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By Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, Washington, D.C. prosecutor
FOXNews.com
April 22, 2010

I know this because I was working as a journalist for Gannett News at Ground Zero that day, and I remember very clearly what I saw and heard.

Although I arrived at Ground Zero shortly after the Twin Towers fell, I was in the danger zone created by Building 7 from the moment it collapsed in the afternoon, an event that is one of the key cornerstones of the 9/11 conspiracy theory.

Governor Ventura and many 9/11 “Truthers” allege that government explosives caused the afternoon collapse of Building 7. I know this because I remember watching all 47 stories of Building 7 suddenly and silently crumble before my eyes.

Shortly before the building collapsed, several NYPD officers and Con-Edison workers told me that Larry Silverstein, the property developer of One World Financial Center was on the phone with his insurance carrier to see if they would authorize the controlled demolition of the building – since its foundation was already unstable and expected to fall.

A controlled demolition would have minimized the damage caused by the building’s imminent collapse and potentially save lives. Many law enforcement personnel, firefighters and other journalists were aware of this possible option. There was no secret.

While I was talking with a fellow reporter and several NYPD officers, Building 7 suddenly collapsed, and before it hit the ground, not a single sound emanated from the tower area. There were no explosives; I would have heard them. In fact, I remember that in those few seconds, as the building sank to the ground that I was stunned by how quiet it was.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/21/jeffrey-scott-shapiro-jesse-
venture-book-lies-truthers-ground-zero-sept-shame/

http://www.infowars.com/bombshell-silverstein-wanted-to-demolish-build
ing-7-on-911/

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by Pacific Blasting and Demolition
www.PacificBlasting.com

Although less than 200 lbs. of dynamite and detonating ("det") cord will be required for the Pacific Palisades building, those charges have to be placed with great precision to be effective. The basic idea is to weaken the columns on one side of the building's lower floors, starting at the bottom and working upward over a period of about ten seconds. Each charge will cut through the concrete of a column and the weight of the structure above will start the collapse.

Part of the art of implosion demolition involves slowing the event down in many small, calculated blasts instead of one huge explosion. That is accomplished with time-delay blasting caps that will initiate the dynamite and det cord over a period of several seconds.

Explosives come in all sorts of forms--gels, granules, powders, cord, liquids, plastics (in blocks and sheets), and old reliable, stick dynamite. All have properties designed for specific conditions. Huge quantities are used every year, often in urban areas and often without anybody even noticing the detonations.

Dynamite won't detonate unless "initiated" with a priming charge, normally from a blasting cap. While some blasting is still done with time fuse and suitable nonelectric caps, virtually all construction and building demolition blasting today uses only electrical caps, fired by wire from a remote location. That means that you can wire 100 charges into a big firing circuit and fire them all at the same instant with a single push of a button. Timed detonating caps allow you to press that same single button and stagger your single explosions by ten seconds or more.

Rather than firing all the charges at once, they design the shot to evolve over a period of ten or fifteen seconds. That's possible because blasting caps are now available with built-in and extremely accurate tiny fuses that permit delays of ten or more seconds. For a tall building like Pacific Palisades, the charges on the lowest floors and in the basement fire first, chopping the base from under part of the building and leaving part intact to act as a kind of hinge. The weight of the structure will begin to pull the building down in a controlled direction. The remaining charges fire at preset intervals of about one second, fracturing the structure's internal supports, weakening it from the inside out. Then, as it falls, the once strong structure's own weight tears it apart leaving nothing but a pile of pulverized concrete and reinforcing rod.

Early in the design sequence, a column is found, normally in the basement, for a test shot. Based on a core sample and available information about the nature of the material in the column, locations will be marked for placement of explosives. The drill crew bore the holes to specifications, usually dead center and almost all the way through. On a job like Pacific Palisades, four holes might be drilled into the test column, each deep enough for four 8 inch sticks of dynamite.

Then, after receiving authority from the city for the shot. The holes are loaded and fired. Deep inside the building, the blast's noise and "fly rock" are fully enclosed; people nearby probably don't even hear the detonation.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080505050918/www.pacificblasting.com/impl
osionstory.html

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