Then, on Sept. 11, they were faced with something no one could imagine.
That morning, Merco/Obayashi had approximately 1,000 pounds of explosives loaded and scheduled to be shot in the afternoon.
Then the unthinkable happened in nearby Manhattan.
“We actually saw the planes hit the World Trade Center,” recalled Mike Mergentime, vice president, Merco Inc.
“Then we saw the towers collapse.” The impact of the tragedy was immediate.
“We already had security in place,” Mergentime said, “but, after the attack, we got armed U.S. marshals guarding the job site.” Authorities would not permit anyone to keep explosives on the site overnight, so the charges were exploded at 3:30 p.m. the afternoon of Sept. 11.
Understandably, nearby residents were shaken by the blasting, and the New Jersey State Police immediately were on the scene fearing it might be another terrorist attack.
http://www.concretepumpers.com/MagArticle.asp?ArticleID=237I am not sure how it is that these sharp-eyed guys
ACTUALLY SAW THE PLANES HIT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER.
Both of the planes!!
And they were working inside a tunnel.
So far,
Merco/Obayashi is the only entity
I have located within that general location
that HAD and DETONATED hundreds of pounds of explosives on September 11.
As for the presence of explosives WITHIN the WTC,
there is one other thing that has been troubling me.
A dog that did not bark, so to speak.
Check this out.
At 3:00 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 14, Wiprud was putting the finishing touches on a utility map for his employer, Weidlinger Associates, a structural engineering firm with an office just 25 blocks from the WTC. Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers, who were evaluating and securing the at-risk slurry wall under the WTC rubble, had called earlier that day, looking for utility maps. They needed to know if utility lines were penetrating and possibly allowing water to leak into the site's underground "Bathtub."
Of particular concern was the integrity and importance of the tub's 60-ft-deep, 3-ft-thick walls. The WTC, itself, had been the only thing bracing the Bathtub, so now its pile of remains was all that kept the huge walls from collapsing inward, notes Charlie Thornton, a principal at local structural engineer Thornton-Tomasetti. Such knowledge made initial debris removal even more treacherous.
Mapping for safety
Reliable underground maps, therefore, could save lives. And a host of other dangers lurked beneath the streets, as well. For instance, currents in electrical cables can generate a 360-kilovolt shock and, if cut, can shoot out a deadly stream of pressurized coolant. Steam pipes can scald at 450 degrees.
Early on, Wiprud recalls, rescuers wanted utility maps to find tunnels into the WTC foundation to look for survivors. So he consulted telephone conduit maps of the area, and maps that had been created by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) in the 1930s.
<snip>
On TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, AMEC Construction, New York City, one of the five main contractors leading debris removal and recovery, hired Weidlinger to map all the utilities under the site. AMEC was concerned about damaging utility lines while installing the slurry wall's many necessary "tie-backs"—a stabilizing process that will take many months to complete.
As devastating as the impact of the WTC collapse was above Ground Zero, THE IMPACT BELOW THE SURFACE WAS JUST AS EXTREME. THE FALLING TOWERS CRUSHED WATER MAINS, PUNCTURED GAS LINES AND SEVERED PHONE LINES. "WE EVEN CAME ACROSS A 12-in BOX BEAM THAT HAD PENETRATED 30 ft OF SOIL TO PIERCE A SEWER LINE," notes Mark Northrup, a general superintendent with National Water Main Cleaning, which is checking the integrity of sewers with robotic cameras.
(This means that the utilities were all out and several of the lines were crushed or severed.
Fair enough.
The collapse of the WTC registered a earthquake of about 2.4 on the Richter scale. We would expect some lines to be seriously damaged.)
Still, even with all Wiprud's accumulated detail, he had to corroborate his findings. "You can see a manhole in one place on one map, in another place on another map," he says. "If I can't see it myself, I'm relying on records... (also) the curb lines have changed and things are measured from points that no longer exist. Anything (before) the WTC is suspect." Whatever he found went to Mueser Rutledge.
By SEPTEMBER 25, Ground Zero had been cleared enough for Wiprud to peer under fire trucks and sift through debris and visually confirm information by inspecting manhole covers and other street hardware. Still, huge piles hid many of the markers. Even so, while on site, he found the fire chief in charge and gave him the preliminary slurry wall map.
Dusting for details
That same day, (SEPTEMBER 25) Wiprud also got into the DEP's Bureau of Waste Water Management at 40 Worth St. "They have critical records of every change in sewers, water mains and connections from when anyone did work in the ground," he explains.
The bureau office also was still without power and telephones. Searching by flashlight, he found a stack of drawings of the sewer lines under the WTC that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had been unable to locate. Detailed water main cards, "tap" cards and notes told where the services come off the main line and penetrate the slurry wall.
http://designbuild.construction.com/dec2001/integrated1201.aspOK, so it took a while to figure out the exact locations of the utility lines. That is understandable.
But then consider this:
Despite the huge loss of life and the massive damage caused by the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, the utility systems beneath the buildings "held up remarkably well," a Cornell engineer with wide experience in investigating disasters reports.
Indeed, said Thomas O'Rourke, damage to the gas, steam, electrical, potable water and waste water systems was largely confined to the immediate vicinity of ground zero where the towers collapsed.
In particular, said O'Rourke, the Thomas R. Briggs Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell, New York City's electrical network was able to operate in an "extraordinarily resilient" way after the disaster, despite the loss of two electrical substations near the World Trade Center. "In many other cities, the way the electrical systems are configured would have resulted in a cascade effect, as one substation shut down the next. But in New York City there is a system of local networks allowing one network to operate independently of another," he said. "The rapid restoration of electric power after the event owes much to the commitment and skill of utility crews."
<snip>
The researchers report that the damage to the gas, water and electrical systems was confined largely to two-to-three blocks around the collapse. In the case of the water pipe ruptures, the damage was confined to about two blocks from ground zero. Damage to the gas lines, said O'Rourke, "was remarkably well confined and they were able to shut off and isolate the gas system in a relatively short period without incurring collateral fire damage."
Lembo noted that telecommunications were strongly affected, with widespread loss of service immediately after the event. That is because part of the World Trade Center collapsed on the Verizon building, damaging cabling, switching and related equipment.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicles/12.13.01/O'Rourke-WTC.htmlI think it is rather strange that
ONLY the WTC and the immediate area
suffered gas and electrical outages.
I am not even sure I heard anything about water shortages. Lord knows the firefighters had plenty of water to pour on the rubble.
If you were going to demolish the WTC complex
and did not want to do more damage than was necessary,
would you not also close off the utilities feeding that area?
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
