Fires In Wtc7 Before WTC1N Collapse, and why was the OEM evacuated? Options

[KP50]

Been trawling for eye-wtiness accounts on and off for a while, specifically anything connected with WTC7 before the collapse of the South Tower. As usual, apologies if this has already been covered. This link

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/sept11/features/5270/

indicates that the OEM was evacuated not for the reason given in the Commission Report - which was fear of a 3rd hijacked plane. The OEM director believed the evacuation was because of

As Sheirer helped move the Fire Department command post, he saw a cloud of smoke and debris engulf his own command center, on the twenty-third floor of 7 World Trade Center. His staff was inside sending alerts to representatives of nearly 100 organizations -- everyone from Con Edison to the Department of Health. One of his deputies radioed him to report that the OEM would have to evacuate.

and you think he would know.

Next the well known Barry Jennings quote

After the initial blast, Housing Authority worker Barry Jennings, 46, reported to a command center on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center. He was with Michael Hess, the city's corporation counsel, when they felt and heard another explosion. First calling for help, they scrambled downstairs to the lobby, or what was left of it. "I looked around, the lobby was gone. It looked like hell," Jennings said.

http://www.record-eagle.com/2001/sep/11scene.htm

but I have been unable to find any timestamp for this.

Finally

An employee of Solomon Smith Barney who worked in WTC 7 says,
I actually worked at WTC7 and was there on 9-11. From the minute the first plane hit the towers, WTC7 was getting hit with debris. In fact, when I finally got down to the lobby 45 minutes later, we were all forced to leave through the back since so much debris had hit the building and blocked the entrance.

I took this from http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2007/...-challenge.html but have seen it elsewhere on OCT sites.

Has anybody else seen anything whether from witnesses or photos that can get to the bottom of this? Also anything to rule out that damage was caused by debris from the impact on the South Tower.

[Beached]

I can't believe there are people dumb enough to still push the "fire and brimstone" theory to explain away what is clearly a controlled demolition. Perhaps they would care to demonstrate this specious hypothesis, not merely in theory, but rather by way of physical experimentation.

This post has been edited by Beached: May 24 2007, 02:14 PM

[amazed!]

How much debris could have fallen on it? And how could debris damage and fire have caused such a beautifully symmetrical collapse? Interesting that none of the other buildings in the area had such a collapse, and some folks say that other buildings sustained more damage than 7.

Inside job, all the way.

[michaelr]

[Moved from Research by d]

I am looking for more conformation to the time at witch the fire in WTC7 started. Any help with this will be greatly appreciated.

I have Barry Jennings, and The history channel stating they started before the tower collapse.

This post has been edited by dMole: Jul 15 2008, 08:23 AM

[dMz]

Hunt the fires and catastrophic WTC7 structural damage:

http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/id2863395483.html

http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/id2863444748.html

http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/id2863449684.html

ETA:
http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/id2873770923.html

http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/id2873766457.html

http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/id2873768908.html

http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/id2873769993.html

Leads to:
http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/id2873776548.html

about 7 hours later. (IMG:http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

This post has been edited by dMole: May 27 2008, 12:05 PM

[Ricochet]

This is an exerpt from Columbia University study. The claim is debris from the second impact hit WTC 7 forcing them out.

On this day, Sheirer’s priority was securing lower Manhattan. To this end,
he ordered the police department to close all roads below Canal Street, as well
as all tunnels and bridges. He also activated the city’s Emergency Operations
Center (EOC), a $13 million, 50,000 square foot “Watch Command” located on
the 23rd
floor of 7 World Trade Center (Bowles 2001 ). Housing numerous
telecommunications and security systems, the Emergency Operations Center
was expected to serve as the core logistics center for as many as 68 city
agencies immediately following the attacks (ArcNews Online 2002). From here,
Sheirer, Mayor Giuliani and personnel from organizations including the New York
Police Department (NYPD) and Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) could collect and redistribute orders and updates to law enforcement and
residents alike.
When the second plane hit, debris flew into 7 World Trade Center, forcing
Sheirer to evacuate the Emergency Operations Center and set up a command
center in the lobby of the North Tower (Campo-Flores 2001). Sheirer then
ordered the Coast Guard to seal New York harbor, and asked the Pentagon to
close the city’s airspace (Griscom 2001). Concerned about additional attacks,
Sheirer spoke with NYPD brass, which agreed that NYPD helicopter pilots should
be prepared to crash their choppers into any other planes attempting to attack
the city (Forty Eight Hours 2002).
3

