wtc, new study

huangyhg

wtc, new study
from today's nytimes:
i agree, dave, and why do tax payers have to foot $23 mil for another study?  it's pretty obvious what happened, no?
here are two links describing the criticisms:
well, it is natural for the engineering community to use a disaster to propel further study of an issue.  this happened from tacoma narrows bridge and the hyatt regency collapse.
so its not really criticism of asce but a desire to further our knowledge and do better.  i agree with this.
but an "organ" like the nytimes will use this aspect of man's on-going trial and error response in engineering to lever its cranked up views of the world and further its politics.  
hindsight is 20/20.  let's not forget that you would have had to be clairvoyant to forsee the failure mode of the wtc.  the building withstood the impact from the planes (which was considered during the design phase) and withstood the fire for a fairly long time, long enough for the vast majority of people below the impact zone to escape.  
my understanding of what trapped those above the impact point is that the planes severed stairwells and fire protection lines.  who amoung us could have forseen that?  i'm not going to fault the designers by applying hindsight.  should we learn from this event, yes.  but that doesn't mean we make each building a fortress either. it doesnt' taken any brains to be a media critic, only a big mouth!
i agree with mattman, it is still hard to believe that it really happened.  it is also hard to believe there are people that can have so little regard for human life.
that's my two cents.