The story...
The WTC steel was neatly split into 30 foot sections during the collapse, something that could only happen through demolition.
Our take...
Morgan Reynolds lists this as one pointer to the towers being demolished.
The steel beams and columns came down in sections under 30 feet long and had no signs of "softening"; there was little left but shorn sections of steel and a few bits of concrete.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reynolds/reynolds12.htmlIt's a neat claim, but with no references to back it up. Who measured each column? Are we sure this applies to every single one? Where's the evidence to back up the claim? Or do we just take it on faith?
No, actually, let’s try looking at a photo, instead.
This doesn’t appear to show any great consistency: there are small, broken peripheral columns, but also what appear to be some very large sections, which look like they’ve simply toppled over.
But let’s just assume that someone decided that, although there was a mix of lengths of steel, there were more about the 30 foot mark than they might have expected. Why might this be?
Perhaps there’s a clue in the construction of the peripheral columns, as described in FEMAs report:
The structural steel used in the exterior 14-inch by 14-inch columns that were spaced at 3 feet 4 inches on center around the entire periphery of each of the WTC towers was fabricated from various grades of high-strength steel... The cross-sectional shape of the columns can be seen in Figure B-1. These varied in length from 12 feet 6 inches to 38 feet, depending on the plate thickness and location.
http://www.civil.columbia.edu/ce4210/FEMA_403CD/html/pdfs/403_apb.pdfHere’s a drawing of how the columns were constructed.
And here’s a picture taken during WTC construction. Note the red columns in the background.
So the columns were only a maximum of 38 feet long in the first place. If they were to break at the point where one column was attached to the next, it's not at all surprising that they came out in regular lengths, and certainly not something that requires demolition to explain.
