Wheelchair workers left helpless in the mass evacuation & panic

[Bill Stoupe]

This is just so terrible...

Watching all the news footage just left me in tears and total shock (then anger)...

My girlfriend regularly e-mails a girl who works in one of the towers and just got a e-mail off her saying it was total panic and chaos as people were literally fighting there way out of the already damaged and ablaze towers and it was as though a bomb had gone off inside the towers... but what finally broke me was she said that the workers who were in wheelchairs were totally helpless as she saw several people in wheelchairs screaming for help at the top of the stairs as those "able bodied" workers were stampeding down and past them trying to get out

I know thousands have died but imagine not being able to "get up" out your chair and at least try and run for it...

Terrible, just an apalling waste of life...

Somebody must pay for this hideous mass murder of innocent people...

[Worldlife]

Agree with you Bill the plight of the wheelchair people you mention was horrific.

I don't think it is fair to imply criticism here... it looks as if the situation so desperate that it was marginal whether able bodied people could escape from the disaster areas. Stopping to help a disabled person in these circumstances would certainly have resulted in two deaths instead of providing one person with a chance of getting away.

Maybe because of these terrorist activities disabled people will in future have to carefully consider the consequences to themselves and others of being in situations where they may have problems in an emergency where power supplies to lifts etc fail.

In these exceptional circumstances I understand it was taking able bodied people from upper levels of the building up to half an hour to descend staircases to reach the ground floor. How much longer would it have taken untrained people to carry a disabled person with them and how many would have the physical strength to do so?

Recently I saw a man who had suffered a severe ski accident being returned home on a stretcher using three seats of a normal commercial flight. There was immense difficulty in manouevering the stretcher from the front door of the aircraft, through the lobby behind the cockpit door and then into the main cabin.

In an emergency situation I fear this person, needing substantial help in evacuation, could have affected the chances of other people in getting out of the aircraft safely.

Much rethinking and planning will be necessary as a result of these incidents.

[dagwood]

That is truly depressing!!!!

[squidgy]

Originally, one thought that went through my mind was that if a tall building such as the World Trade Centre (which, after all, does feature prominently in the landscapes of a handful of flight-simulator games) is unable to withstand the impact of an aircraft collision, then it doesn't exactly say a lot for its structure.

But then it was pointed out to me that, in fact, it DID withstand the impact. What happened, though, was that the terrorists chose planes that had a recent fuel refill, so as to maximise the explosion effect. The heat of the fire softened the steel structure, and it was this that caused the building to collapse, albeit after a significant time delay .... although not long enough to evacuate the building.

I suggest that if the aircraft that crashed into the buildings were low on fuel, then the buildings would have withstood the impact, there wouldn't have been a big explosion, and the buildings would still be standing now. Ok, no doubt the aircraft passengers would all be dead, but at least the vast majority of the people in the building and surrounding area would have been alive and relatively uninjured - and that's got to be better, no?

I also suggest not relying on steel girders alone to keep buildings of this height up. It's ok for small buildings only a few floors high, but not for something like the World Trade Centre. Hey, maybe they shouldn't be putting up such tall buildings anyway. I can't help thinking that there's something slightly freudian about this trend .... it's more than just the price of land space.

Yes, flight security has been tightened up as a result of this, but I also hope that lessons are learned with regard to basic safety of aircraft and building structures. It's not just terrorist activity that can pose such threats .... there are such things as "natural disasters" as well, and buildings with a high population need to be able to withstand both.

[Robin]

the steel in those structures, hold the damn things up its the combined properties of concrete and steel that let you get so high, before this you could only get so high before buildings crushed themselves (thats why the cathedral @ St Malo has a wooden roof)


Personally i'm suprised its taken so long for some group to decide to fly a plane into something but you can hardly take something so unlikely into the design plan. anyway wasnt the trade centre build in the 70's when people loved using wonderful new techniques?

[Bill Stoupe]

What an awful dilemma eh ?

Try and save yourself from the towers or delay your hopeful own safe exit and try and help someone less fortunate than yourself down the stairs....

I don't think there is anyone on here in the heat of the moment who would acually stop and help someone else - admit it.

I mean people were jumping from the windows for heavens sake

What a sad, sad day it was.

[Worldlife]

Thanks Bill.... felt a little guilty expressing truthfully my feelings about this particularly devasting aspect of the disaster.

[Worldlife]

squidgy I've been thinking about the point you made:-

I suggest that if the aircraft that crashed into the buildings were low on fuel, then the buildings would have withstood the impact, there wouldn't have been a big explosion, and the buildings would still be standing now. Ok, no doubt the aircraft passengers would all be dead, but at least the vast majority of the people in the building and surrounding area would have been alive and relatively uninjured - and that's got to be better, no?

I have in mind that other buildings in the area that were not hit by aircraft or subject of severe explosion were also damaged to an extent that caused them to collapse.

Can't help thinking there might be some inherent design engineering or building faults here.

[squidgy]

I notice that a finger of blame was pointed at Microsoft's flight simulators earlier today. It's got to be said, but they make the World Trade Centre a prominent feature of the landscape, so if you've ever played with it, the idea of crashing an aircraft into these buildings is screamingly obvious.

But then I suppose you'd get that with any tall building. If it weren't for tall buildings, what would have happened instead? Maybe a plane might have been crashed into a low area which was considered to have high population. So I'm now wondering how the death toll in this kind of situation would compare.

You know the impact this is going to have on the property market. High rises will fall out of favour seriously with the property-buying and renting public. Ground space, on the other hand, may go up slightly to compensate for the resulting non-availability of desirable space in high rises. (In fact I'm rather nervous now, because I live just opposite one that belongs to a big insurance company. Having said that, how daft is that? An insurance company occupying the tallest building for miles around! Kinda suggests that they don't actually give a monkeys ....)