Why weren't these simple devices used on 9/11?
Asked by
seVen (
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August 29th, 2008
from iPhone
wouldn’t emergency parachutes, inflatable slides, water containing firefighting helicopter(especially that water was near the towers) prevent more if not all life on 9/11?...
or an extractable bridge to the next tower, or fortified bunker at the base of the building.
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13 Answers
A helicopter dropping water on the towers would have been rather ineffective. All the water or firefighting agent would have fallen on the roof, rather than on the fire many stories down from the roof. As for all the other stuff—how many skyscrapers do you know that stock parachutes?
More lives would have been saved, had the occupants of either tower just exited the building via the stairs, instead of watching and waiting and believing that, “the Titanic is UNSINKABLE!”
Believe me, had I been in either building that day, I would have been down those stairs in a flash, and I would have done anything possible (including using an empty gun) to force my co-workers to accompany me.
Some folks just refuse to believe/accept that they are in mortal danger, until it is too late.
August 29, 2008, 9:38 AM EDT
An inflatable slide from that high?
@gooch—Yeah, maybe one of these would’ve been a better idea.
The basic tally is that (2) skyscrapers total, in the history of skyscrapers, have been brought down by airplanes crashing into them. Any less than that, and the stairwells would have stayed fireproof long enough for people to get down then. The people above where the planes struck didn’t get out, the people below did, ergo basement bunkers would not haveh helped.
Helicopters couldn’t rescue people off the roofs because the heat was too intense, and the fires were, anyway, burning too far down for water drops (as Poser said).
Inflatable bridges are ineffective, for the same reason as my first argument—the stairwells would have held had the fires not been caused by a high-speed airplane impact.
Emergency parachutes, same deal.
You have to remember that most fires in skyscrapers are relatively contained, and don’t include impact events that break up fireproofing and stairwell walls.
Security and safety are tradeoffs—as the adage goes, we can’t build airplanes out of the same stuff that we build the blackboxes in the airplanes, becuase the roads aren’t wide enough.
Not EVERY stairwell was made impassible above the impact areas in the two towers.
At least one or two (I’ve been told) were in “unaffected corners” of each building, and allowed for some occupants to safely evacuate.
An announcement over the PA system advised the occupants to “stay where you are and remain calm. Help is on the way.” That is precisely why more people did not try to leave the buildings.
The person who made that announcement (and those who authorized it) should have been shot. Repeatedly.
August 29, 2008, 12:48 PM EDT
I do believe a giant frizzer on each floor of tall buildings should be mandatory for safety…as long as they aren’t put into place by New York cranes.
you have to remember that it’s not like people could just walk out of the buildings, there were security guards telling people to go back upstairs, and there was a huge concern about people being hit with debris. While it’s easy to sit here and wonder why the victims didn’t do this or that….it is a insult to everyone who died that day to assume they didn’t do everything possible to live. You were not there, they were…so have a little god damn respect!
@cheeb – great answer. thank you for saying that.
I lost some cousins that day; I used to live in Flushing (Queens).
Had they left the building immediately, they would be alive today.
August 29, 2008, 7:54 PM EDT
@JackAdams: That’s par for the course in most building Jack. I work in a 15 floor hotel. Our PA says to sit tight as a measure to control panic and fear which can sometimes hurt more people than a fire would. We only tell people to evacuate if they would feel more comfortable until we KNOW there’s something wrong. This was an event unlike any other. You can’t plan for that or expect anyone to have reacted any differently. I’m sorry about your cousins, I had a grandfather who lived about a mile from the WTC and I was very worried about him at the time. Thankfully, he was fine. I know others are not as lucky.
That being said if I knew there were flames I’d grab the mic and tell people to get the fuck out.
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