Wha t kind of shit is this

[EWolfe]

shit

[mattp]

AARON1 said:

This kind of crap pisses me off. Don't you think if, and that is a big if, the airlines, Boeing, Port Authority, and WTC have any responcibility the people going into the building have some responcibility. If the defendents in the lawsuit should have known that this would happen shouldn't the people going to work in the WTC have known.

 

In the context of the litigation that was mentioned at the outset of this thread, I think one of the first questions would be whether the airlines, Boeing, Port Authority, or the WTC had some kind of duty to take some precautionary measures that they elected not to take. My guess is that the answer to this question is vague but mostly no. (RobBob noted that any civil engineer probably already knows that the buildings were going to collapse after being hit, though, so maybe they should have ordered an evacuation quicker or something). If the answer to this first question is yes, it would then be time to look at whether and how the failure on the part of the airlines, Boeing, Port Authority, or WTC may have actually caused injury (death) to the "victims" and then the third general question would be whether the "victims" had similar duties or ability to foresee the disaster or what they may have failed to do to protect themselves.

 

By the way, I gotta say that I agree with the general feeling that I don't think the victim's families should be able to prevail in this matter, and also the idea (not expressed) that the airlines, Boeing, Port Authority, and WTC were also "victims" here.

[j_b]

so, is someone going to sue over this:

 

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=BPSTGU41GRF02CRBAELCFFA?type=healthNews&storyID=3421429

 

Study Finds WTC Fires Spewed Toxic Gases for Weeks

Wed September 10, 2003 12:35 PM ET

 

 

By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The burning ruins of the World Trade Center spewed toxic gases "like a chemical factory" for at least six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks despite government assurances the air was safe, according to a study released on Wednesday.

 

The gases of toxic metals, acids and organics could penetrate deeply into the lungs of workers at Ground Zero, said the study by scientists at the University of California at Davis and released at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in New York.

 

Lead study author Thomas Cahill, a professor of physics and engineering, said conditions would have been "brutal" for workers at Ground Zero without respirators and slightly less so for those working or living in adjacent buildings.

 

"The debris pile acted like a chemical factory," Cahill said. "It cooked together the components and the buildings and their contents, including enormous numbers of computers, and gave off gases of toxic metals, acids and organics for at least six weeks."

 

The report comes amid questions about air quality at Ground Zero and what the public was told by the government.

 

Last month, an internal report by Environmental Protection Agency Inspector General Nikki Tinsley said the White House pressured the agency to make premature statements that the air was safe to breathe.

 

The EPA issued an air quality statement on Sept. 18, 2001, even though it "did not have sufficient data and analyzes to make the statement," the report said.

 

The White House "convinced the EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones," Tinsley said. Among the information withheld was the potential health hazards of breathing asbestos, lead, concrete and pulverized glass, the report said.

 

New York leaders including Sen. Hillary Clinton have called on the Justice Department to investigate.

 

EPA acting administrator Marianne Horinko has defended the agency, saying it used the best information it had available.

 

According to the newly released UC-Davis study, after the towers collapsed, tons of concrete, glass, furniture, carpets, insulation, computers and papers burned until Dec. 19, 2001.

 

Some elements of the debris combined with organic matter and chlorine from papers and plastics and escaped to the surface as metal-rich gases that either burned or chemically decomposed into very fine particles that could easily penetrate deep into human lungs, it said.

 

Specifically, the study said samples from Ground Zero found four types of particles listed by the EPA as likely to harm human health -- fine metals that can damage lungs, sulfuric acid that attacks lung cells, fine undissolvable particles of glass that can travel through the lungs to the bloodstream and heart and high-temperature carcinogenic organic matter.

 

Measurements made at Ground Zero in May 2002, months after the fires were out, showed levels of nearly all the fine components had declined more than 90 percent, the study said.