Building 7
by Dee Mclachlan
This is an open letter to Australia’s Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, the Hon Darren Chester MP, Member for Gippsland — urging the Minister to take urgent and immediate action towards the safety of steel frame high rise buildings in Australia.
The Dangers of Steel Frames Skyscrapers
The Hon Darren Chester MP
Dear Sir,
I would like to bring to your attention an urgent safety issue for millions of Australians regarding the design and construction of high-rise steel framed buildings in our cities.
Fifteen (15) years ago, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) did an inquiry, and reported on the failure and complete collapse of a 47 high rise in New York. Their investigation was to
“identify, as specifically as possible, areas in current building and fire codes, standards, and practices that warrant revision.”
The building was said to have collapsed due to fires on the several floors. They reported that:
“These lower-floor fires — which spread and grew because the water supply to the automatic sprinkler system for these floors had failed — were similar to building fires experienced in other tall buildings…”
How did the fires cause the collapse?
Their findings revealed, that:
“The heat from the uncontrolled fires caused steel floor beams and girders to thermally expand, leading to a chain of events that caused a key structural column to fail. The failure of this structural column then initiated a fire-induced progressive collapse of the entire building.”
According to the report, the fire caused expansion on one girder, causing it to displace from a critical column, Column 79. This resulted in
a “cascade of floor failures down to the 5th floor… The unsupported Column 79 then buckled and triggered an upward progression of floor system failures… Finally, the entire façade collapsed.” (NIST report here)
Diagram – Building 7 floor plan
The Dangers of Progressive Collapse
What is progressive collapse? It is a collapse defined as the spread of local damage from a single initiating event, resulting in the collapse of an entire steel structure.
Building 7 was a 47-story building, designed by Emery Roth & Sons. It was 610 feet (190 m) tall, with a trapezoidal footprint that was 330 ft (100 m) long and 140 ft (43 m) wide. Construction began in 1983 and the building was opened in May 1987.
In Australia today, there are thousands of steel-framed high-rise buildings in our major cities, with perhaps a million people working in them each day. Just in Melbourne there are many buildings over 600 feet (180 m) that were built around the same time as Building 7 in New York.
Are these buildings in danger of “progressive collapse” if there is a fire incident?
According to the NIST report, they are. And if so, you should urge Parliament to initiate an immediate inquiry into the safety of these skyscrapers.
Building 7 came down at 5:21 in the afternoon of September 11, 2001, almost seven hours after the Twin Towers had come down. See the video below. According to over 2,600 architects and engineers, Building 7 at the World Trade Center did not suffer “progressive collapse,”and provide an alternative explanation.
The lease holder, Larry Silverstein, even said in a documentary that they had to “pull” the building.
There has never been a public discussion over Building 7. Minister, in fact, this maybe the very first time you have heard of building 7 and its collapse on 9-11. When I interviewed the former prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, he too had never heard of the collapse of Building 7.
Thus, I would urge you to begin an inquiry into the safety of high rise buildings in Australia.
Sincerely,
Dee McLachlan.
You too can write or contact the Minister.
(03) 5144 6744 or
darren.chester.mp@aph.gov.au
The inquiry we need is? should high rise buildings exist? I have yet to hear the voice of those who work in these buildings as to how they experience working in these conditions? and the impact on the environment as to the health impact upon the people and ecology as to their desirability?
Dear Donwreford, Everybody should move to Adelaide. We have very few high rises here. Very human-sized. What a wonderful city!
Dear Dee, your letter is a hoot. The “anniversary” that you are trying to pre-empt is only a fortnight away. Keep whacking away at them. In the Kevin Bracken interview he said 50% of his trade-union colleagues agree with him about 9-11. Fifty percent is huge!
Sky-scrapers are the Babals of the Age, a vain attempt to expand the most reprobate and oppressive system the world has ever known, a concept that couldn’t be less people friendly.
Why not build underground ? Why not do business from home? No, it wouldn’t be the same.
Four a couple months a demolition crew has been demolishing the high rise WESTPAC Bank office building in Martin Place opposite the Reserve Bank building in Sydney.
They are really a pain; bloody lot of noise, crashing, banging, mammoth vehiclular jack hammers hammering away, floors of scaffolding and screening up the facades and still it will take months to accomplish.
Bugger them, will someone tell them to light a decent fire up a few floors and wait for the whole thing to come crashing down on it’s own footstep.
Premier Mike Baid, you are wasting a load of taxpayer’s money on all that demolishing crap….just light a good office fire. Really! Get with the science read the NIST (US) report on the collapse of building No 7 on 9/11.
