(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.