Learning from 9/11: Understanding the Collapse of the World Trade Center:Questioning

''This is a new article. As such is has been set to unassessed.

1st session
Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much, Dr. Bement. And thank all of you. And the Chair is going to be somewhat arbitrary in the initial round of questioning, restricting, including the Chair, to five minutes, and then we will have a second round and as many rounds as are necessary.

Mr. Shea, in your statement, you said rightly so that FEMA's singular goal in the immediate aftermath of the attack was to support local jurisdictions in the rescue of trapped firefighters and workers. Nothing had a higher priority. Page 122      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHEA. Right.

Chairman BOEHLERT. And I can certainly understand that. But can you explain why the BPAT team was not able to enter the site until October, even though volunteers were at the site almost immediately and the ASCE team was in place within days? Why October?

Mr. SHEA. Perhaps, the best way to do this—Dr. Corley, maybe you can help explain why we were there in October.

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. I can add some information to that. The team, as it was officially put together, indeed, did not get to the site until October. However, as early as the Saturday after the attack, we had at least three people who, at that time, were on our team, on-site, in connection with the search and rescue, and they were beginning to collect information at that time.

Chairman BOEHLERT. But mostly observing. I mean, the most important thing going on right then was the search and rescue effort, but there was no organized effort to gather evidence, if you will. And I know there is some dispute between you and Dr. Corbett in your statements where you say the investigation or the review has not been compromised because of so-called lost evidence, and Dr. Corbett feels it was. In fact, it seems to me an inordinate amount of time before the BPAT team was in there really doing something. A couple of people there is not what I would consider the type of response necessary.

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. Well, those people were, indeed, collecting very vital information to us. But the reason that we were unable to get in until that time was that the combination of the search and rescue and the criminal investigation were the things that we understand, at least, were preventing us from getting access. Page 123      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Chairman BOEHLERT. Well, they were more of observers. They didn't have badges. They weren't there in any official capacity that anyone could identify. But—well, that is something we are going to——

Mr. CORBETT. Yes.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. Talk more about. And, incidentally, these questions today—we are not going to get to all the questions obviously, and we are determined to be as thorough as possible. So—and this is not coming out of my time because I am making this observation from the chair. But we are going to follow up with very specific questions and we want specificity in your responses in a very timely manner. We are all very serious about this. And our objective is not to point fingers at anyone. Our objective is to get to the bottom of it and to make certain we do what is necessary to prevent something like this from ever happening again.

Dr. Bement, you know, why did NIST play initially, at least it appears to us, sort of a passive and minor role in getting on with the investigation? Is it because there is no clear definition of who has responsibility for what?

Dr. BEMENT. Well, I take your question as support for the fact that we should do this investigation, except we should have done it sooner, perhaps.

Chairman BOEHLERT. I agree. And I agree.

Page 124      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Dr. BEMENT. The role of NIST is somewhat circumscribed by statute. We——

Chairman BOEHLERT. And where things are circumscribed, we are going to make it crystal clear——

Dr. BEMENT. Thank you.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. So there is no doubt in the future.

Dr. BEMENT. We have anxiety about that. As a matter of fact, we have been a very strong advocate for this establishment of a National Construction Studies Board that would operate very similar to a National Transportation Studies Board that would overcome some of the deficiencies in being able to carry on the timely investigation that you are talking about. And we, at NIST, would be very happy to work with the Committee in developing that policy.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Staff has just pointed out to me that very specifically in the law, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, on its own initiative, but only after consultation with local authorities, initiates and conducts investigations to determine the causes of the structural failures and etcetera, etcetera.

Dr. BEMENT. That is correct. But we will work with you. As a matter of fact, acting on that authority, I requested the reprogramming action that is coming up to the Hill now to provide the funding to continue the work that we are currently doing. Also, during the months of November and December, we did have numerous meetings with authorities in New York to do just what this authority requires—consultation with the local authorities. And the letters that I submitted for the record are in response to those meetings and those understandings. Page 125      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

We felt it was very important early to get full concurrence and full cooperation because of the vital information that is held by the Port Authority, by the designers of the building, and other sources of vital information. So we have been marshaling that support.

Chairman BOEHLERT. You know, one of the things that really bothers me is we don't have a system in place where there is immediacy to get a team onsite, not to interfere in any way, shape, or manner with search and rescue, because that is the most important——

Dr. BEMENT. Right.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. Activity of all—but a team onsite to immediately begin to have a video and oral history of what happened and when it happened. And I noticed in some of the testimony—and I have spent hours reading all the testimony, because I want you to know this—I am not the only one—we are all very serious about this mission.

Dr. BEMENT. Right.

Chairman BOEHLERT. But I noticed the networks have been asked to cooperate, and they have been, but slowly. And as we are assembling this whole record of what happened in the film—but wouldn't it seem to make sense that we have somebody, whether it is in the NIST shop or FEMA shop, or somebody, a team of people immediately onsite at a disaster, particularly one of this magnitude—— Page 126      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. Yes.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. To start recording?

Dr. BEMENT. I fully agree.

Chairman BOEHLERT. And so that we don't have Dr. Corley and Dr. Corbett at odds some time in the future as we are conducting this review. Dr. Corley says he doesn't feel the investigation was compromised because we have enough steel. A lot of people say a lot of that steel is gone. We don't have the evidence we need to investigate to know what happened and when. But if we had that immediate team of people——

Dr. BEMENT. Right.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. With a video and oral history of it being recorded, that would——

Dr. BEMENT. A video record would have been—or a photographic record of some of these pieces would have been terribly important.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Yeah. Listen, I could occupy this whole morning and this whole afternoon, and this whole week with questions, but my time has expired. We will have another round. Mr. Weiner, you are next.

