What caused the World Trade Centers to create so much powdered concrete?

Text probably by Eric Hufschmid

The official explanation of why the buildings collapsed is that the airplanes were so massive and full of fuel that the flimsy buildings could not stand up to the stress of the collision and  fire.

Initially I considered the conspiracy theories to be entertaining but absurd. I could not accept the possibility that a group of people planted explosives in the buildings and were using the Arabs as pawns. 

On the Google "Politics" message board is a person named "Geeman" who often brings up issues that have yet to been adequately explained. Eventually his frequent posting got through to me and I decided to look more closely at the photographs of the attack. 

(Geeman's web site is: http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/tradecencrimes )

I now understand why the conspiracy theories appeal to people, but could any of them be correct?

Life is full of coincidences, as well as events beyond human understanding. We have to be careful not to find hidden meanings or conspiracies where none exist. A good example is the field of astrology. Long ago our ancestors noticed the planets are moving and occasionally align in patterns. Our ancestors were unable to explain why the planets were moving, or why they created these patterns. Some people found hidden meanings in these alignments. Eventually these speculations developed into the field of astrology. (Today the field of astrology appears to be just a money making venture.)

There are unexplained events in the collapse of the World Trade Center. Some events may be coincidences, and some may be beyond our understanding simply because our knowledge of physics is not complete. 

If we are not careful we could create the field of ?World Trade Center-ology? in which we find hidden meanings in what were actually meaningless events. We could even go to such an extreme that we turn it into a profit-making venture in which people sell their conspiracy theories. 

At the other extreme, we would be foolish to dismiss the unexplained events without first investigating them.

This document gives my analysis of these unexplained events. I will start with an overview of the events.

The North Tower is hit first

At 8:47 the first plane crashed into the Tower 1 (the north tower). This photograph was taken about sixteen minutes after the plane hit, which is just moments before the second plane crashes into the south tower.

In this photograph the north tower is smoldering. It is important to note the black, sooty smoke coming from the building. The black smoke is an indication of the type of fire. The fire has been burning for 16 minutes, so much of the jet fuel may have already burned up. By this time many of office products, carpeting, and construction materials should be burning; ie, a lot of plastic, paper, rubber, and wood. These materials create much more soot and toxic polutants than jet fuel. 

  Many people were running down the stairs to get out of the building when this photo was taken. The people were evacuating the building because of the fire, not due to a fear that the building was on the verge of collapse. 

As far as I know, the building was quiet, stable, and motionless at this time. I am not aware of any of the people making remarks about loud, creaking noises coming from the steel beams within the building. Nor did anybody make remarks about loud noises caused by concrete floors breaking apart and falling down on the floors below it. The only noise was from the fire. 

In this next photograph the second plane just crashed into a corner of the south tower, at 9:03 am. Since it hit the corner of the building, most of the plane and its fuel traveled only a short distance through the building before flying out the other side. 

 It created a spectacular display of flames.

 
For better colors and resolution, take a look at:
http://wtc.pkl.net/photos/wtcboom.jpg

 This south tower collapsed before the north tower even though it was hit later. Did this plane do more structural damage even though it barely hit the building? Did this building have some critical structural component at that particular corner? Or did the fire that broke out at that location damage some critical structural component? If so, what was that critical structural component?

After the collisions, before the collapse

Notice that there are very few flames; ie, neither building is engulfed in flames. Also notice that the smoke is black and sooty. Notice also that the south tower is burning only at the corner where the plane hit. Most of the south tower is completely undamaged. 

At the time this photograph was taken, thousands of people were running down the stairs to escape. But both buildings still appeared to be quiet and stable. I am not aware of any people reaching the ground and then making remarks about the horrible creaking noises that they gave them the impression that the buildings were on the verge of collapse.  

The South tower disintegrates

The top section of the building has suddenly severed off from the base. This top section is 40 to 50 floors in height. It breaks off from a location somewhere near where the plane hit. 

This enormous section of steel and concrete then begins falling down to the ground below. 

