ENGINEERS - Tackle havoc beneath Trade Centergreenspun.com : LUSENET : Current News : One Thread |
This is only a snup, nicked from Lucianne. NYTimesOn Friday afternoon in Midtown Manhattan, George J. Tamaro, professional engineer, was holding court among conference tables stacked with blueprints dense with threadlike lines. He was trying to resurrect what had suddenly become a ghost world. As a staff engineer for the Port Authority in 1967, Mr. Tamaro helped build the World Trade Center's basement, a 16-acre, 70-foot- deep hole in the ground that until last Tuesday housed seven levels of shopping, parking and, at the very bottom, the PATH train station. Now he and others are concerned that debris from the collapse of the twin towers might be the only thing supporting the walls of that giant hole against the pressure of muck and water and dirt on the outside. Attempts to dig out the basement without proper precautions, they fear, could cause the walls to shift or rupture, leading to flooding and the destabilization of nearby buildings.
-- Anonymous, September 18, 2001