Page 5
Shutting down lower Manhattan facilitated quicker movement of
emergency workers and supplies to the “hot zone” (Archibold 2001). Police
Commissioner Bernard Kerik, (NYC.Gov 2002), spearheaded this latter effort.
Kerik met Giuliani and several top fire department officials near the base of the
Twin Towers just as the second plane hit at 9:03 a.m. (Marzulli 2001). Unable to
contact the Emergency Operations Center, the staff moved to a makeshift
command post at 75 Barclay Street to avoid the falling debris. Here, Giuliani,
Kerik and top aides received briefings about the unfolding situation and from that
location managed initial safety actions and communications. During this time,
Giuliani conferred with Sheirer, who directed the closure of all non-emergency
activity and entrants below 14th Street

[dMz]

Have you got a link to the source for the Columbia Univ. report Rico?

My search found the following in NISTNCSTAR1-81.pdf
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-81.pdf

[Numbered Page 109- but 163/294 in PDF]
-----
When the first aircraft struck WTC 1, the electrical power went out for several seconds inside WTC 7.368
Many people immediately began leaving the building, and the OEM operations center began receiving
calls related to the emergency.369 As the second aircraft struck WTC 2, a decision was made to evacuate
WTC 7.370 By the time WTC 2 was struck by the second aircraft at 9:03 a.m., many WTC 7 occupants
had already left the building and others had begun a self-evacuation of the building. Shortly after WTC 2
was struck, a firefighter entered WTC 7 from the Washington and Vesey Streets side, connected a hose
line onto the “A” stairwell sprinkler riser and started the Engines pumps.371 At approximately 9:30 a.m.,
FDNY, EMS established a Division for assisting victims at WTC 7.372 An EMS triage center was
established in the lobby of WTC 7 as occupants from WTC 1 and WTC 6 evacuated through WTC 7.373
At approximately 9:44 a.m., after the report of a third aircraft heading into the city and news that the
Pentagon had been attacked, a Deputy OEM Commissioner ordered the complete evacuation of WTC 7.
(Sheirer 2004) This order included the evacuation of the OEM operations center on the 23rd floor. The loss of the OEM operations center created difficulties related to the coordination of emergency responder operations and resources.374 Before the OEM operations center was evacuated, OEM had assigned personnel to work with each of the emergency responder command posts. This reduced the impact of the loss of the WTC 7 OEM office. (See Chapter 8.) Occupants evacuating from WTC 7 used both the elevators and stairways as they left the building.375 Shortly after WTC 7 was evacuated, the FDNY Fire
Commissioner arrived, looking for the Mayor who he believed to be at the OEM center on the 23rd floor.
A guard met the Commissioner in the lobby and ordered him and his staff out of the building. The guard
told him, “This building has been evacuated.” and that “OEM, the mayor, they’re all gone.”
(Von Essen 2002)
At 9:59 a.m., WTC 2 collapsed, and debris from the collapse struck the south face of WTC 7.³⁷⁶ At 10:28 a.m., WTC 1 collapsed and a significant amount of damage was done to WTC 7.³⁷⁷ A large amount of debris crashed through the front center of the building from approximately the 10th floor down to ground level, and debris ripped a part of the southwest corner off from approximately the 8th floor up to the 18th floor.³⁷⁸ The collapse of WTC 1 also appears to be responsible for starting fires inside of WTC 7.³⁷⁹ With the collapse of the two towers, a New York City employee and a WTC 7 building staff person became trapped inside of WTC 7.380 The two had gone to the OEM center on the 23rd floor and
------
367 FDNY Interview 54, winter 2004.
368 FDNY Interview 54, winter 2004.
369 FDNY Interview 54, winter 2004.
370 WTC 7 Interview 1110402, fall 2002.
371 WTC 7 Interview 2110402, fall 2002.
372 McKinsey & Company, Increasing FDNY’s Preparedness, New York, August 2002.
373 FDNY Interview 45, winter 2004.
374 FDNY Interview 45, winter 2004.
375 WTC7 Interviews 1110402 and 2110402, fall 2002.
376 FDNY Interview 45, winter 2004.
377 PAPD Interview 1, fall 2003.
378 FDNY Interview 3, winter 2004.
379 FDNY Interview 19, winter 2004.
380 WTC 7 Interviews 2041604 and 1041704, spring 2004.
-----
[see the next 2 pages as well]

