The World Trade Center 1 and 2 skyscrapers were built in the years 1968 - 1971. They were about 415 meters high. Additionally, a 109-meter antenna mast was installed on the roof of the skyscraper #1. The architect of both buildings was Minoru Yamasaki and the New York-based company Emery Roth, and the owners - the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
These skyscrapers were a symbol not only of New York, but also of the US financial system, as they were designed for financial institutions. From the very beginning, they were the target of terrorist attacks. The first attack on the World Trade Center was carried out by terrorists on February 26, 1993. A truck filled with 680 kilograms of explosives was placed by Ramzi Yousef in an underground garage. The explosion at 12:17 p.m. damaged 5 levels of the garage and caused a rift approximately 30 meters in diameter. 6 people were killed on the spot and 1,042 were injured during the evacuation. Why were there so many injured? The answer is simple - the evacuation was carried out in complete darkness, because the whole complex was equipped with one central bank of emergency generators, and the explosion damaged the pipes of the cooling system of these generators, therefore the evacuation through dark staircases took more than 7 hours. Moreover, the smoke from the explosion poisoned the evacuating people.
A few months after the attack, a meeting of the New York City Fire Protection Bureau's Advisory Board was held at the Brooklyn Fire Department. I was a member of this council at the time and therefore had access to the full documentation of this attack. During the meeting, I firmly stated that the current state of affairs is inconsistent with New York City building codes, and if emergency lighting is not redesigned and improved as soon as possible, thousands of people could be killed in the next attack. A representative from the Port Authority replied that his buildings, located on the Port Authority premises, are not governed by New York City building codes, so he doesn't need to do anything. Then, very nervous and for the first time in my life, I publicly used bad words, saying that the next time terrorists attack the World Trade Center, New York City firefighters and policemen will have to climb dark staircases. The commandant of the Fire department office, Gerry Barbara, a good friend of mine, strongly supported me and put a lot of pressure on the Port Authority. As a result, not only were the systems of independent emergency generators redesigned, but also battery lighting on each floor of all staircases and photo-luminescent luminous stripes on the stairs and handrails were added. As a result, in 2001, virtually everyone below the explosion and fire levels was able to evacuate in less than 30 minutes. Unfortunately, Commander Gerry Barbara himself died during the collapse of one of the towers.
The 1993 report found other weaknesses in the construction of towers 1 and 2. First, the buildings were too close together and a fire, explosion, or partial collapse of one could damage the other. Second, they were designed for Wall Street brokers so that their line manager on each floor could watch them all at the same time from a workstation on a pedestal. Therefore, these buildings did not have internal columns - there was a core in with the elevators, staircases, electrical and sewage systems, while the columns were placed only on the outer perimeter of the building. The ceiling beams, reaching from the core to the outer columns, unfortunately had a length far exceeding New York standard. Steel floor beams, heated to the temperature of plasticity, could yield and cause buildings to collapse like houses of cards. Third, in the late 1960s, asbestos mats were used to protect steel columns and beams from fire, which were designed to withstand 120 minutes of fire. Unfortunately, already during the construction of the high-rise buildings, regulations prohibiting the use of asbestos mats came into force, so designers had to use other methods on most floors, such as spraying new fireproof material. Unfortunately, this method was not fully tested yet and the steel elements on many floors, instead of having 120 minutes of protection, only had about 45 minutes. An analysis of the 1993 attack revealed this defect, so the Port Authority decided that each floor vacated by a moving out tenant would have all walls and ceilings torn off, and exposed steel would be additionally sprayed to achieve the required 120 minutes of fire resistance. Unfortunately, between 1995 when this action was taken and 2001 only a small part of the floors were modernized. This likely caused building 2 to collapse approximately 47 minutes after the fire started.
In 1995, I gave a lecture for several hours for the Building Owners & Managers Association in New York. Back then, I was talking about the disastrous design and construction of the WTC skyscrapers. It was rumored at the time that two trucks with explosives were used in the 1993 bombing, but the latter, which was supposed to cause one building to collapse onto another, did not explode for some reason. I was never able to authenticate this rumor, but knowing Osama Bin Laden was a steel engineer, such a plan to attack by him would make sense. During the lecture, I stated that the terrorists probably did not achieve their goal and that there would be another attack. When asked - how, I answered that if I had to design it, I would use gasoline tanker-trucks. Once upon a time, New York trucks were only allowed to run with 3,000 gallons of gasoline, but just then came the approval for larger tanks, 10,000-gallon. In my scenario, a suicide terrorist would run such a tanker into a high-rise lobby and, for example, with a hand grenade, would cause 10,000 gallons of gasoline to explode and the resulting hot fire would collapse the building. The next day, I was called by the manager of a skyscraper of the Jewish organization United Jewish Appeal Federation on Third Avenue, right next to the famous Bloomingdale department store, where I was approving the fire alarm and sound evacuation installation I had previously designed. The manager stated that his building was, for obvious reasons, particularly vulnerable to possible attack by Muslim terrorists and would like me to help him protect this building and over a thousand employees of this organization from tanker attacks according to my scenario. I then designed concrete pots for him with appropriate weight and dimensions, which, placed on the sidewalk around the building, would be able to withstand the impact of a tanker with 10 thousand gallons of fuel. Such pots were made and placed on the pavement within a dozen or so days. With Christmas approaching, the streets were decorated, and Bloomingdale attracted crowds of people to see the festive exhibitions. The reinforced concrete pots looked dull, so I suggested wrapping them with colored foil, filling them with earth and planting Christmas trees with lights and decorations. This also happened, but the next day the New York Times wrote a comment that Jews at UJA went crazy and set up a dozen or so Christmas trees in front of their headquarters. I smiled then. After September 11, I was less amused when I found out that a dozen Muslim terrorists were getting their driving licenses for such tanks. Fortunately, they were arrested before they could implement their plans.