Page 127      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Mr. WEINER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I have a question for the Panel. Will the person who is in charge of the investigation raise their hand? [   ] Well, that was two hands and one flinch. Who is——

Dr. BEMENT. Oh. No. I——

Mr. WEINER. Oh. That is a third hand.

Dr. BEMENT. I have authority for the investigation.

Mr. WEINER. Okay. And, Dr. Astaneh, why do you raise your hand if he is in charge? Yes, sir.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Dr. Astaneh, do you want to respond?

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. I thought you asked, raise your hand if you are—you were investigating?

Mr. WEINER. No. I want to know who is in charge. Where does the buck stop on this panel on this investigation? Oh, no one. Yes, sir. Okay.

Dr. BEMENT. No. It depends when you ask your question or when you reference your question. NIST operates under the Federal Response Plan where we provide technical support to the emergency agencies that have responsibility for the emergency. This would be FEMA, primarily, and the Corps of Engineers—— Page 128      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. WEINER. Dr. Bement, if you will forgive me, I have a very brief amount of time. Are you in charge of the investigation in to why the World Trade Center collapsed?

Dr. BEMENT. I now have authority to conduct this investigation. Yes.

Mr. WEINER. Okay. Is that as of—as of when?

Dr. BEMENT. Well, as of the concurrence of FEMA and the approval of the Secretary of Commerce.

Mr. WEINER. Okay. So if you are in charge, are you in power to sequester evidence?

Dr. BEMENT. Not under subpoena. But——

Mr. WEINER. Are you—all right. That was going to be my next question. Are you in power to issue a subpoena requiring that someone turn over a building plan?

Dr. BEMENT. Not at this time.

Mr. WEINER. Are you in power to require someone to provide information if they might have it? Page 129      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. Not under any mandatory conditions, but we can request and——

Mr. WEINER. Do you have the ability to visit Ground Zero this morning, point to a piece of steel and say, I need you to save that?

Dr. BEMENT. I can do that. Yes.

Mr. WEINER. You have the power and the law to do that?

Dr. BEMENT. I think I can do that now. Yes.

Mr. WEINER. I am sorry.

Dr. BEMENT. I think I can do that now.

Mr. WEINER. Do you need to check with a member of your staff? I mean, what do you mean, you think—can you or—it is not a—this is an easy part, I thought.

Dr. BEMENT. Well, as I said, I don't have subpoena authority and I have to work through FEMA. And I don't have control of the site. So I have limited——

Page 130      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Mr. WEINER. Has anyone——

Dr. BEMENT [continuing]. Authorities——

Mr. WEINER. Dr. Bement, has anyone——

Dr. BEMENT. And, incidentally——

Mr. WEINER. Yes.

Dr. BEMENT [continuing]. Just to take a second, again, we have to operate under the concurrence of local authority.

Mr. WEINER. Well, I recall being in—on Beach 130th Street in Rockaway watching the National Transportation Safety Board point to pieces of evidence, say to the local law enforcement, don't touch this or it is going to be a felony if you do. Do you have that authority?

Dr. BEMENT. That is exactly the authority I am asking for in——

Mr. WEINER. Okay.

Dr. BEMENT [continuing]. Establishing the National Construction Safety Board that would have the same authorities as the National Transportation Safety Board. Page 131      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. WEINER. Well, as you heard in my opening statement, I concur.

Dr. BEMENT. Right.

Mr. WEINER. Can I ask members of the Panel—and I am not sure—perhaps, Dr. Corbett—if you were to look at a piece of steel that was affected in a catastrophic way, do we have the scientific ability to draw conclusions about what caused that piece of steel to fail? Dr. Corbett, I think I would address it to you, sir.

Mr. CORBETT. Okay. Yes. I think we do. As a matter of fact, I know we do. And that is——

Mr. WEINER. And might that piece of information be helpful in building future buildings?

Mr. CORBETT. Certainly.

Mr. WEINER. Would members—would you, Dr. Corbett, in looking at a bunch of steel that, to me, just might look like twisted steel, be able to say that given where this was in the building or what kind of a joint it was, this is more important than that?

Mr. CORBETT. Yes. Page 132      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. WEINER. Is anyone on—has anyone on the panel been offered the opportunity to go take a look at the steel that came from that site to say, I want to study this one? This one is less important. Has anyone on the Panel, by a show of hands, had the ability to do that? Dr. Corley—the steel that is being recycled now by the City of New York, which is about 80 percent, according to what I have been told—has that steel all been looked at by a member of a panel or a committee that is studying the causes of this disaster?

Dr. CORLEY. Not all of it has been looked at.

Mr. WEINER. Are you concerned that what Dr. Corbett has just said to me, that you can look at a piece of steel, draw conclusions about it, and help prevent future accidents, that we have now lost, irrevocably, the opportunity to draw those conclusions?

Dr. CORLEY. With that steel that has been recycled, we have lost any opportunity to do that, however, we have identified a large number of pieces of steel that will provide us with that type of information.

Mr. WEINER. And if I could ask one further question, because now the yellow light is on, to Dr. Bement. You said that we have the capability to determine the impact of heat on structural failure in buildings.