This post has been edited by dMole: May 27 2008, 04:06 PM

[Ricochet]

Have you got a link to the source for the Columbia Univ. report Rico?

http://www.columbia.edu/~sc32/CATASTROPHE%...C%20SERVICE.pdf

[dMz]

Thanks Rico,

This part was telling IMHO: "One purpose of the paper is to present a positive story of public service and the centrality and importance of government leadership in emergency response. The role of private citizens, private firms and volunteers will be discussed. The paper also recounts the fiscal impact of the event on New York City government, and the impact of this catastrophe on resource allocation for government emergency response. Finally, we analyze the lessons learned in the response action and conclude with steps to be repeated and avoided in future emergency response actions."

Anyone care to guess what one or two purposes of the Columbia paper and NISTNCSTAR1-8 were not?

[maturin42]

Have you got a link to the source for the Columbia Univ. report Rico?

My search found the following in NISTNCSTAR1-81.pdf
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-81.pdf

[Numbered Page 109- but 163/294 in PDF]
-----
When the first aircraft struck WTC 1, the electrical power went out for several seconds inside WTC 7.368
Many people immediately began leaving the building, and the OEM operations center began receiving
calls related to the emergency.369 As the second aircraft struck WTC 2, a decision was made to evacuate
WTC 7.370 By the time WTC 2 was struck by the second aircraft at 9:03 a.m., many WTC 7 occupants
had already left the building and others had begun a self-evacuation of the building. Shortly after WTC 2
was struck, a firefighter entered WTC 7 from the Washington and Vesey Streets side, connected a hose
line onto the “A” stairwell sprinkler riser and started the Engines pumps.371 At approximately 9:30 a.m.,
FDNY, EMS established a Division for assisting victims at WTC 7.372 An EMS triage center was
established in the lobby of WTC 7 as occupants from WTC 1 and WTC 6 evacuated through WTC 7.373
At approximately 9:44 a.m., after the report of a third aircraft heading into the city and news that the
Pentagon had been attacked, a Deputy OEM Commissioner ordered the complete evacuation of WTC 7.
(Sheirer 2004) This order included the evacuation of the OEM operations center on the 23rd floor. The
loss of the OEM operations center created difficulties related to the coordination of emergency responder
operations and resources.374 Before the OEM operations center was evacuated, OEM had assigned
personnel to work with each of the emergency responder command posts. This reduced the impact of the
loss of the WTC 7 OEM office. (See Chapter 8.) Occupants evacuating from WTC 7 used both the
elevators and stairways as they left the building.375 Shortly after WTC 7 was evacuated, the FDNY Fire
Commissioner arrived, looking for the Mayor who he believed to be at the OEM center on the 23rd floor.
A guard met the Commissioner in the lobby and ordered him and his staff out of the building. The guard
told him, “This building has been evacuated.” and that “OEM, the mayor, they’re all gone.”
(Von Essen 2002)
At 9:59 a.m., WTC 2 collapsed, and debris from the collapse struck the south face of WTC 7.³⁷⁶ At
10:28 a.m., WTC 1 collapsed and a significant amount of damage was done to WTC 7.³⁷⁷ A large amount
of debris crashed through the front center of the building from approximately the 10th floor down to
ground level, and debris ripped a part of the southwest corner off from approximately the 8th floor up to
the 18th floor.³⁷⁸ The collapse of WTC 1 also appears to be responsible for starting fires inside of
WTC 7.³⁷⁹ With the collapse of the two towers, a New York City employee and a WTC 7 building staff
person became trapped inside of WTC 7.380 The two had gone to the OEM center on the 23rd floor and
------
367 FDNY Interview 54, winter 2004.
368 FDNY Interview 54, winter 2004.
369 FDNY Interview 54, winter 2004.
370 WTC 7 Interview 1110402, fall 2002.
371 WTC 7 Interview 2110402, fall 2002.
372 McKinsey & Company, Increasing FDNY’s Preparedness, New York, August 2002.
373 FDNY Interview 45, winter 2004.
374 FDNY Interview 45, winter 2004.
375 WTC7 Interviews 1110402 and 2110402, fall 2002.
376 FDNY Interview 45, winter 2004.
377 PAPD Interview 1, fall 2003.
378 FDNY Interview 3, winter 2004.
379 FDNY Interview 19, winter 2004.
380 WTC 7 Interviews 2041604 and 1041704, spring 2004.
-----
[see the next 2 pages as well]

