Fwd: JYA's New York Report

[Bill Stewart]

>Delivered-To: bill.stewart at pobox.com
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>Date:         Tue, 11 Sep 2001 11:14:39 -0700
>Reply-To: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L at LISTSERV.AOL.COM>
>Sender: Law & Policy of Computer Communications <CYBERIA-L at LISTSERV.AOL.COM>
>From: John Young <jya at PIPELINE.COM>
>Subject:      New York Report
>To: CYBERIA-L at LISTSERV.AOL.COM
>
>E-mail in Upper West Side of Manhattan is okay, local and national
>TV too. Radio is out due to loss of transmitters on the collapsed WTC
>towers. Our wire and wireless phones are on and off. Subways are
>partly out. We cannot see the WTC area from the roof of our building,
>so TV and Internet are all we got. I was about to leave for a meeting
>in the WTC area when the news broke.
>
>Trying to locate a daughter who has a dot.com job near the WTC.
>Many friends nearby too.
>
>A word on the structure of the WTC towers:
>
>The WTC towers had a distinctive structural system which utilized
>the exterior wall framing for lateral bracing -- a so-called lattice
>framework. This allowed minimization of internal lateral bracing
>and opened up the floor plans. You can see the effect of that when
>the buildings collapsed, with the lattice framework crumbling and
>the interior imploding. The lattice works so long as it remains
>intact as a system: if a part of it goes, then the whole system
>goes.
>
>The planes punched holes in the lattice, one tower punched
>on two sides, maybe the other too. Portions of the lattice of
>the second tower briefly remained standing after the collapse,
>then fell.
>
>The system was considered daring at the time of construction, for
>it distributed loads more efficiently than legacy column-and-beam-
>supported systems. Probably the legacy systems would not have
>totally collapsed due to damage at upper floors, although floors
>above the damage would have come down if columns were
>weakened.
>
>
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