This section will fall several hundred feet. By the time it hits the ground it will be traveling at a high speed. When it collides with the ground I would expect the concrete floors to break into pieces, and I would expect most of the steel to bend and twist. Probably every window will shatter, and every concrete floor will break. 

However, this section of the building should continue to resemble a section of building after it hits the ground. It will be broken and twisted, but it should continue to resemble the top of the World Trade center. I would not expect every concrete floor to turn into powder, and I would not expect every steel beam to break at the joints, leaving each beam as independent as it came from the steel mill.

Next, notice the enormous white clouds coming out of the building. Look back at the other photographs and notice that the smoke was black and sooty just a few moments before. These white clouds are not the smoke of a fire. Rather, they consist of powdered concrete. Obviously, something was occurring inside the building to turn the concrete into powder.

Another important thing to notice in the earlier photos is that the black, sooty smoke rises vertically out of both buildings, clinging to the surface of the buildings. There is a wind blowing, and as the smoke gets near the top of the buildings it starts to drift. My point is that the smoke comes out of the building, clings to the surface, and rises upward. This follows our laws of physics in which hot air rises upward.

Now compare that black sooty smoke to the white clouds of concrete powder. The concrete clouds are not rising vertically. Rather, they are expanding outward in all directions. Obviously, the air pressure inside the building has increased and is pushing clouds of concrete dust through the cracks of the building. The question is: why has the air pressure increased? 

Since the top of the building has broken off and is falling down, it could be pushing the air in the building out the cracks as it crushes the building below. And since the building has broken off, there could be a lot of concrete dust at the point of rupture. In other words, the clouds of concrete dust in this photograph could be due to the collapsing of the top of the building. 

The clouds of concrete become larger in these next photographs.

The top of the tower is becoming completely engulfed in these clouds. As I mentioned earlier, I would expect the top of the tower to continue to fall and hit the ground with a very loud noise. But as you can see in these photographs the entire top of the tower is turning into white clouds.

 The South Tower fireworks display

A few seconds later and the top of the World Trade Center has so thoroughly disintegrated into white powder that the building appears to be a fireworks display in black and white. The clouds of concrete dust have expanded to what appears to be at least three times the diameter of the building. 

Also, no pieces of the building can be seen. Photos of the area taken after Sept 11 show only small pieces on the ground. Every piece of steel in the tower broke at the joints that connected it to the other pieces. Every piece of concrete shattered. The entire top of the tower disintegrated before it hit the ground.  

 
The top of the building fell, but never hit the ground. Rather, it turned into powder and small pieces of steel during the few seconds that it was falling. 

Were the steel beams in this building connected to each other in such a shoddy manner that when one of them broke it started a chain reaction that broke every other joint in the building? Was the concrete of such a low quality that when put under stress it crumbles to powder? Was this building designed and built by morons who have no understanding of steel, concrete, or engineering? Were the construction workers completely incompetent? Did the welders have any experience with welding steel beams together?

More photos are:
 http://wtc.pkl.net/photos/wtc2.jpg
 http://wtc.pkl.net/photos/wtc27.jpg
 

The North tower fireworks display

The north tower stood motionless and stable for nearly 1.75 hours. Now, suddenly, the tower starts to disintegrate from the top down. In a matter of seconds the entire building has turned to dust. As with the south tower, all parts of the building turned into dust and pieces of steel before any of it hit the ground.  

Actually, the north tower was more spectacular as a fireworks display because it destroyed itself from the top down without cracking in the middle.

The way in which the north tower destroyed itself is more difficult to explain than the south tower. The south tower cracked a location near where the plane had hit, so we could say that the plane caused the top of the tower to sever off. The top of the tower was very heavy, and we could say that as it fell down it pulverized the portion of the building below it, as well as pulverizing itself.

But the north tower stood for nearly two hours with nothing more than a fire smoldering at the top of it. The official explanation of why this building came down is that the fire was so hot that the steel became too weak to hold up the weight of the concrete and steel above it. The steel beams then buckled and/or the joints broke. Then all the concrete and steel floors above came crashing down onto this floor. 