In 2000, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey decided to sell two skyscrapers, or rather for lease them for 99 years. Four companies entered the tender, one of which hired me as an expert in fire protection systems. The group of experts also included specialists in electrical, hydraulic, air-conditioning, lift installations, etc., a total of a dozen or so people. After a month of analysis, we almost unanimously concluded that both towers were improperly designed and improperly built. We persuaded our client to withdraw from the tender. Next in line was Silverstein Properties, which won the bid in the summer of 2001, signed a 99-year lease agreement with the Port Authority, and managed to introduce its employees to the buildings before September 11.
At the same time, in the fall of 2000, I was negotiating with Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the Chief Fire Service Commissioner, Tom Von Essen, because I was offered a new function, created specially for me, of the Second Vice Commissioner of Fire Service and the head of the Fire Protection Bureau. The first Vice Commissioner Bill Feehan, whom I had known for many years as a member of the Supervisory Board of the Fire Service, assisted me and my lawyer, Steve Queller, during the negotiations. I was supposed to take over these functions on January 1, 2001, but, unfortunately, this was only guaranteed for 12 months as it was the last year of Mayor Giuliani's second and final term. In addition, to take on these honorable positions I would have to sell my design office to ZS Engineering, and the new licensed Engineer would have to transcribe over 350 designs submitted with my signature and stamp to the New York City Department of Buildings and the Fire Protection Bureau. I had to say no to the mayor, which probably saved my life. Being the second vice commissioner of the fire department, with a police car and a service driver, I would probably go to the World Trade Center on that fateful day to look for those who command the action - Gery Barbare and Bill Feehan. Unfortunately, they both died when the skyscrapers collapsed.
I had other reasons to be at the World Trade Center that fateful morning. Well, there is an organization of building evacuation managers in New York, the so-called Fire Safety Directors' Association. I have been a member of it for years and I lecture for it often. Members of this organization meet for breakfast and lectures on the first Monday of each month, except during the summer months. In June, we set the date and place of the September meeting, which, due to Labor Day, fell on the second Tuesday of the month, on September 11. A representative of one of the insurance companies suggested that I meet him in a conference room on the 86th floor of WTC 2 on September 11 at 8:30 am. It was then that the evacuation chief of the New York Athletic Club Stanley Galoski, a Pole by origin, stood up and offered to meet at his exclusive private club by Central Park. He offered a sumptuous breakfast, so everyone unanimously agreed to meet there. We were thus there on September 11 in the morning. After several minutes of the meeting, several lights, the so-called pagers, went off. We were informed that a small plane reportedly crashed into Skyscraper 1. Four employees of Silverstein Properties in the room said goodbye, hailed a taxi and hurried to the World Trade Center to help evacuate the buildings. Unfortunately, all four died.
Over the next few months, the funerals of nearly 3,000 people who died in the WTC, including 343 firefighters, continued. Initially, it was reported that 344 firefighters had died, but after a few days of debris removal, my friend, Lieutenant Joe Torillo was found, remained unconscious and in a serious condition in a hospital in New Jersey, but survived, and has been giving motivational lectures for years.
Employees of NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) conducted a detailed investigation, which was to explain how three high-rise buildings collapsed from fire for the first time in history. The third was the 7 World Trade Center, built on private land by Larry Silverstein and his firm, Silverstein Properties. Nothing hit the building, but it allegedly collapsed from a fire like a house of cards. This, according to experts, looked like a controlled blowing up with the use of explosives. The former Navy Seals commando and the governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura talked about it. At the National Fire Protection Association conference in 2009, Dr. Shaym Sundera from NIST presented a computer visualization of the collapse of the WTC 7 skyscraper as a result of a fire, but for many listeners, including myself, this visualization was absolutely unconvincing.
I would like to know if we will ever know what really happened. I have great doubts that this will come to pass.
Zygmunt Staszewski graduated from the Electrical Faculty of the Wrocław Institute of Technology, he was a co-founder of the Automatic Fire Alarm Association of New York and the New York Fire Alarm Association. He also served as chairman of the New York Fire Engineers Association and member of the New York City Fire Department Advisory Board. He has the honorary title of "Fellow" of the International Association of Fire Engineers. He is also the Honorary Commander of the New York Fire Department.