Dr. BEMENT. That is correct.

Mr. WEINER. If we had done that type of analysis before September 11, could we have drawn some conclusions about how long a building would withstand—a building like the World Trade Center, would withstand the amount of heat and energy that was let loose in that building? Page 133      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. In——

Mr. WEINER. Could we have said——

Dr. BEMENT. In principle, yes.

Mr. WEINER. Okay. So we could have said, and had written down somewhere, that someone could have checked or referred to, you know what, this building has, based on this amount of energy being released, about four minutes.

Dr. BEMENT. That is correct.

Mr. WEINER. Okay. Do you believe that if we had that information before September 11, some of the people that are sitting behind you would not have lost loved ones?

Dr. BEMENT. Perhaps. Yes.

Mr. WEINER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you. The gentleman's time has expired. Dr. Bement, when did the transition occur? When was the torch passed? Initially—I mean, we agree that in the final analysis, NIST should have the responsibility and you should have the resources to do what we expect you to do, but we were not aware that the torch had been passed from FEMA, which has first responsibility. When did this occur? Page 134      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. We have been in continuing consultation with FEMA over the past—well, since the event, as a matter of fact. And we have had discussions on how best NIST could serve in carrying out this investigation. And we have asked for concurrence, not only from local authorities, but also from FEMA. And you will note from their letter they have supported our investigation. So we feel we have their complete support and authority to carry out the investigation.

Chairman BOEHLERT. But you are now officially in charge—does FEMA agree with that—officially in charge of the review and the preparation of the report?

Dr. BEMENT. Well, I would say that we are operating as if we are in charge, and I assume that we are in charge.

Chairman BOEHLERT. But does FEMA agree?

Mr. SHEA. Mr. Chairman, I think the situation, to state it factually, is that we have a responsibility with FEMA to continue on through the production of this Building Performance Assessment Team report, which is scheduled for April. The results of that report, and, of course, the National Institute of Standards and Technology is a member of the team, will then be transmitted to NIST for their further examination. But they are currently partnering with us on that effort.

Chairman BOEHLERT. But would you—I mean, I think it is fair to say that for several months it has been uncertain who was clearly in charge. Page 135      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHEA. I think that is an accurate statement.

Chairman BOEHLERT. And I think it is also fair to acknowledge that this is unprecedented.

Mr. SHEA. Uh-huh.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Well, Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And before you hit the dial, I would love to just, on behalf of Connecticut and New Jersey residents, just say that we, in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut all felt the impact of this. And the district I represent is 25 to 50 miles away. We have guests in our audience who lost loved ones. Some grandparents were lost—parents, children, husbands, and wives. And we could see the smoke from our district and turn on our TV and see our loved one and neighbors enclosed, encased in a building they couldn't get out of, that imploded before their very eyes. And I just, on behalf of them, thank you for having these hearings.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you, Mr. Shays. And now——

Mr. SHAYS. I——

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. The clock will start running.

Page 136      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I am kind of taken back by what has been said today and also by the excellent questions of Mr. Weiner. He is probably speaking a little loudly and a little quickly because he has five minutes, but his points are, I say—I think, tell it all. I am taken back, Mr. Shea, by your comment that no one thought these buildings would fall. And the fact that no one thought they would, but they did, would seem to me to be the very reason why we would have an investigation.

I am taken back by the fact that Dr. Bement said it is the worst building destruction in human history. So——

Dr. BEMENT. That is correct.

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. You know, it is like nothing else needs to be said other than to wonder why this didn't happen sooner. And we all can look at ourselves, Members of Congress, we were probably too focused on how do we deal with this war on terrorism to deal with the mundane things that needed to be dealt with right away.

I am interested to know why these buildings imploded rather than toppled? I am interested to know if they had toppled, would there have been a domino effect and would one building have triggered the fall of another and triggered the fall of another. And, to me, these seem like very valid questions that have to be answered. And I am interested—you focused—Dr. Astaneh, you focused on the structure of the steel and didn't mention the fire, and, Dr. Bement, you basically focused on the fire. Just with the structure of the steel without the fire, would this building ever collapsed?

Page 137      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. No. In my opinion, the reason for collapse of building was because of the softening and weakening of the steel after the impact was done and the fire was going on.

Mr. SHAYS. But you showed the building when you took the plane away, but showed the damage, and you showed that basically some of the steel was just shot.

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. Yes. But these structures—certainly these structures, the World Trade Center, were designed in a very redundant way, which means if you take many members out, still the remaining members can redistribute the load and carry the remaining the load. So even if you take a few columns—in this case, maybe 30 percent, 40 percent of columns were lost on one face of the building, the remaining columns were able to carry the load. If we did not have the fire, the buildings would have stood up as they did for one hour.

Mr. SHAYS. When we—when I was elected in '87, when Stewart McKinney passed away, at that very moment in time, we had the collapse of a lift-slab structure in Bridgeport, and it imploded. You know, one floor came down and then the others came down. Why didn't this building topple? And if it had toppled, would it have potentially knocked down other buildings?

