Miriam English wrote:
>
> At 11:38 AM 16/09/2001, Michael Wiik wrote:
> >"Stephan Vladimir Bugaj" <stephan@bugaj.com> wrote:
> >
> > > The new WTC should be as tall
> > > or taller, but the security precautions and evacuation mechanism
> > > much better.
> >
> >Not to mention structural integrity and fire fighting systems. There's a
> >bunch of seemingly cogent stuff about the WTC at cryptome.org . Maybe
> >they could take out those cell and television antennas and prep the roof
> >for use as helicopter landing pads in case of emergency.
>
> Parachutes or paragliders, rope bridges to nearby buildings...
> But I still favor the idea of building down instead of up. Tall buildings
> always seemed a dumb idea since Towering Inferno. If you want a great view
> put an eiffel tower kind of structure up there and make it twice the height
> of the WTC buildings.
The problem with building down is that they are not cost effective:
people won't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars per square foot for a
live panoramic view of a concrete wall.
Nor is building down much safer: drop a fully fueled airliner straight
down on it, and unless it is hardened like a bunker, you will get top
level damage, and seal people at lower levels off to egress, while
barbecuing them with burning fuel that keeps leaking downward. Whoever
is in the bottom is dead.
Towering inferno-like incidents have occured occasionally since that
movie was released in the late 70's. The strategies for dealing with
such a fire are well thought out, well established, and have saved many
lives already. The problem is that such strategies are are a bit
detrimental to the sort of situation we saw at the WTC.
I think the best strategies for the current scenario are to add a
feature to current collision avoidance systems that recognises
building-mounted transponders as 'virtual mountains' to be avoided, and
that these systems cannot be turned off by crew without the proper code,
if at all.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:50 MDT