Should only take a weekend to finish it off.
Larry
The Silverstein model has been perfected in Canberra: Just plead “henpecked” and you don’t have to answer to anything.
This is a pineapple! It’s a pineapple! I know it’s a pineapple!
.
Mary, it is not a pineapple, pineapples look and think like our Liberal and Labor politicians.
Turnip perhaps? No, they are all behind a shock jock microphone or are those who ‘come out’ to be ‘massaged’ at the Walkley media awards.
Cucumber? Not likely, that is why they are called greens.
Some common weed variety? No, they are independants in Canberra. (Supose that makes dear Derryn a ‘Turncumber’)
Paw-paw, Ned. Have you got anybody who’s head is paw-paw-ish? Did you know passion fruit is actually a contraceptive?
‘Tis.
No X 2.
For the technical people, try this article.
http://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/pdf/2016/04/epn2016474p21.pdf
You there;
Dr Karl?
Senator Hinch?
The Hon. Darren Chester?
Senator Rhiannon? (Briefed in detail by David Liefer from University of Sydney architecture Department, on the collapse building No 7 years ago in NSW Parliament House, Macquarie Street)
The Hon. Josh Frydenburg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CVLZgUA2QM
Ray Hadley et.al. at Fairfax “Independent Always” press media and radio staions…………..2GB, 2UE, 2CH da da..
Steve Liebman. (2UE on or about 21 October 2010 calling Kevin Bracken a ‘goose’ and otherwise insulting him by distractions with other irrelevant subjects) (Deleted from the 2UE website?)
Jonathon ‘there is nothing to debate Kevin” Faine on ABC about 20th October 2010? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE3pMPObcGU
The whole ABC and particularly the ABC science program. (Is it still on?)
60 minutes?
Dateline?
SBS?
John, “so embarrased’ Howard?
Prime Minister ‘missing’ Malcolm Turnbull? (Informed in 2004 about building No 7 and reminded in 2007)
I have not all day to name all the ‘Geese’ in the farmyard.
I exclude Amanda Keller who gave Richard Gage (ae911truth.org) time to tell her listeners about the subject in November 2009. (huge positive response!)
The City of Sydney Council elections are to be held in early September. I think; on the 10th of September, a day before the 11th.
Perhaps someone else should raise with the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, (nee Collins) other candidates and the council planning department, the significance of the US NIST report on the dangers of high rise buildings collapsing due to office fire/s and to provide revised standards for developers constructing high rise steel structures, to avoid collapsing, in the city of Sydney due to a office fire causing ‘thermal expansion’, as explained by Dr. S SUNDER, of NIST fame, with his Salsar [sp?] jar lid reference under hot water, explaining that the commencemt of collapse of building 7 was due to the ‘dissociation” (my interpretation) of the horizontal joist from a vertical column identified as number 79. ( as he ‘explained on u-tube) none the less, providing 2.5 seconds of complete freefall collapse at the commencement of the collapse.
I have had no response from the planning boffins at Sydney City council on this inherent danger to Sydney office workers, that has been noted by me.
I wonder what the required and revised Sydney of Sydney Council conditions will be for the buiding, replacing the WESTPAC bank building in Martin Place after about a year of demolishing the present high rise structure?
Clover, what is your policy now?
Mike Baird, Premier of NSW, what are you going to implement to keep the citizens of Sydney safe from “thermal’ destruction of high rise steel structured buildings?
You think this is satire?
No. It is real, we are run by idiots.
Worse than an idiots – is an idiot puppet.
Dee and Ned, Just fathom it. It certainly isn’t plain old incompetence. It has to be mailce doesn’t it? They have to be answering to another master — which would give them the sense they are doing the right thing.
I am referring to the Commonwealth government. What on earth do they worry about? I worry all the time. Isn’t that perfectly natural? Why are they so frickin unfazed?
In US it is easy to find out that Bush, Bill Clinton, and Obama had major mind control in their childhood. OK. So they’re not going to worry about the nation — they live in another dimension.
But how the hell can this be so widespread? It boggles the mind.
Somebody please! Help!
URGENT NOTICE TO WORKERS IN HIGH RISE BUILDINGS.
PLEASE spend a few minutes to apreciate that you could be working in dangerous conditions and take heed.
http://911blogger.com/news/2008-08-27/nist-wtc7-report-parody-video
(Did anyone really think that I was joking about Dr. Sunder’s Salsa jar lid?)