The concrete came crashing down with such intensity that it pulverized itself into dust particles and broke all steel beams at the joints. These dust particles picked up so much kinetic energy that they then shot out of the building with such force that they created a cloud of concrete dust that reached at least three times the width of the building. 

Then the steel beams and whatever concrete was remaining  crashed down onto the floors below it, pulverizing that floor. A chain reaction had started. 

By the time the steel beams and concrete hit the ground, there was nothing left of the concrete but dust, and all the steel beams had broken at the joints. The entire process took only a few seconds.

The World Trade Center volcano 

The full sized version of this photo is:
http://www.spesh.com/mirrors/wtc2/IMG_1479.JPG

The significance of the thick coating of white powder becomes more apparent when you look at the collapses, burnings, and bombings of other buildings. When has a building produced such large volumes of powder? 

Forest fires produce large amounts of ash, but the ash is from the burning of wood. The ash in the streets of New York was not from the burning of paper, rubber, or wood. Rather, it was powdered concrete. Who can explain that?

Another dust photo:
http://wtc.pkl.net/photos/wtc40.jpg

The site as it looked on October 3, 2001

Note: These next photos are small sections of large, high quality photographs taken on Oct 3. You can find the high resolution images at the following sites:

http://www.parrhesia.com/wtc/ (California; reduced-sized images)  http://www.phonon.net/wtc/(Massachusetts)  http://weltwissen.koeln.ccc.de/~drt/cryptome.org/wtc/wtc-photos.htm (Germany)  http://166.122.19.198/wtc/wtc-photos.html (Hawaii)  The super high res photos are here, but the guy is complaining about the traffic:
http://rearviewmirror.org/wtcphotos/wtc-photos.htm

The full-sized photo of this is:
http://www.parrhesia.com/wtc/tn/wtc066.jpg.html
  

I assume these are two of the steel beams that the building was constructed with. They do not show any signs of buckling, but they have definitely broken at the joints. A construction worker is standing behind the beams. His head and yellow, hard hat is barely visible. His head gives an indication of the size and thickness of these beams. 

The official explanation of why the buildings collapsed is that the fire caused the temperature of these beams to rise to the point at which they could no longer support the load they had to carry. 

If that explanation were true, then we could look through the rubble and find some of the pieces of steel that show signs of high temperature and buckling under the stress. When an airplane crashes the FAA will pick up the pieces and sometimes assemble them back into a plane. The pieces will be warped and bent, but they give an indication of what went wrong in the airplane, and at which location. 

If we were to look to the rubble of the World Trade Center, we should be able to find the pieces of steel that the building was made from. The steel should not have vaporized. We would be able to reassemble the building even though much of the steel would be twisted and bent. This would give us an idea of which beams failed in the building.

However, there does not seem to be any interest in analyzing the rubble. Rather, crews were called in immediately to begin hauling the rubble away. It reminds me of the Chappaquiddick incident in which the dead woman was buried the next day. 

The police did not follow standard procedure with the Chappaquiddick woman, and they do not seem to be following standard procedure with the World Trade center. The media likewise does not seem to have any interest in understanding why the buildings fell down. Instead they are encouraging hatred of Arabs, and they remind us repeatedly of the number of people who died. 

We are suppose to believe that the people who designed the World Trade center never provided enough of a safety margin to handle a rise in temperature caused by a serious fire. This could be true, but this would not explain why the building turned into powder and small pieces of steel. Rather, it would only explain why some of the steel beams buckled under the stress, and it could explain why some of the joints broke. It would not explain why everyevery piece of steel broke at its joint before it hit the ground.  concrete floor disintegrated into tiny particles before it hit the ground, it does not explain why

The following two photos show the base of the World Trade center. The important thing to notice in these photographs is that a portion of the base survived the collapse of the building. 

In this photograph you can see window glass remaining in some of the windows, and a few entire sheets of glass seem unbroken in some of the smaller panes. Also notice that there is no fire damage down here. It appears that a person would have survived the collapse of the building if he had been in the corner office of this photo, assuming he had scuba gear to provide oxygen and keep concrete powder out of his nose.

