Discussion on Building Safety and Security

None of what we were looking at in 7 was beyond our scope to

extinguish.

So he and I made our way over to the entrance of the building.

Before we arrived there,

there was a construction worker who happened to be

He emerged from the dust cloud and walked past

the chief and I,

uh, and he said

he had overheard the chief's comment,

and he paused and said,

"That'll be coming down around 5:00."

Referring to the building?

Yes. We arrived at 7:00, and there were two paramilitarily

clad

men with, uh, black rifles,

sunglasses.

Um,

and as we approached the entrance,

they closed ranks and said, one of them said, "This

building has been secured,"

which is odd because in my experience in the FDNY, anybody

preventing

access to the fire department in the event of a fire, that's a criminal

act.

Uh, the chief and I were not in a position to argue the

point

given the, um,

inequality in weaponry present.

There are acknowledged experts

could never possibly call

with that accuracy, particularly for a

fireproof building that was not struck by an

aircraft. That building had no reason to come down.

There's no history of a high-rise fire

in a fireproof resulting in failure of the building because the building

is in New York City parlance a Class 1,

which is a single word,

fireproof.

Even if the contents are totally incinerated,

the shell will still

remain.