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. The collapse that you mentioned, as well as collapse of World Trade Center, the eventual cause of most collapses is the gravity. Buildings are standing up because we have supports under the floors and floors are supported on the columns. As soon as you remove the support, the gravity does the final damage and pulls the building down. In this case, because the fire damaged the columns and floors and softened them, the gravity is the cause that collapsed. That is why it imploded and came down. Page 138      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

To answer your question about whether or not it could be toppled, my own feeling initially was, and it still is, that they may have tried, these terrorists, to actually topple the buildings, which would have been a disastrous event, toppling those structures on the World Trade—on the Wall Street area.

But the structures were designed for a very high level of storm, very high level of force, and 707——

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL [continuing]. Airplane.

Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Corley, do you agree with that?

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. Dr. Astaneh is correct in what he said, that it is the gravity that is the primary cause.

Mr. SHAYS. Is there ever a concern about a domino effect?

Dr. CORLEY. In most buildings, no. In low buildings, in very high seismic regions, you may have enough lateral load resistance in the building that they can topple. And I have seen a few buildings do that in very high seismic zones. These buildings generally will start to topple over, but then gravity will take over and come down. Building #2 did, in fact, lean a fair amount before it came down. Page 139      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHAYS. Just very quickly, my last question. Mr. Shea, I noticed you getting a little uneasy when Mr. Weiner was asking questions as to whether Dr. Bement had the authority or not. And I was uneasy watching you——

Mr. SHEA. Okay.

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. Frankly, because it does strike me that six months after the fact there shouldn't even have been any doubt. I mean, obviously, we have to deal with some statutory responsibilities and authority, but it sounds to me like you had the ability to give him power and he says he took it and accepts it. But why wasn't it clear?

Mr. SHEA. Well, let me, if I can, try and characterize that for you. From the—from day one, from the date of the disaster, when the President declared the disaster, FEMA had, and we undertook, our responsibilities to conduct a building performance assessment. But I think the question was different. The question was, who had the authority to investigate. We do not have authority to investigate. We do not have analogous authority to the NTSB or the FBI or other law-enforcement types of agencies.

What we did, and we continue to this day, to have the authority to carry forward with the Building Performance Assessment Team. And it is when that report is completed in April that we intend to, in effect, pass the baton on.

During the entire period of time, however, the American Society of Civil Engineers to the National Institute of Standards and Technology—they have all been partners in that effort. So if I was acting uncomfortable, it was because I was concerned about the way the questions were being phrased versus the answers. Page 140      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you. And, Mr. Shea, you have given a compelling argument for the need for an immediate development of a protocol so that we know clearly who is in charge.

Mr. SHEA. Yeah.

Chairman BOEHLERT. That is absolutely essential. And the immediate question I have—it appears that FEMA didn't talk to city officials about preserving or documenting the steel that was being removed from the site. Or at least, the city says FEMA never talked about it, which leads us to the Corley versus Corbett debate on what evidence was lost and how important it is to the overall investigation.

Does FEMA play an active role in facilitating the investigation? It seems to me you do. So——

Mr. SHEA. Well, clearly, in terms of facilitating any assessment of the activity, the answer is, yes, we do play a very pivotal role. Onsite, we have a Federal coordinating officer and a disaster field office operation. They do interface on a daily basis with most state and local government as part of the—any effort that goes on at the disaster site.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Didn't someone initially feel that all—with all this debris being hauled away—and we understand the necessity of doing that—but didn't someone think in terms of the investigation that would be conducted and the need for that material to be evidentiary? Page 141      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHEA. I think the answer is, yes, Chairman Boehlert. The day after the event, we began those discussions with the American Society of Civil Engineers and our prime contractor, Greenhorn and O'Mara to field a Building Performance Assessment Team on the ground. So the answer is, yes. I mean, we were considering it immediately in the aftermath.

Chairman BOEHLERT. We have been—and I have read all this testimony and talked to a lot of people, and, more importantly, listened to a lot of people.

Mr. SHEA. Yes.

Chairman BOEHLERT. And the three impediments—and Dr. Astaneh pointed them out—the access to the site, the access to the material, and the blueprints. And it was like four months after before anybody got the blueprints. This is a learning exercise——

Mr. SHEA. Absolutely.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. And we are all learning from what happened.

Mr. SHEA. Yeah.

Chairman BOEHLERT. And it is unprecedented, I understand. And we don't mean to assume an adversarial role. We are all in this together. We are not here, you know, sparring with you. We are just trying to get to the facts to know what we need to know so that we will know what we need to recommend so that something like this, one, will be prevented, but, two, if it happens, we will have the response capability that we need. Page 142      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Just before I go to Mr. Weiner, just let me ask you—oh, who is that? Oh, Mr. Israel, you are next. I am sorry. Yeah. Weiner is sort of my buddy here. But do you feel, Mr. Shea, and do you feel, Dr. Bement, that you have the resources you need, to this juncture, to do what is expected of you? I know there are going to be requests for additional funds——

Mr. SHEA. Uh-huh.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. But I want to make certain that nothing is being impeded—no progress is being delayed because you don't have whatever you need. Do you feel that FEMA has the resources it needs to do what you are expected to do right now?

Mr. SHEA. The answer is, yes. But I think it also needs to go back to some of the other issues that you have raised, Mr. Chairman. The issues that we are now looking back on that I think this Committee is trying to address this afternoon, do need to be addressed as part of an overall strategy that the Federal Government will undertake. It is my opinion, based on my experience, that that is properly then vested in the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the kinds of authorities that Dr. Bement has outlined to you this afternoon.

In terms of conducting our business, what we were undertaking with the Building Performance Assessment Team, yes, we have sufficient resources to do that.

