[Add this to Americas' Mayors' list of dubious accomplishments. Apart from
Giulianus' completely useless 13 million dollar bunker set up in the US
building complex most expected to be attacked by terrorists, WTC 7 housed
CIA, FBI and other Federal offices. I guess if you want to destroy some
incriminating evidence there's nothing like 6,000 gallons of fuel oil to do
the trick. For the real story on the "Giuliani Legacy" see
http://baltech.org/lederman/ ]
NY TIMES
City Had Been Warned of Fuel Tank at 7 World Trade Center December 20, 2001
By JAMES GLANZ and ERIC LIPTON
Fire Department officials warned the city and the Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey in 1998 and 1999 that a giant diesel fuel tank for the
mayor's $13 million command bunker in 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story
high-rise that burned and collapsed on Sept. 11, posed a hazard and was not
consistent with city fire codes.
The 6,000-gallon tank was positioned about 15 feet above the ground floor
and near several lobby elevators and was meant to fuel generators that would
supply electricity to the 23rd-floor bunker in the event of a power failure.
Although the city made some design changes to address the concerns - moving
a fuel pipe that would have run from the tank up an elevator shaft, for
example - it left the tank in place.
But the Fire Department repeatedly warned that a tank in that position could
spread fumes throughout the building if it leaked, or, if it caught fire,
could produce what one Fire Department memorandum called "disaster." Putting
a tank underground typically protects it from falling debris, and impedes
leaks or tank fires from spreading throughout the building.
Engineering experts have spent three months trying to determine why 7 World
Trade Center, part of the downtown complex that included the 110-story
towers, collapsed about seven hours after being damaged and set on fire by
debris from the damaged landmark buildings.
Some of the experts, who said that no major skyscraper had ever collapsed
simply because of fire damage, have recently been examining whether the
diesel tanks - there were others beneath ground level - played an important
role in the building's stunning demise.
The Port Authority, which owns the land on which the building stood and
issued the building permit for the tank and its fireproof enclosure, said
yesterday that it believed the structure had in fact met the terms of the
city's fire code. Though the tank was on a tall fireproof pedestal, it was
still effectively on the lowest floor of the building, as the code requires,
said Frank Lombardi, the Port Authority's chief engineer.
The authority also worked with Fire Department officials to eliminate the
department's original objections, Mr. Lombardi said. "We made sure that it
was in agreement with the code," Mr. Lombardi said, adding that the tank was
placed in an eight-inch- thick masonry enclosure.
A spokesman for the Fire Department said yesterday that he could not
authoritatively say whether all the concerns of its officials had been
addressed by the Port Authority. But when reached yesterday, the department
official who wrote several of the warning memorandums said he regarded the
Port Authority's interpretation of the code to be "a stretch." The official,
Battalion Chief William P. Blaich, said he still considered the tank's
placement to have been unsafe.
The Port Authority has long held that, as a matter of law, it does not have
to abide by city fire codes. But after the 1993 bombing of the towers, the
Port Authority signed a memorandum of understanding with the city pledging
to not only meet the city's fire codes, but also to often take additional
precautions.
A spokesman for the city's office of emergency management, Francis E.
McCarton, said the city accepted the Port Authority's determination that the
tank and its placement were properly safe. He said it was essential that the
mayor's command center have a backup energy source and placing it on ground
floor was unacceptable because the area was deemed to be susceptible to
floods.
"We put it in the area where we needed to put it," Mr. McCarton said. Any
suggestion that the tank's position was a factor in the collapse of the
building was "pure speculation," he said.
He added that the tank had fire extinguishers and was surrounded by the
thick, fire-resistant containment system, and that the fiery collapse of the
towers could never have been anticipated in the city's planning.
No one is believed to have died in the collapse of 7 World Trade Center. But
its collapse did further complicate the rescue and recovery efforts under
way at the scene.
The engineering and fire experts who have been examining the collapse of 7
World Trade Center have not settled on the final cause of the disaster. But
they have seen evidence of very high temperatures typical of fuel fires in
the debris from the building and have raised questions about whether the
diesel accounted for those conditions.
At least two firefighters who were at the scene, Deputy Chief James Jackson
and Battalion Chief Blaich, said that the southwest corner of the building
near the fuel tank was severely damaged, possibly by falling debris, and
that the tank might have been breached.
Mr. Jackson said that about an hour before the building's collapse, heavy
black smoke, consistent with a fuel fire of some sort, was coming from that
part of the building.
The Port Authority said it was unlikely the heavy masonry surrounding the
tank could have been breached, and its officials have raised the possibility
that the two diesel tanks buried just below the ground floor of the building
might have contributed to the fire. They have also asserted that structural
damage from falling debris is a more likely culprit in the collapse.
Several fire experts said that, whatever the questions surrounding the
city's code, installing giant fuel tanks above the occupied spaces of a
building posed serious risks.
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