 
The full-sized photo of the above is:
http://www.parrhesia.com/wtc/tn/wtc026.jpg.html

This next photograph shows that although the walls have been blown out, and although the flooring has been destroyed, the steel beams are still connected together.

The full-sized photo of the above is:
http://www.parrhesia.com/wtc/tn/wtc039.jpg.html

These two photos show that the building disintegrated into concrete powder and small pieces of steel from perhaps 40 feet upward, while large sections of the base of the building remained intact. How do we explain this?

One way to explain it is that the construction crews were changed during the construction. Perhaps the first 40 feet of the building was put together by competent construction workers, and then the crew was replaced with an incompetent group who put up the rest of the building in a sloppy, shoddy manner. 

If you want an alternative possibility, I read a report that mentioned that the building required steel beams that were too thick for the American companies to produce, so they turned to Japan for the thicker beams. Therefore, perhaps the base of the building was primarily Japanese steel, and the upper portion of the building was American steel. Perhaps both buildings would still be standing if it consisted of 100% Japanese steel.

However, I can think of a better explanation. Watch a videotape of a demolition of a high-rise building. Now compare that to the collapse of the World Trade center. And then compare it to a fire in a high-rise building. Next compare it to a high-rise building during an earthquake. 

Also, look at this photograph of the Empire State Building after it was hit by an military bomber in 1945. A lot of jet fuel sprayed inside the building, creating a high temperature fire that destroyed a lot of the interior. But eventually the fire was put out, and all that remained was all hole in the building. The steel beams  remained connected together, and the concrete remained as solid blocks. The damage was limited to the crash area. 

 
The official explanation for why the military bomber did so little damage to the Empire State Building is that the bomber was small and the Empire State Building was strong.  

What does history show us?

We can speculate forever on these issues, but let's look at history. There have been thousands of fires in buildings, and they have been thousands of earthquakes. Also, many bombs have been placed in and near buildings, and several airplanes have hit buildings. But have any of those fires, earthquakes, bombs, or airplanes ever caused a steel and concrete building to turn into powder before the pieces hit the ground?

Let's not forget that the military has dropped a lot of bombs on buildings also. Do you recall the (accidental?) bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Kosovo? Did that building turn to powder?

The building in Oklahoma City that Tim McVeigh blew up did not turn into powder, either. Rather, a portion of the walls were blown away. The steel structure and most of the concrete remained. 

The only method I'm aware of to cause a building to turn into powder is to place explosives at key locations inside the building. A large quantity of explosives is not needed; rather, small explosives are placed at locations that cause the structure of the building to break apart into pieces. 

No. 7 World Trade center disintegrates 

However, the 47-story building that was at No. 7 World Trade Center turned into powder and small pieces of steel, just like the two towers.

This small photo of firemen spraying water on the rubble is all I could find of this building. This small pile of twisted steel and concrete powder is all that remains of a 47-story building.

 I am not aware of what the official explanation for the collapse of building seven is. It seems that the officials are trying to ignore this building.

The news reports mention that fires broke out in this building, supposedly due to falling debris. However, this building did not get injected with a large load of jet fuel. Therefore, the fires should have been small and extinguished by the building's sprinkler system. 

Building # 6 held together quite well

Somehow these fires became so intense and uncontrollable that all the steel beams broke at the joints and all the concrete turned to powder. It makes me wonder if construction workers in New York City use nitrocellulose instead of concrete.

The building with the address of 6 World Trade Center was the closest to the towers. It was directly next to the north tower, and it was bombarded with the largest amount of debris. This building was the most severely damaged of all the buildings are around the towers, aside from building #7.

The photo shows building #6. A large hole was torn through the roof in the middle of the building from the debris. Fires broke out in the building. But despite all the abuse much of the building remained in one piece. The steel beams did not break apart at the joints, and the concrete did not turn to powder. By comparison, building #7, which was farther away from the towers, turned into powder. Who has an explanation for this?

 
The full sized photo is:
http://www.parrhesia.com/wtc/tn/wtc062.jpg.html