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Need help on WTC rubble debate

Lurker

Illuminator
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May 15, 2002
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OK, I am getting tired of my email debate with a friend of mine who buys into this WTC conspiracy thing. I have done a lot of work attacking his claims but why should I do all the work? I'll show a bit of his correspondence here and invite comment and crticisms (constructive).
I don't dispute that the photos reveal SOME concrete but not as much as one might expect, considering the vast amount of concrete used in the towers. But may I ask, where are the photos of the office contents? Furniture? Computers? Telephones? Keyboards? Bodies? Anything other than twisted steel, paper, and some concrete. Recall the firefighters' bewilderment over the sheer lack of rubble. With a collapse of this magnitude, one might expect a mountainous rubble pile; there isn't one. It seems pretty clear to me that most of the non-metals was vaporized on descent and blown over Manhattan via pyroclastic clouds which hung in the air for days.

http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=154472&Disp=6
Click to expand...

Can you help me out?

Lurker
 
How much should one expect? I see this claim all the time with no calculations of how much concrete there is and how much there should be.

The debris pile was 6 stories tall and the WTC went 6 stories underground. Most of the photos of debris are the surface, how do they know what is under the surface debris?

Most of the WTC was air. The only concrete in the WTC was in the floors. Generally 5" thick, some floors (technical services) thicker. Core area may have also been a little thicker.
 
The rubble I believe was 6 or so stories high. Gravy's the one to talk to concerning the specifics and the weight of the buildings and such.

What I would do though is go along with your friend's assumption that anything that wasn't metal literally vaporized into a pyroclastic flow (which or reserved for volcanoes by the way).

Ask him how much explosives would be needed to do that. He doesn't seem to think the force of the collapse could cause those thigns, so if what he's saying holds true, not only would numerous core and exterior columns on multiple floors have to be outfitted with explosives, but 220 acres of concrete floors would need to be rigged as well.

Without anyone noticing.
 
All kidding aside. I did a quick investigoogle and came up with this:

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/911/

See the following links:

Remains of a Day Rarely seen photos from the Fresh Kills landfill

Digging out Ground Zero The grim and exhausting task of carting away the ruins of the World Trade Center took months and a billion dollars — and finished under budget and ahead of schedule
 
Lurker said:
OK, I am getting tired of my email debate with a friend of mine who buys into this WTC conspiracy thing. I have done a lot of work attacking his claims but why should I do all the work? I'll show a bit of his correspondence here and invite comment and crticisms (constructive).


Can you help me out?

Lurker
Click to expand...
Can this person back this up?
Recall the firefighters' bewilderment over the sheer lack of rubble.
Click to expand...
Show him any of the hundreds of photos of the rubble pile:
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/docs/jc/jcc_230.jpg (<--right-click, copy shortcut, paste in address bar: it doesn't like the referral)

Show him these videos:
http://www.pbs.org/americarebuilds/videostories/index.html

See this discussion about the "pyroclastic flow" claim:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1923390#post1923390
 
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I don't dispute that the photos reveal SOME concrete but not as much as one might expect, considering the vast amount of concrete used in the towers. But may I ask, where are the photos of the office contents? Furniture? Computers? Telephones? Keyboards? Bodies?
Click to expand...

This is the biggest problem that CTists have. They try to take their own preconceived notions about the force of collapse and apply it to reality. They always have expectations they can't justify.

Ask him, "What kind of rubble did you expect and why?"
 
realitybites said:
Ask him how much explosives would be needed to do that.
Click to expand...

I have asked him to perform this calculation about ten times now with no response. I have asked him to forward it to his fellow CTers, no response.
 
I would really like to know what is his point about being less rubble than he expected, and how that supports the idea of a conspiracy. Is he saying that he believes the towers were cleaned out of furniture and equipment by salvage crews before the collapses?

Or by his believing that they were "vaporized," does he think there was a nuclear bomb or something?