According to the statements of Hess and Jennings, as reported in DRG's 9/11 Contradictions, the explosion that trapped them in Bldg 7 took place while both of the towers were still standing. It makes it a bit of a stretch then to say that they were trapped by events that took place much later. The jiggering of the timelines is the principle means by which the Commission magically transformed the facts into support for an innocuous timeline that muddies the water about Bldg 7 and gets NORAD, Cheney, et al. off the hook, despite the huge disparity between witness accounts and what they want us to believe. The pattern is repeated in accounts of Cheney's movements and actions that are in stark contrast with Mineta's testimony and events as they unfolded.

[KP50]

Bookmark this page

http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/index.shtm

as it has some great shots of the towers and also a view of the business side of WTC7. From

http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-16.jpg

onwards, you can see shots of WTC7 with what appears to be very bright lights coming from certain floors which seems to indicate which parts were on fire. They roughly match the floor that Jennings claimed to be on when there was an explosion. If you can't locate WTC7, it is to the left of the North Tower.

As a side issue there are also indications of explosions/smoke at various points on the towers themselves.

[dMz]

Thanks KP50- those are some great photos,

If those bright lights near WTC7 are actually fires, I certainly wouldn't call them an "inferno"- looks more like 3-5 rooms ablaze (in 2 separate locations) IMHO.

Isn't the (post WTC1N collapse) "damaged" SW corner of WTC7 visible in the following:

http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-110.jpg

Now that doesn't seem to agree with the NIST and other claims above, does it?

Also, this is a great collection of high-res photos KP- it should probably be posted in the main "World Trade Center" section here for WTC1 and WTC2 research, too- would you like to post it there?

I'd probably include a warning about slow load times due to the many high-res ~16-20MB photos (it bogs down my high-speed US internet connection, and I've heard those are better than most). It looked like the WTC2 South collapse started around photo "wtc-38.jpg," and the photos are in chronological sequence.

---------
EDIT: Adding chronological links for reference [these are some extremely high-resolution photos and will take a long time to load]

~5 minutes after WTC2 South fireball event:
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-9.jpg

Bright "lights" or fire in WTC7?
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-12.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-16.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-20.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-25.jpg < excellent photos of WTC7 "lights" here and below
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-26.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-30.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-31.jpg

[The other photos of between wtc-10 and wtc-41 are mainly of the WTC1N & WTC2 So fires, and there are some excellent photos there too.]

South Tower destruction:
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-40.jpg
and
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-41.jpg

North Tower destruction:
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-68.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-69.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-70.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-71.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-72.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-73.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-74.jpg
and finally
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-75.jpg

World Financial Center (WFC) AMEX building? damage
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-102.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-103.jpg

The SW corner of WTC7
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-105.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-110.jpg

Zafar's pre-9/11 perspective of WTC without dust:
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-6.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-7.jpg
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-8.jpg
[Night]
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-3.jpg

Again, the lower-res versions can be seen on Aman Zafar's main page [but it is very slow loading with all these photos]:
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/index.shtm

Let us not forget all those lost on Sep 11, 2001 (taken a couple of nights later):
http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-113.jpg

---------
Thanks again,
d

[KP50]

Thanks KP50- those are some great photos,

If those bright lights near WTC7 are actually fires, I certainly wouldn't call them an "inferno"- looks more like 3-5 rooms ablaze (in 2 separate locations) IMHO.

Isn't the (post WTC1N collapse) "damaged" SW corner of WTC7 visible in the following:

http://www.amanzafar.com/WTC/wtc-110.jpg

Now that doesn't seem to agree with the NIST and other claims above, does it?

Also, this is a great collection of high-res photos KP- it should probably be posted in the main "World Trade Center" section here for WTC1 and WTC2 research, too- would you like to post it there?

I'd probably include a warning about slow load times due to the many high-res ~16-20MB photos (it bogs down my high-speed US internet connection, and I've heard those are better than most). It looked like the WTC2 South collapse started around photo "wtc-38.jpg," and the photos are in chronological sequence.

Thanks again,
d

Dear d,

I don't really fancy posting those photos to be honest, too damn big - they are great photos though.

On the size of the WTC7 fires in the early photos, the importance of them is that they show there was fire prior to a tower collapse - a fact that has been scrubbed from all subsequent reports.

