OK, how would you phrase it?
In the FAQs, instead of answering the question as to why they didn't discuss
the molten steel in their reports, they said that jet fuel could not have
melted it and it was thus of no interest.
Kind of like the circular reasoning used to justify the failure to investigate
the insider traders--the notion that a lack of connection to al Qaeda meant they
could not be inside trades.
Dr. Astaneh-Asl said he saw melted girders at the WTC.
Here's a set of quotes on molten steel:
http://governmentterror.com/#%5B%5BWorld%20Trade%20Center%20Hot%20Spots%5D%5DPeter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing, N.Y., told AFP that he saw pools of “literally molten steel” at the World Trade Center.
Joe Allbaugh, the Director of FEMA, was interviewed by Bryant Gumbel of CBS news on October 10 2001:
GUMBEL: We’re seeing a lot of video of smoke pouring up from the debris.
ALLBAUGH: Correct.
GUMBEL: And we’re hearing there are places where temperatures are still approaching and sometimes exceeding a thousand degrees.
ALLBAUGH: That’s right.
GUMBEL: Why? Why do we have these hot spots? What’s going on?
ALLBAUGH: Well, you have normal debris, you know, computers, paper, you have some areas that are hot pockets because of fuel. It’s just too hot for rescuers to get into those areas. So we do not know yet what’s in those areas, other than very hot, molten material. (source_FEMA.gov)
Source publication date: CBS Early Show 10/04/01
Interviewer: Bryant Gumbel
Witness: Joe Allbaugh
MMdate: up to 10/04/01
Leslie Robertson, the structural engineer responsible for World Trade Centers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and all subgrade levels, stated "As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running." (source_SEAU.org)
Source publication date: SEAU News Volume VI Issue II 10/2001
Interviewer: James M.Williams October 5, 2001 National Council of Structural Engineers Associations 9th Annual Conference.
Witness: Leslie Robertson
MMdate: up to 10/02/01
"I saw melting of girders in World Trade Center." said the first structural engineer given access to the WTC steel. (source) (audio)
"I talked to many contractors and they said they actually saw molten metal trapped, beams had just totally had been melted because of the heat." said Chaplain Herb Trimpe (source) (audio)
A NY firefighter described steel flowing at ground zero. "You'd get down below and you'd see molten steel — molten steel! — running down the channel rails. Like you're in a foundry... like lava... from a volcano. (source) (source) (hi-res_source)
A reporter with rare access to the debris at ground zero "descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams." (source) (cached_copy)
Source publication date: July/August 2002 Atlantic Monthly
The owner of Controlled Demolition Inc., Mark Loizeaux stated the molten steel was found “three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed,”. He said molten steel was also found at 7 WTC, which collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon. (source)
Fires burned and molten steel flowed in the pile of ruins still settling beneath her feet. -Sarah Atlas of New Jersey’s Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue (source_upenn.edu)
"Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense," reports Alison Geyh, PhD. "In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel." (source_jhsph.edu)
A veteran of disasters from the Mississippi floods Mt. St. Helens, Burger said it reminded him most of the volcano, if he forgot he was in downtown Manhattan. “Feeling the heat, seeing the molten steel, the layers upon layers of ash, like lava, it reminded me of Mt. St. Helen’s and the thousands who fled that disaster,” he said. Additionally he stated "Shards of steel lay upon shards of steel, shifting and unstable, uncovering red hot metal beams excavated from deep beneath layers of sub-floors, exposing further dark crevasses." (source_neha.org)
"They showed us many fascinating slides" he continued, "ranging from molten metal which was still red hot weeks after the event, to 4-inch thick steel plates sheared and bent in the disaster." -Dr Keith Eaton (source_istructe.org.uk)
A NY Department of Sanitation spokeswoman said "for about two and a half months after the attacks, in addition to its regular duties, NYDS played a major role in debris removal - everything from molten steel beams to human remains...." (source)
He remembers seeing in the darkness a distant, pinkish glow–molten metal dripping from a beam–but found no signs of life. -Lee Turner of The Boone County Firefighters (source)
“In the first few weeks, sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel,” Fuchek said. (source)
As late as five months after the attacks, in February 2002, firefighter Joe O'Toole saw a steel beam being lifted from deep underground at Ground Zero, which, he says, "was dripping from the molten steel." (source)
...numerous fires were still burning and smoldering. Underground it was still so hot that molten metal dripped down the sides of the wall from Building 6. (source_9-11commission.gov) (2) (3)
Richard Garlock, a structural engineer for LERA said "Going below, it was smoky and really hot... The debris past the columns was red-hot, molten, running." (source)
Vance Deisingnore, OSHA Officer at WTC, reported the following to Jim McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer, on September 11, 2002 "a fire truck 10 feet below the ground that was still burning two weeks after the Tower collapsed, its metal so hot that it looked like a vat of molten steel." (source)
Father Edward A. Malloy, on site 40 days after the disaster stated "Firefighters atop a number of ladder trucks were spraying in the areas of greatest smoke. The average temperature beneath the rubble is said to be 1500F so that when steel is brought up it is molten and takes two or three days to cool down." (source_nd.edu)
Guy Lounsbury with the 109th Air Wing of the New York Air National Guard wrote "The men who work on this must constantly change their boots as the heat melts them. Two weeks after the attack, one fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers’ remains." (source)
A group of veteran ironworkers eating lunch while staring at the steel skeleton of a new building going up on West Third Street when one commented on "how much easier it was to eat a sandwich in front of steel that was strong and straight and new, not molten and mangled and laden with debris." (source)
Fire Department Chief Mike Donoho of Texas Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue described the scope of the destruction, "Everything had its own look. In the area surrounding what was the two twin towers, there were several buildings still standing that were burned from top to bottom, and some of them were damaged by the collapse. But the two towers — they were 110-story buildings. And there was nothing that you could put your hands on that resembled anything that would tell you this once was two 110-story office buildings. What you had were large columns of steel that were just stuck into massive amounts of molten steel and other metals, that had just fused together from the heat and bonded together from the strength of the collapse. We dug and we dug and we dug, and we cut and we cut and we cut, and we did not see anything that resembled any type of furniture, any type of personal belongings. We found some pieces of things like a telephone, things like that. I think we found credit cards a few times, and we found a couple of stuffed animals. But you would expect to see, like, a bunch of desks, a bunch of chairs. The only way I can explain it is, if you take a car and put it in one of those machines where they crush it and make it look like a cube, and you can’t recognize what it is, that’s what the whole area looked like. It looked like a massive, molten mess that had been fused together, like a car that had been cubed and crushed. With all that heavy, heavy stuff, there were wires, rebar, concrete. Most of it was just steel. A lot of what we were walking on was just molten steel. (source)
Some beams pulled from the wreckage are still red hot more than 7 weeks after the attack, and it is suspected that temperatures beneath the debris pile are well in excess of 1,000°F. (source)
New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said "They were standing on top of a cauldron. They were standing on top of fires 2,000 degrees that raged for a hundred days." (source)
Another danger involved the high temperature of twisted steel pulled from the rubble. Underground fires burned at temperatures up to 2,000 degrees. As the huge cranes pulled steel beams from the pile, safety experts worried about the effects of the extreme heat on the crane rigging and the hazards of contact with the hot steel. And they were concerned that applying water to cool the steel could cause a steam explosion that would propel nearby objects with deadly force. Special expertise was needed. OSHA called in structural engineers from its national office to assess the situation. They recommended a special handling procedure, including the use of specialized rigging and instruments to reduce the hazards. (source_OSHA.gov)
The temperature at the core of "the pile," is near 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to fire officials (source)
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