Debunkers Use Ludicrous Freeway Comparison To Attack 9/11 Truth

I didn't know people were seriously comparing these things...



Debunkers Use Ludicrous Freeway Comparison To Attack 9/11 Truth
Desperation evident as thin rebars impacted by gasoline firestorm compared to twin tower's thick steel beams and concrete core
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
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[align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] [align=left] Debunkers have again betrayed their desperation by citing the partial collapse of a freeway bridge in San Francisco to claim that the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center towers and Building 7 has been discredited. In reality, the comparison is ludicrous and wildly inaccurate.

Nationally syndicated radio host Neil Boortz and other Neo-Con talking heads immediately seized on the bridge collapse in unison as part of a coordinated attack on the 9/11 Truth Movement.

Even mainstream science and technology websites jumped on the bandwagon, "When the I-580 overpass buckled, it brought back memories of the World Trade Center," reported Wired News.

Such bold assertions were notably absent when the 32-story Windsor Building in Madrid was gutted by intense fires for 28 hours but did not collapse in February 2005.

The frenzy was particularly evident at Fark.com, with posters reveling in the notion that the freeway accident had made "WTC conspiracy theories collapse as quickly as that highway did." Farkers, who judging from the website spend most of their time discussing hookers, obese lesbians and lauding a "semi-hot female coach getting it on with an underage female student," attacked 9/11 truthers for their lack of scientific credentials.

So in response to the numerous naysayers desperately clamoring for anything to stop the wild runaway popularity and growing credibility of the 9/11 Truth Movement, we talked to a physicist and a steel welding expert about the freeway collapse and why it is completely outlandish to compare it with the fall of Building 7 and the towers.

Professor Steven Jones, a Ph.D. physicist and cold fusion expert, joined Alex Jones on the air yesterday to talk about the monumental differences between the two collapses.

Jones said that the notion that steel supporting columns completely melted from fire is impossible and that what actually happened was that thin supporting bolts were warped, resulting in the collapse of the bridge section. In comparison, the south tower of the World Trade Center imploded at almost free fall speed, proving that even if the "truss failure" theory was accurate, the building would not have collapsed in 10 seconds with no resistance and would not have aerosolized, turning concrete support pillars into dust.

If the building had pancaked, the collapse would have taken around 40 seconds according to recent studies undertaken by Steven Jones' colleagues, almost four times longer than what was witnessed. In addition, the "pancake" collapse of the freeway did not even manage to collapse the section of road below it, whereas the collapse of the south tower pulverized over 10 floors a second.
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The freeway section was made of highly flammable asphalt and took the brunt of a gigantic gasoline explosion with open air fires shooting 200 feet in the air. In comparison, the twin towers were impacted by aluminum planes filled with significantly less flammable kerosene and suffered limited fires that were oxygen-starved and almost out before the collapses occurred.

Building 7 was not hit by anything save a small amount of debris from the towers and suffered limited fires across just eight floors. In addition, explosions were being reported by occupants within WTC 7 before the towers had even collapsed.

The columns supporting the freeway were not pulverized into dust as in the case of the towers, but are clearly still standing as can be seen in all the photographs.

http://prisonplanet.com/images/april...07freeway4.jpg

Halfway through the discussion with Steven Jones, a steel welding expert joined the conversation to express his incredulity at the fact that Fox News was comparing the collapse of the highway with the World Trade Center buildings.

"You can't even begin to compare 5 inch thick steel plate core columns, approximately 2 foot by 5 foot rectangle 5 inch thick boxes to quarter inch and 3 quarter inch dowels that connect the steel to the support members," said the steel expert.

"The logical deduction is that the rebar steel was exposed horizontally, that whole bridge surface and it was exposed intention, not like the fires that were lapping up fire-proofed 5 inch thick plate columns in the World Trade Center - these little bars had no heat sink and after two hours with all that weight on them they fell."

Debunkers have also failed to acknowledge the fact that freeways in the San Francisco area have already been weakened by multiple earthquakes and regularly collapse entirely of their own accord by accident.

Highway sections across the country have collapsed with no fire damage whatsoever being involved, including a case in Oklahoma in 2002 when a 500-foot section of an Interstate-40 bridge collapsed after barge collided with a bridge support.

The website Stop The Lie also compiled an excellent analysis debunking claims that the freeway collapse in any way mirrors what happened at the World Trade Center and that article is reproduced below.
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I can already hear defenders of the official account screaming "See, fire can cause a steel structure to collapse-the bridge collapsed!"

Comparing the circumstances surrounding the fire and subsequent partial collapse of this bridge to the circumstances surrounding the fires and subsequent complete collapse of the towers and WTC 7 is flawed from end to end. This fact should be obvious to most people; but let's point out a few things just in case they weren't already noticed.

1. This was an open air environment where flames were able to reach their absolute maximum temperature; white-hot and shooting upwards of 200 feet in the air.
http://prisonplanet.com/images/april...07freeway1.jpg
2. Those 200 foot flames were acting on a single support truss that was fastened to the two columns pictured here. That truss (and the connectors that fastened it to the columns) represents a small fraction of the steel that would have been found on a single floor of the towers or WTC 7. So again, far more heat focused on a single truss and no way to redistribute the load once that truss was weakened.

http://prisonplanet.com/images/april...07freeway2.jpg

3. You'll notice that despite the intense fires ability to weaken the truss and connectors that there is NO mention of molten metal in the debris. Also, unlike the debris of the towers and WTC 7, it's not likely we're going to hear anything about thermate (specifically used to destroy steel columns) in the bridge debris.

[IMG]http://prisonplanet.com/images/april2007/300407freeway3.jpg[/IMG
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4. You'll notice that the concrete roadway that "pancaked down" on the roadway below did not cause the lower freeway to collapse. Nor has the concrete disintegrated into a fine powder.

5. You'll notice the columns were not torn down by the collapse, nor did they evaporate into thin air, rather they are still standing (having only lost the the truss and connectors that held the roadway to them.)
http://prisonplanet.com/images/april...07freeway4.jpg
So to quickly recap:

White-hot 200 foot flames acting on a single truss (and no ability to redistribute the load once weakened.)

No molten metal and certainly no thermate found

No column failure

No evaporation / pulverization of concrete

No "pancake collapse"

-Ending with a paragraph from The 1-hour Guide to 9/11.

For the record, few in the scientific community doubt that it's theoretically possible for a building to experience failure if it is subjected to devastating heat for a sufficient period of time. And additional factors like no fire-proofing, no sprinkler systems, insufficient steel to "bleed off" heat or inferior construction greatly increase the possibility. However, what is "doubted" (or more accurately; considered downright impossible) is that such a failure would resemble anything like what was witnessed on 9/11. -Gradual, isolated, asymmetrical failures spread out over time; perhaps -simultaneous disintegration of all load bearing columns (leaving a pile of neatly folded rubble a few stories high) -no way.

We stand by that assertion. For a more detailed argument see Fire Initiated Collapse - Primary Arguments Against.
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