pre Wright Brothers planes flying into the garages and hangers where they were built. There is NO reason that the Federal Govt, State Governments and City Governments did NOT have plans in effect for such possibilities. The emergency responders should have been at least told to set up a perimeter and keep people from entering the building, and for all responders to assist in getting anyone that came out of the building to get far away as fast as possible. Several hundred fire and police officers died for NO REASON. They should have been ordered NOT to enter. I have no doubts that if actions such as I stated above were implemented,that between two and five hundred people could have been saved, that instead died a horrible death. And please do not give me the nonsense that the cops and fire personnel would have gone in anyway. That mess only happens on TV and the Movies. First responders are highly trained individuals and follow orders. NOTHING was gained by them entering the building and dying. That should have been recognized. Whoever was ultimately responsible for the various scenarios that set the guidelines for what First Responders do, was guilty of criminal negligence for allowing those brave people to foolishly enter those buildings.
There were thousands of people in those buildings and some probably needed medical attention. I thought the job of first responders was to get the medical care where it's needed? What if the buildings hadn't fallen but people had died as a result of NYFD and PD sitting back in a cordon? They'd be sued for sure.
You may have a point, but..those people were not saved. Any decent examination of what might happen if a large plane full of fuel and maybe even bombs, would have given the possibility of the building falling. Geez, That was the hope of the terrorists, they did not know they would succeed, but they did know that was a possibility. If some nut group can know that, why did out govt not plan for it. By the way, our first responders in civilian situations are NOT sent into KNOWN death traps. They are called back from buildings could be about to fall. I have been at fires when the chief on site called the men out of buildings because it MIGHT fall. What I still want to know is why did no one know the buildings were likely to fall and make plans to cover that fact and save as many people as possible, instead of allowing 400 more to enter the building and die for no reason. First responders are brave, strong and they do a Job I could never do, but they are NOT supposed to THROW their life away because of some stupid Govt failure.
Isn't civilly liable enough? The families of this event received on the order of one million dollars per family and free medical care for life. When does it end? Is your idea to imprison the building engineer because base jumper parachutes weren't available near every window? Imprison the mayor of NYC for not having a structural engineer manned in every building over 500 feet in NYC to warn first responders stay out after an incident?
I said nothing about any particular person, including a building engineer, I said WHOEVER was responsible. It was certainly NOT a building Engineer. Who ever was responsible was the person who decided that NO plan needed to be in place for an event such as the one that happened, THAT is the person I feel is criminally responsible for hundreds of unnecessary deaths.
I am glad I was not the only one that could see the obvious. I have at times thought that maybe my believing those buildings would fall was a completely nutty idea. It was based on what I believed valid facts, but... sometimes we get nutty ideas, and it may not really have been obvious. The fact that ONE other person could see it validates me somewhat.
LMAO Prior to 9/11 the Twin Towers were America's Pyramid. To think they would collapse would be as unthinkable as the great pyramid of Giza suddenly disappearing in a cloud of dust and noise. It was simply unimaginable to most people at the time.
Civil engineers do NOT decide on emergency responses by the police and fire. Those decisions are made by politicians. The federal govt KNEW that it was possible to fly a plane into a building, WHY did they never research the possibilities and pass their recommendations on to local governments? I am saying that WHOEVER decided that no one needed to make preparation for something that was an OBVIOUS possibility, is responsibility. There should have been plans in place for this event and similar one, as I am quite sure there are today. The same plans in place today could have saved hundreds of lives of REAL HEROES. Why were those plans not in place. Planes have been flying into skyscrapers for at least 66 years, ever since the b-25 flew into the Empire State Building in 1945. WHY did so many HEROES die for NO reason?
Once again, I am not addressing what "EVERYONE KNEW". My point is what terror experts knew, as evidenced by the facts given in my original post. WHY, when it was KNOWN that planes could be hijacked and flown into the towers was no plan in place for that possibility? WHY?
I was sitting at my desk screaming Get out Get out.. I never liked the buildings.. The Ports Authority increased the height of the project to get more bang for their buck and it took forever to rent up the space. They compromised an already fragile, lightweight design. Further, I was familiar with the architect and his other works.. (Couldn't understand why the Dhahran airport had developed structural cracks after 20 years)
In my case, I had no familiarity with the Towers at all. Never been there, had no interest in them. I did pay attention to the basement attack there several years before 9/11. However, I am familiar with the basic structure of most modern 'skyscrapers'. The steel frame is it, everything else is eye candy. The steel frames are designed using basic geometric construction design to support far more weight than simple steel columns. But, when any part of that geometric pattern is broken, the strength diminishes, GREATLY. With the planes hitting the building and the INTENSE Fires that were obviously burning, there was NO doubt that the integrity of the structure was being damaged. Damage to any one floor is going to affect all the floors above it, with the very likely possibility of collapse. When the upper floors collapse and fall to a lower one, the stress and weight load is going to FAR exceed an design and safety, more than likely causing repeated collapse of each lower floor, which is EXACTLY what happened. It was OBVIOUS, it was LOGICAL and it was EASILY seen, to anyone with the most basic knowledge of steel frame building structure, or even of bridge structure, or even of geometry. Because someone intentionally did NOT address these issues and prepare a plan to be shared with first responders, HUNDREDS of lives for lost for NO REASON. To me this is criminal. It has nothing to do with terrorists. Similar results could have occurred from many other events. Even age or poor construction methods could cause the exact or similar results. WHY are these possibilities not addressed? In fact, are they even addressed today, ten years after 9/11? Suppose the 80th floor on the Empire state building collapsed, suddenly for some structural reason. Would the dispatchers send first responders into the building? Or do they have plans repaired so that people in the building would KNOW, just like they know to stay out of elevators in the event of fire, to exit the building as quickly as possible? Would the police and fire be preventing people from entering the building and making arrangements to move people from the vicinity as quickly as possible? Or would people be allowed to enter the building and die once again, when the building collapsed?