[amazed!]

dMole

Thanks so much for those parts of the NIST regarding 7. I had never read that much detail before.

Man alive, it sure sounds like 7 was the designated command center for the day's activities, eh?

Triage center, handling casualties from several other buildings. Good planning there GS-12. A letter of commendation in your personnel file.

EOM on the upper floors.

In retrospect, the training exercise was extremely successful.

[CocaineImportAge...]

...sorry if i am being dumb here!.... how could fires have started in No7 if the Towers had`nt fallen yet? (IMG:http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

...unless they were burning Enron files that is!

This post has been edited by CocaineImportAgency: Jul 10 2008, 05:31 AM

[dMz]

My lingering question is still what is the exact mechanism that enables gravitation (falling debris) to ignite any fire? I didn't see any "flaming debris" in the photos or video, but there was hella dust and paper, plus that one famous passport. I've seen lightning strikes ignite fires many times, but gravity?

Meteorites, satellites, and "space junk" can do such things, but they "fall" much further and faster through Earth's atmosphere and gravitational field.

Of course, much of the WTC1N and WTC2 So debris was observed to have "fallen" upward and sideways, so let's not use logic or the laws of physics here- those clearly will not help in this matter.

I can only think of two things that will eject debris or objects spherically outwards, and one of those is an electromagnetic field.

[heliweli]

dmole,
I have always wondered how the falling debris started fires in wtc7.
9/11 Blogger has posted the full Barry Jennings inteview yesterday. In it he states that it was very hot in the stairwell - and this was before either of the towers fell!

[dMz]

I'll wager that the OCT loyalists will say that the "fires [that] were just too intense" caused [melting-err, pancake collapse-errr, "licorice" steel-errrr, weakened steel- yeah that's the ticket, and ummm weakened floor trusses to "buckle" the columns] high-temperature steel debris to penetrate the South Face of WTC7 and start all those fires. [EDIT: let's add pistons and thermal expansion to the list]

Of course this is NOT supported by the either the chronological sequence of events that we have been following here or by the photographic evidence of WTC1N debris "falling" horizontally- I'll have to post that calculation here I guess for the 300 ton chunk of steel mentioned in that long Debate thread.

Speaking of calculations, let's do one here for the impact velocity of the TV tower on WTC1N theoretically falling through open air, just for the sake of OCT argument.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/flobj.html#c2

v = sqrt (2*g*h)

[The boldface means that is a vector quantity that should usually point downward, unless it's NYC on 9/11]

http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?gn

Acceleration due to Earth's gravity (per NIST)
9.80665 m/sec^2 (exact)
32.174048556430446194 ft/sec^2

Height of WTC1N & WTC2 South are ambiguous;

http://www.archiplanet.org/w/index.php?tit...amp;redirect=no
"The twin towers, with 110 floors rising 1,353 feet"

http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=15
"Roof 417.0m" [1368.1102362205 ft]

"Antenna [top] 526.3m" [1726.7060367454 ft]

1368 feet agrees with Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center

v = sqrt (2*g*1368 ft) = sqrt (88028.1968503937 ft^2/sec^2) = 296.695461459 ft/sec = 90.4327766527 m/sec = 202.2923600857 mph.

Generally propeller aircraft, helicopters, and race cars don't burst into flames due to heat caused by air drag near 200 mph. This is assuming there was no building below to slow down or stop that TV tower antenna, mind you. Jet aircraft generally don't incinerate either at much higher speeds unless there is a major problem. Now the supersonic realm- that's a different story.

Now would a wind in the 200mph neighborhood heat up a "hot" steel beam or cool it down? This one is open to discussion, but I'd say cool it down, based upon the fact that high speed fans are used for precisely the cooling purpose in industry (a close friend of mine works on industrial fans and large electric motors).

More on "sideways" gravity will follow at a later time...

[CocaineImportAge...]

...putting this pic` up for easier reference... tweaked a bit in Photoshop!


(IMG:http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff68/911wasainsidejob/no7-fire.jpg)

...anyone know on what floor those Enron files just happened to be stored? (IMG:http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/style_emoticons/default/dunno.gif)

[dMz]

Here's the falling velocity vs. floor number chart for WTC1N that goes with my post #18 above:

http://www.orbitfiles.com/download/id3103376383.html

EDIT: The chart and post #18 neglect air friction (since you need to know the area cross-section of the falling object in question and drag coeffiecients, etc.)