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Twin Towers' Collapse Shows Bombs Say Engineers

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Tuesday, 11 September 2001 19:50 (ET)

Towers' collapse shocks engineers

DETROIT, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- A lead engineer who worked on New York's World

Trade Center Towers expressed shock Tuesday that the 110-story landmarks in

Lower Manhattan collapsed after each tower was struck by a hijacked

passenger jetliner.

 

Constructed and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey,

the 3.8 million square foot World Trade Center was built as a seven-building

complex on 16 acres. The towers destroyed -- One and Two World Trade Center

-- rose over 100 feet higher than the Empire State Building from the center

of the complex.

 

Built without masonry, the towers were the first of such buildings to face

problems from intense air pressure caused by high-speed elevators. To

circumvent problems, a drywall system was attached to the reinforced steel

core.

 

One of the towers had survived a 1993 attack by terrorists in an

explosives-filled van that killed six people and injured more than 1,000

others.

 

Lee Robertson, the project's structural engineer, addressed the problem of

terrorism on high-rises at a conference in Frankfurt, Germany, last week,

Chicago engineer Joseph Burns told the Chicago Tribune.

 

Burns said Robertson told the conference, "I designed it for a (Boeing)

707 to hit it."

 

"Fire melts steel," Burns told the Tribune, speculating that the impact

from the planes had damaged sprinkler systems in both towers.

 

"You never know in an explosion like that whether they get cut off," Burns

said.

 

The World Trade Center was designed by architect Minour Yamasaki of the

Rochester Hills, Mich., firm, Minoru Yamasaki and Associates, was known for

its sweeping use of glass.

 

Because of the buildings' heights, engineers used tubular construction of

tightly spaced steel columns. The floor trusses were built across to this

central core.

 

Yamasaki, who died in 1986, also designed the McGregor Memorial Conference

Center at Wayne State University, the Reynolds Aluminum building in

Southfield, Mich., and the 30-story Consolidated Gas Co. Building in

downtown Detroit.

 

Militants who carried out the 1993 attack on the symbol of America's

financial prowess said they had wanted to bring the New York tower to the

ground.

 

Near Washington, part of the 6.5 million-square-foot Pentagon collapsed

after the nerve center of U.S. military forces was hit by a plane, causing a

huge fire.

 

High rises, office buildings, courts, city halls, museums, sports stadiums

and other public buildings were closed coast-to-coast as a precaution. The

Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., the largest shopping mall in the

United States, was evacuated after the morning attacks.

 

"While we have not received any threats we believe this is a prudent

precaution," said Maureen Bausch, vice president of marketing and business

development.

 

The Fitzgerald Theater in Minneapolis canceled a Talking Volumes Book Club

event featuring author Salmon Rushdie. Rushdie, who was marked for death by

Islamic fundamentalists several years ago, was unable to travel because of

the nationwide ground stop that halted commercial air traffic ordered by the

Federal Aviation Administration.

 

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=219592