Chairman BOEHLERT. And how about you, Dr. Bement? Page 143      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. Well, there are three phases to this overall study, which, by itself, is going to take almost 24 months. There is a preliminary stage, in which we have been active. At the present time, we have the resources necessary to set the stage and get the necessary concurrences and to also obtain the materials that are available for metallurgical examination and forensic study. This is a study in itself, and Dr. Corley's estimate of what the resources require for that study are very close to the mark.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Where do the resources come for Dr. Corley's study? Does it come from FEMA?

Mr. SHEA. They were a combination of resources that the American Society of Civil Engineers put into the process——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Right.

Mr. SHEA [continuing]. Along with funding from FEMA.

Chairman BOEHLERT. All right. So you haven't had to put any resources into the BPAT yet. You have participated——

Dr. BEMENT. No. I am talking about resources that would have to support the consortium that NIST is organizing at the present time to carry on the full-scale study that we have been talking about. Those recommendations have gone up to the highest level of the Administration and I am very optimistic that it will be resolved very quickly. Page 144      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

The third phase, which will go in parallel with the investigation itself, is to take the lessons learned and provide the technical basis for changes in codes and standards, not only for existing buildings, but for new construction, to provide better security for occupants, to provide better egress, to provide better structural integrity under these types of impacts. In addition——

Chairman BOEHLERT. But there are going to be requests, obviously, but you—but the bottom line is, you feel you have what you need in terms of resources. I mean, transferability——

Dr. BEMENT. I don't think we have slowed down. We have got a team going. We have been coordinating with FEMA and other agencies. I think we are ready to go and I think the original——

Chairman BOEHLERT. And there will be no hesitancy—no hesitancy—to request additional resources.

Dr. BEMENT. No hesitancy. That is correct.

Chairman BOEHLERT. All right. That is good.

Dr. BEMENT. And, furthermore, I would say that we will build on the current BPAT study, which will be issued in April.

Page 145      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Chairman BOEHLERT. April.

Dr. BEMENT. And we have some of the results already, so we can—you know, as I say, we can——

Chairman BOEHLERT. But you are not waiting for that study to——

Dr. BEMENT. We are not waiting for that study.

Chairman BOEHLERT. All right. Fine. Mr. Israel.

Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to follow up on some of these questions regarding the resources that have been made available for these studies. To the Chairman's question, Mr. Shea, who used to be in charge of the investigation, said, we have enough. Dr. Bement, who I understand is now in charge of the investigation, says, we may have enough, depending on these phases. Dr. Corley says we need $40 million, and until we have $40 million, it is not enough. Can somebody explain to me exactly what it is going to take to do the kind of study we need to do to make sure that this doesn't occur in the future? Let us start with Dr. Bement.

Dr. BEMENT. Well, I think Dr. Corley was estimating what the cost of a study of this type would require. And, as I say, he is pretty close to the mark. We have developed——

Page 146      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Mr. ISRAEL. 40 million?

Dr. BEMENT. I won't put a number on it just yet.

Mr. ISRAEL. But the mark, I believe, is 40 million. What is close to the mark?

Dr. BEMENT. That was his estimate.

Mr. ISRAEL. Okay.

Dr. BEMENT. I am just saying it is not too far out of the ball park.

Mr. ISRAEL. Okay.

Dr. BEMENT. We will—we are working on a funding plan and that will come forward very quickly. As far as the investigation, it is a question of what you mean by the investigation. If you are talking about the technical investigation, which NIST is proposing doing, I am operating on the assumption that I have adequate authority to begin that technical investigation.

If you are talking about broader issues, with regard to responsibility and other ancillary items surrounding the World Trade Center collapse, which we are not going to be involved in, that is not in our camp at the present time. Page 147      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. ISRAEL. Dr. Bement, you had stated that, at this hearing, that NIST has received policy approval for this study. What does policy approval mean?

Dr. BEMENT. It means that under 15 U.S. Code, Paragraph 281(a), which the Chairman referred to, it gives us the authority to, on our own initiative, but only after consultation with local authorities, we may initiate and conduct investigations to determine the causes of structural failures that——

Mr. ISRAEL. Dr. Bement, I am sorry. I also have limited time. I am getting kind of a bureaucratic response. What does policy approval mean and how much is it going to cost to do what you have to do?

Dr. BEMENT. That is our policy approval right there. That gives me the authority——

Mr. ISRAEL. To do——

Dr. BEMENT [continuing]. With consultation and with adequate resources, to carry out the investigation.

Mr. ISRAEL. Okay. Adequate resources. Dr. Corley, what does $40 million get us that we are not getting right now?

Dr. CORLEY. The work that would be done with the $40 million would be to follow up on the many recommendations that will be coming out in our report where further study and, in some cases, research programs are needed to get answers to the questions. It would cover the issues of protection of the emergency response teams, as well as structural and fire issues. Page 148      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. ISRAEL. So you believe that the expenditure of $40 million would cover virtually everything we need to know about what went wrong and prevent other things from going wrong in the future.

Dr. CORLEY. Well, with any research you never know what you are going to find, so there may be things that would require more than that. But this is what I would judge is needed at this point.

Mr. ISRAEL. That is your benchmark. And Dr. Bement has said that you are close to the mark. And my final question to Mr. Shea—can you tell us approximately how much FEMA has expended up to this point——

Mr. SHEA. Our——

Mr. ISRAEL [continuing]. On the investigations?

