When the Twin
Towers fell
in lower Manhattan on 911, numerous deaths were caused by U.S. regulators as
well as by the terrorists.
The
Twin Towers were the first skyscrapers whose steel scaffolding was not insulated
with asbestos. When burning airplane fuel flooded the upper floors, the
substitute insulation failed to prevent the steel from melting. The huge weight
of the upper floors then fell on the lower floors, causing them to fail one by
one, even though their steel scaffolding had not melted.
Asbestos,
treated by regulators as a no-no, would probably have prevented the scaffolding
on the upper floors from melting long enough to allow people on lower floors to
escape. Many lives would likely have been saved.
