Because structural steel is opaque, not transparent.
Because the perimeter steel was, for the most part, not piled up high. Rather it was thrown far and wide. The steel laying in the Westside highway, e.g. was just one layer deep.
Because there is photographic evidence that the basements were not full of debris, hence the importance of Dr. Wood's much maligned "Roadrunner" pictures. Also the parking structure under WTC6, which was undamaged.
Scientific method requires evidence. I just don't see evidence that the basements were completely full. For all of that steel and concrete to have not been dustified, the basements would have to be completely full, with essentially no air. Even if true, that then would present a serious problem for the 100 day fire hypothesis. No oxygen, no fire.
I wasn't asking about the basement, I was asking
why the pictures ought to depict the amount of steel your require for your theory.
The reason I ask is that this finally gets to an area where I do have expertise. All people are terrible as guesstimating amounts of material from visual evidence. Much of the work I have done is calculating the amount of material used for grading in construction projects. This includes stockpiles of borrow material (dirt), and material removed from a site. If you just look at a stockpile and tell me how much dirt is there, you could be up to 10x off in your calculation. Looking at a pile of steel will give you no idea how much material is actually in the pile. Looking at a picture is even worse.
For example, if I were to provide estimates to a contractor based on photographic evidence, I would have to account for things such as lens distortion and projection errors. Have you done any of these corrections to your photos? Next, I would have to provide expansion and contraction factors for the material. For example, if I dig a hole with a volume of 1 cubic yard, the pile of dirt next to the hole will have a volume equal to
or greater than the original hole due to the material's expansion factor. Do you have any idea what the compaction factor is for an occupied office building?
The only accurate way to calculate volumes of materials is to either do a material survey (I'm not sure if one was done at Ground Zero, but could do some research if it really mattered), or by
adding up the hauling reports from the companies providing transportation of the material. This was done, and hauling reports are legally binding documents for contractural purposes.
A set of pictures with numbers assigned to them would never be accepted in any construction project for calculating material volumes.
ETA: Happy Birthday to ChipmunkStew as well!