Mr. SHEA. Yeah. Our investment today is about $600,000.

Mr. ISRAEL. $600,000.

Mr. SHEA. Right.

Mr. ISRAEL. And we need to get to 40 million.

Page 149      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Mr. SHEA. Right.

Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. The Chair will now yield to Dr. Ehlers, who is going to assume the Chair momentarily, for his questioning.

Mr. EHLERS [presiding]. I never realized one could become chairman of this Committee that quickly. It is a pleasure to have you all here. And I want to pursue the line of questioning that you just heard. You—as I understand, when you say policy approval, Dr. Bement, that means you also have the authority to spend the money needed to do it. Is that correct?

Dr. BEMENT. I have no statutory authority to spend that kind of money at the present time.

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. Then the next question is, where is the money going to come from? And that—let me also say, Mr. Shea, I am going to hit you on this too. We are talking $40 million. That is not just—that is not just the study. That is also following up, as you said, Dr. Corley. And I presume by that, that means follow-up studies on determining the nature of progressive collapse, which was responsible not only for the towers collapsing, but I understand also for a good deal of the damage done in the Oklahoma City disaster as well.

Now, does your estimate of $40 million, Dr. Corley, include further studies on progressive collapse, further studies on fire damage to steel structures, and so forth, or is that not part of your recommendation? Page 150      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. That would include all of the subjects that I have mentioned, plus those that have been brought up in the other testimony.

Mr. EHLERS. Well, I personally think that is money well spent and the Nation, as a whole, would save a lot of money if that is done. The question is, where is the money going to come from. I know, Dr. Bement, because I have jurisdiction over NIST in my Subcommittee, you don't have the money to do it.

Dr. BEMENT. That is correct.

Mr. EHLERS. Now, Mr. Shea, you have a substantial amount of money, which was given as part of the money that the Congress approved last year, to deal with it. How much of your money are you dedicating to this effort, both the initial work and also the ongoing study? In other words, do you have enough money to fund the $40 million that we are talking about here?

Mr. SHEA. No. The direct answer is, we do not. The funding that was provided to us is really for the relief of victims and for rebuilding the community and to pay for police, fire, that kind of thing. The Stafford Act would not encompass these types of long-term studies. And if we were to undertake them like anybody else in the Federal Government, we would have to go through a process with the Administration to request them.

Mr. EHLERS. So you have no funding for research.

Page 151      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Mr. SHEA. Well, realistically, we have some small pockets of funding that relate to flood-related issues, seismic-related issues, dam safety issues, but those are all very specifically authorized kinds of things that we do. The amount of funding there is relatively small comparatively speaking.

Mr. EHLERS. And where did you get the money for this initial study that has been done?

Mr. SHEA. The initial assessment comes out of the disaster relief fund because it is, again, scope-limited. It is important to understand, the whole effort is designed to provide a basis for rebuilding with mitigation incorporated as part of that overall mitigation process, rebuilding process, so that it is part of the overall relief and recovery effort.

Mr. EHLERS. But you have asked NIST to take over the formal investigation, but you are not sending the money along with that request. Is that what you are saying?

Mr. SHEA. Well, we think it is an excellent idea to have an investigation, a longer-term investigation of these issues based on our experience in these areas. But, no, we would not send funding to go with it.

Mr. EHLERS. However, if the Congress made—passed the provision that part of that $6 billion you received could be used for that, would you send the money along with it then? Page 152      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHEA. If Congress and the Administration agreed on a principle like that, then, sure. I mean, absolutely. Yes, sir.

Mr. EHLERS. Okay. That is certainly one solution. I—Dr. Bement, as I said earlier, I know you don't have the money, and that is not quite accurate. You do have it, but it would do incredible damage to NIST if all of that money came out of your budget. And so, clearly, the money has to come from somewhere.

Dr. BEMENT. Right.

Mr. EHLERS. Is the Administration considering at all including this as part of its supplemental request to the Congress, which I understand is coming out in a week or two?

Dr. BEMENT. I believe that is a consideration. Yes. I can't say that that is the avenue they will finally decide on, but I know that they are considering that.

Mr. EHLERS. And, Mr. Shea, pinning down a little more, when you say you have no authority, are you talking about no statutory authority or no budget authority to send money at this point and demands as well?

Mr. SHEA. The—we do not have statutory authority to conduct these types of investigations. And obviously then, we wouldn't have the intended resource base associated with that. Page 153      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. EHLERS. And NIST has a statutory authority, but you are saying not the budget authority at this point.

Dr. BEMENT. The mechanism that is in the statute is deficient in terms of providing the funding and providing the mechanisms to get an appropriate response, technical response, on the site immediately. And——

Mr. EHLERS. So I have——

Dr. BEMENT [continuing]. We have covered that ground.

Mr. EHLERS. I have a couple of worries here. First of all, there is a lot of this going on in terms of funding, and we and the Administration have to come to some agreement on where the money is going to come from. My other concern is involving the academic community, which you see represented here and which has a very good background. The National Science Foundation actually was the first on the ground with investigators and has done this regularly in cases like this.

I am very concerned that we, as an Administration and a Congress, provide sufficient funds for NIST to do what it does so extremely well. But I think it is also important that we provide funding for the university community——

Dr. BEMENT. I agree.

