9/11 is a Number, Here are the Facts: Evidence Proves White House Complicity 71
normal, however, such collapses have never occurred, except — allegedly — on a single date in history: September 11, 2001. Contrast the havoc allegedly caused by the short-lived fires in the twin WTC towers with the damage caused by comparable fires elsewhere. In 1988, a blaze in the First Interstate Bank Building in Los Angeles raged for three and a half hours and gutted four and a half of the building’s 62 floors, but there was no significant structural damage.70 In 1991, a huge fire in Philadelphia’s One Meridian Plaza lasted for 18 hours and gutted 8 of the building’s 38 floors but, said the FEMA report, although “beams and girders sagged and twisted … under severe fire exposures … the columns continued to support their loads without obvious damage.” 71 In 2004, a fire in a 50-story building in Caracas, Venezuela raged for more than 17 hours, gutting the building’s top 20 floors, yet the building did not collapse.72 In 2005, another spectacular high rise fire occurred when the Edificio Windsor in Madrid turned into a raging inferno for 16 hours on February 12 with only the top floors partially collapsing. The building is only partially comparable to the WTC towers in that it was built of reinforced concrete. But, by the same token, the WTC towers, being steel-framed, were even stronger. The fires in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Caracas were hot enough to break windows. The WTC towers fires were not.73 Kevin Ryan, in his letter to Frank Gayle, wrote in criticism of NIST’s preliminary report 74 : “This story just does not add up. If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I’m sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fires in those towers .… Please do what you can to quickly eliminate the confusion regarding the ability of jet fuel fires to soften or melt structural steel.”