KP50
Validated Poster
Joined: 23 Feb 2007
Posts: 526
Location: NZ
|
 Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:03 am Post subject: Was there fire/explosion in WTC7 prior to first collapse? |
 |
|
According to
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/sept11/features/5270/
The Office for Emergency Management located on Floor 23 of WTC7 was evacuated because ...
| Quote: | On the morning of September 11, Sheirer got to City Hall at 8 a.m. for a meeting about the Jackie Robinson-Pee Wee Reese memorial planned for Coney Island. "I was in heaven, sitting between Ralph Branca and Joe Black," he remembers. "We were about to select the statue, and then we heard the pop." At first he thought a transformer had exploded in an underground substation. Then he got a flash report from Watch Command in OEM headquarters.
As his driver barreled down Broadway, Sheirer recalls, "my first move was to clear the streets so we could get emergency vehicles in and people out." He radioed the police department and told them to shut down traffic below Canal Street and close every bridge and tunnel in the city.
Down at the scene, he joined Fire Commissioner Tom Von Essen and his chiefs Pete Ganci and Bill Feehan -- old friends from Sheirer's 26 years with the New York Fire Department. They were establishing a command post at the base of the burning tower. Then the second airplane hit. "At that point there was no more doubt," he says ruefully. "We were under attack." He picked up one of the three cell phones strapped to his belt and started giving orders: to the Coast Guard to seal the harbor, and to the State Emergency Management Office to send backup search and rescue teams and get the Pentagon to freeze the city's airspace. Then he lost his signal.
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. |
Yet the official reason that the OEM was evacuated was because there was a possibility of another hijacked airliner smashing into it. Cue Giuliani's heroic walk through the streets.
And we also have
http://www.record-eagle.com/2001/sep/11scene.htm
| 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. |
Alternative quote from Jennings
http://www.boston.com/news/daily/11/world_trade_center.htm
| Quote: | Three inches of thick gray ash covered the streets around the destroyed buildings. City Housing Authority worker Barry Jennings, 46, was in a city command center on the 23rd floor of a neighboring Trade Center building during the second explosion.
He and city Corporation Counsel Michael Hess made it downstairs, where the lobby was just gone. "I thought I was dead," Jennings said. "It looked like hell." |
It is interesting to note that this Jennings quote appears on a lot of OCT sites as backing up the view of extensive damage to WTC7. But there is little doubt that WTC7 (or at least the OEM) was evacuated prior to the first collapse. So when did the explosion/fire happen in WTC7 and what could possibly have caused it?
Does anyone have any other eye-witness accounts from WTC7 or are these the only 2 around? |
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Chat
Usergroups
Calendar
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