Page 154      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Mr. EHLERS [continuing]. To participate. Now, that either would come through NSF. Or I understand, Dr. Bement, you also can give grants to——

Dr. BEMENT. Well, we will bring universities into our study and——

Mr. EHLERS. You will include that——

Dr. BEMENT [continuing]. We will fund that work. Yes.

Mr. EHLERS. And that would be part of your funding as well.

Dr. BEMENT. That is correct.

Mr. EHLERS. All right. I think we have clarified that problem, but it is clear that we have to do more work on it, otherwise we will have grand plans for grand studies and not only in finding out what happened here, but also how to prevent it in the future, both in terms of fire and progressive collapse damage. And if we are not careful—and by we, I include the Congress and the Administration—it just won't—it won't be done. So I hope that all of us in Congress will keep everyone's feet to the fire and make sure we get this job done. I——

Dr. BEMENT. Thank you.

Mr. EHLERS [continuing]. Yield back my time. Next, we call on Mr. Etheridge from North Carolina. Page 155      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me thank you and the Chairman of our Committee for having this hearing that is so important, not only to the people in New York, but the people in this country, and I think ultimately around the world, because this is—we have seen a lot of things happen. And I think it is not only important just to the families of the victims of the 9/11 tragedy, but it is important to all of us to learn as much as we can at this date about the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings.

Aside from withstanding enormous wind loads, the World Trade Center towers were also constructed to withstand sediment loads. Because the towers, as you know, I don't need to remind any of you, were built on a landfill. And it went down and they had to go down and do bedrock and all the stuff that took place. As I remember, it was about 70 feet below ground level, I think, that it wound up going down.

Although the towers were, in fact, designed to withstand being struck by an airplane, no one ever envisioned what ultimately happened on September the 11th. They weren't able to survive the effects of a direct hit with all the gasoline. And I know you have been talking about that already with the collapse of floors and the pancaking, etcetera. And I, like others, have been there and was horrified at what I saw.

In trying to comprehend how this happened, that the loads just collapsed, is there any reason to have concern on how other tall buildings are constructed in this country and the safety of the people that are occupying them? Who would like to take that on?

Mr. SHEA. Congressman, I am not an engineer, and I am probably the only person at this table that isn't an engineer, but I would say the answer to your question is, yes, there should be some concern. And I think the notion of a longer-term investigation should help answer some of those questions about whether and what we can do about that. But, again, I don't think we have the answers this afternoon. Page 156      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Anyone else?

Mr. CORBETT. Yeah. I think that the critical point here is that there are other high-rise buildings in this country and we need to understand exactly what happened at the World Trade Center and learn from it and apply it to other buildings. I mean, this is a fire—you know, planes hit the building, but it was a fire that brought it down——

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Absolutely

Mr. CORBETT [continuing]. And we need to understand that.

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. One of the important things is that until now, structures are designed by structural engineers. Then they are passed to fire engineers to design the fireproofing, but there is no interaction. I think it is very important that for the future we come up with joint work of the fireproofing engineers as well as structural engineers. And I think the NIST plan is very good in that sense, that it will bring in fire engineers and structural engineers.

But to answer your question directly, I think, yes, we have a lot of concerns about all other tall buildings.

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you. One additional question if I may, because that brings on the second question—with all the different agencies we now have looking at it, and as we go forward, because I remember in your earlier testimony, as you were talking, almost each one of you were talking about data that may have been lost because of a number of issues not having been protected, etcetera, because we have so many involved. What are we doing now to protect that data? And what are we doing to lay out a plan so that we—God forbid we should ever have something like this again—at least we have got a plan in place so that, number one, we protect the integrity of the information, but, number two, we have got a plan working to make sure that we don't have the kind of problems we have had with this one? Page 157      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHEA. Congressman, I will attempt to begin the answer to that question. The—I guess I would point out a couple of things. One is, FEMA is working with the team from the American Society of Civil Engineers to preserve whatever data is available. And that is, in fact, also being shared with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. As was testified earlier, they are receiving some of this steel that was called as part of that effort.

Further, FEMA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have begun discussions of a preliminary mechanism by which we could do better in the future, in a Memorandum of Understanding about a quick response mechanism. But I think there is a more fundamental question here about how do we effectively coordinate all the science-based agencies in responding to events of this kind? I am not sure we have the answers to that this afternoon, but I think it is a fair issue for the Committee to address.

Dr. BEMENT. Representative Etheridge, I would answer this way—that that clearly is part of our investigation. We don't have to wait until the end of the investigation to have findings and recommendations with regard to those aspects. And we would certainly consult with this Committee very quickly once we have such a plan in hand.

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you. And I—if I may, Mr. Chairman, I would encourage you to move along, to work through your associations and others, because as other buildings are being built, it seems to me to be most appropriate to work through every avenue we have to not only shore up the ones we now have, but those that are being built, for safety and for fire safety as well. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Page 158      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Chairman BOEHLERT [presiding]. Thank you very much. Mr. Grucci.

Mr. GRUCCI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for convening this hearing today. The information has been pretty helpful so far. I have just been listening to the debate going back and forth about the dollar values for the study. Is it enough? Isn't it enough? Who has it? Who doesn't have it? And I hope that we can work that out very quickly.

But, Mr. Shea—and this is not an attack against you. It was just something that I heard in your statement early on, when you indicated that it will take years to complete these studies. And I would encourage all that is in—that is going to be part of this is that, we can't wait years. There are people out there who need answers now. Not only those that are sitting in this room, but the thousands of others whose lives have been torn apart as a result of this tragedy.