If you want to show him where he's going wrong, you need to find out what he's saying.
 
CurtC said:
I would really like to know what is his point about being less rubble than he expected, and how that supports the idea of a conspiracy. Is he saying that he believes the towers were cleaned out of furniture and equipment by salvage crews before the collapses?

Or by his believing that they were "vaporized," does he think there was a nuclear bomb or something?

If you want to show him where he's going wrong, you need to find out what he's saying.
Click to expand...

He is saying that the "fact" that there is very littel concrete (in chunk form) and that there is little evidence of office equipment is evidence of explosives.

I came back with:

1. Explosives are great for moving things around but not so great for pulverizing everything to a fine powder.

2. How much explosives would be required to pulverize everything?

I do need to get further details on his "vaporization" theory. Good point.

Lurker
 
Lurker said:
I have asked him to perform this calculation about ten times now with no response. I have asked him to forward it to his fellow CTers, no response.
Click to expand...
That's because it's far easier to just state that there were bombs and continue through life proud of the fact that they know something the rest of the world doesn't.

How many would be needed and how they got there doesn't seem to be important to CTers. Their line of thinking stops there because they know that there is no logical way that the amount of explosives needed to bring down the towers could never be placed in the buildings without anyone's knowledge.
 
A little research into the months of rubble sorting done at Freshkills Staten Island should satisfy that query.

No specific links, but NY Times did more than one story on the search for personal effects, the boxes of rings, keys, watches, etc, that survived, and were sorted while combing the rubble for human remains.

Wife's cousin (NYPD) spent weeks there in the sorting.

The pile I saw 4 days after was above the remaining WTC 4,5,6 buildings.

Stuff scattered for blocks around. You can not imagine the scale, if you were not there when they were standing, and when they'd fallen.

"bombs" or collapse - the result would be equal. It is just random effect of released energy no?
 
Imagine what it would take to plant enough charges to pulverize concrete on one floor:

- Moving office equipment/desks/cubicles
- Removing carpeting
- Drilling holes for the charges
- Wiring said charges
- Replacing the carpeting
- Putting office equipment/desks/cubicles back exactly they way they were before hand.

Imagine how long that would take. Then multiply that time by 220.

Think that could be done in two buildings that were NEVER 100% vacant?
 
realitybites:

Not to mention the amount of explosives.

To get by with the least amount of explosives, you'd have to place charges every 5 inches in a staggered grid across the entire floor. If you're willing to double your amount of explosives, you can stretch that out to something like a 10' radius. it still adds up to hundreds of tons of C-4. I did the calculations in another thread a while back, but I'm too lazy to go dig for them :)

And of course, all these assume you actually drill into the floors and place the charges inside the concrete. You'd need more if they were placed above or below the floor, and even more if they were not placed directly against the floor.
 
Huntsman said:
You'd need more if they were placed above or below the floor, and even more if they were not placed directly against the floor.
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Hunts. Are you suggesting the theory of pre-fab cubicles with built-in explosive devices?

Add that to the list of non-existent equipment needed to pull of the conspiracy theorists version of events.

(... I wonder if they sell those at Office Depot)
 
realitybites said:
Hunts. Are you suggesting the theory of pre-fab cubicles with built-in explosive devices?

Add that to the list of non-existent equipment needed to pull of the conspiracy theorists version of events.

(... I wonder if they sell those at Office Depot)
Click to expand...

If they don't, they should. I can think of hundreds of uses for those already.

A lot easier than pink slips, if a bit more messy. Just have to hire more janitorial staff...
 
Lurker said:
I already have and he expects to see more concrete, some in larger pieces, office equipment and so on.

Lurker
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Why?
The vast majority of the concrete in the buildings was ---floors.
I would expect the largest chunks of concrete to be about 5 inches by maybe a couple of feet square, with embedded rebar. I would think the majority of it would be 2 to 5 inch chunks roughly sperical in shape.
 
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