City Had Been Warned of Fuel Tank at 7 World Trade Center

By James Glanz and Eric Lipton
NYTimes.com
12-22-1
 
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.
 

(continued)

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 the1993 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.
 
[b]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.[/b]
 
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.

We'll have to remember this next time we design a building to withstand being run into by an errant 767.

Imbroglio, giddy because he found an article in the NY Times that criticizes Giuliani.
Good for you Imbroglio.
Quite an accomlishment.

How is it [b]possible[/b] to have a 23rd-floor bunker?

I spent some time last winter in that bunker for a detail...that place was freakin cool. There were camera's for just about every major intersection in NYC monitoring everything. Big Bro was watching folks!

WR: Did that include cameras in the ladies room?[:D]

I'd like to see what 6,000 gallons of burning fuel will do to Bin Laden's corpse.

I wouldnt waste six ounces of fuel on that piece o crap. I'd feed him to the hogs.

MAN! this is big!

I bet Giuliani can't withstand a blow likethis to his rep.

Mark my words,he can't last another year in office after this one.

You are blowing this up. Go back to your usual wry sense of understating things.

7 World Trade Center was doomed anyway.  They would have imploded it if it hadn't have fallen by itself.

Where's the Giulliani connection? His job is mayor, not city engineer.

The WTC archives are also lost.  

I want him to be governor. Why do you people hate him so much? He is a hero.

"Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it." --- NY MAYOR RUDY GUILIANI, 3/17/1994

Really dont see why you would want him for govener.He is as antigun as Sara Brady.Also a few years ago when his police were on a tear rapping people with toilet plungers and shooting unarmed men 40 times he came off pretty goddamn heartless to me.

Dude sorry bout that.Didnt read all the post.Saw the first line and had to respond.Color me a dumbass.

OK, Wavrunner, spill it. Was it a *real* bunker?

I think a proper bunker would be armored; think Japanese pill-box.

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It is interesting to note that long after some temporary scare is over, the mechanisms of control Remain.