In addition to those folks, I know that this Congress won't wait years. I know this Congressperson won't wait years. We want answers. We need answers. And we would hope and encourage you all to move quickly in this. Let us weed through who doesn't have and who does have the authority and let us all get on the same team to get to the end results. Because, as Mr. Etheridge said, there are buildings going up that can use the benefit of the knowledge that will come out of these—out of these hearings and come out of the study that you will do.

If you need money, I can't promise that you will get it all, but I can promise you that we are going to be here to work with you to get this thing resolved. Because, as the Chairman said, this is not an attack against you. We are all here to work together. Page 159      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

My question goes pretty much to trying to at least assemble in my mind what happened from what I am hearing today. In gleaning through the information that you all provided in your testimony and I, too, have had the opportunity to read it, one thing came clear to me that it wasn't the elongated fire from the fuel of the jet planes that created the extreme heat that, indeed, may have had or may not have had direct results on the tinsel strength of the steel causing the building to collapse.

Because, as I understood it, from my reading, the jet fuel probably burnt off between 10 to 15 minutes after the impact of the jet into the building. What caused the intense heat and the massive fires was that jet fuel, as a first fire, causing the rest of the floors where that jet fuel came into contact with to catch fire and desks and chairs and rugs and whatever else may have been in the building, then started to burn as the fuel. And I understand that there was a fair number of floors that were involved with that.

The question that I have is that if, indeed, it was not the jet fuel that was the main culprit, and that it did, indeed, burn itself off in a reasonable time—fast enough where it didn't affect the strength of the steel—and that the secondary fires caused the problem, why wouldn't the fire suppression system that should have been, or was in the building—I shouldn't say should have been—it was in the building—why didn't they function on the floors that may not have come into direct contact with the jet craft that may have taken out the pipes and the suppression systems? And I think—well, whoever wants to try to answer that, please do.

Dr. CORLEY. Okay. I will take the first stab at that. That it is our belief that the water source for the sprinkler system was compromised and there was no water that was supplied to the system after the planes hit—nothing above the floors that were hit. Page 160      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. GRUCCI. But the floors beneath where it hit would still have had water.

Dr. CORLEY. They would have had water, but there was really no fire—well, there was only a small amount of fire there. And some of those fires were controlled even with hand-held fire-fighting equipment.

Mr. GRUCCI. And so the fires that were the secondary fires, if you will, as a result of the jet fuel, were on the floors above where the plane impacted.

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. That is correct. At the floor and above.

Mr. GRUCCI. I would—why wouldn't it have—I was always under the impression, listening to the stories and reading in the papers, what you can glean from that, is that the jet fuel migrated its way down through the building, through the corridors, through the elevator shafts, through whatever orifice was in the building to allow the fuel to migrate down. How did it go up?

Dr. CORLEY. Well, to answer the first part of that question, yes, there was some fuel that went down, but those fires, based on the photos we have, did not spread widely. They—some of them were put out by people on those floors. The fire above—first of all, the plane took out parts of the floors and opened up the building, knocked out a lot of the windows, so that the fire could go up the—from floor to floor that way and there probably was damage to the floors that also allowed it to progress up through the building. Page 161      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. GRUCCI. And so the suppression systems then did work for the floors beneath it.

Dr. CORLEY. There was probably—well, yes. There was not a great deal of fire beneath the areas where the planes went in, as far as we can tell.

Mr. CORBETT. Just to add a couple of comments. As far as the——

Mr. GRUCCI. Yeah. If you would

Mr. CORBETT [continuing]. Suppression systems go, it is very likely that when the plane went through the building—we certainly know it took out the stairwells—and that is where the supply pipes for the sprinkler systems are located. So it just sheared right through them. So that would have allowed basically a flood of water to come out.

As far as lower incidents within the building, we do know that—actually, I have a student in one of my classes that is a security guard in Tower 1, and was there when the jet fuel came down the elevator shaft and blew off the doors and started a fire down there. I know from another person that I know that is an architect, and went through the lobby and saw the sprinkler system actually going off in the lobby and was wondering why, and I think that is probably the answer to that.

Page 162      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Chairman BOEHLERT. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair would—the intention of the Chair is as follows. We have 12 minutes to go in terms of the current vote, and there is only one vote, so we will have to recess briefly. The Chair will recognize Mr. Israel for one minute to make an announcement and then Mr. Larson for his questions, and then we will temporarily recess to go over to answer the vote, and then we will be right back.

Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Chairman, let me again thank you for your bipartisan leadership in bringing us to a focused and sensible approach to this issue. One recurring theme is what we are going to invest as a Nation in the type of evaluation that is going to improve the safety of both the public and emergency responders in the event of another building collapse.

Dr. Corley estimates a total of $40 million. Dr. Bement says that he is near the mark. NIST has asked for $2 million, or allocated $2 million. FEMA has already expended about half a million dollars. We want to support your efforts. We want to make sure that you have everything you need so that we can evaluate and make sure that this doesn't happen again.

In that vein, I am pleased to announce that under the Chairman's leadership, Congressman Weiner and I have cosigned a letter to Budget Director Mitch Daniels, asking him to provide you with all the funding that you require for the type of comprehensive evaluation that is going to make sense. Again, Chairman Boehlert has signed this letter. Congressman Weiner has signed the letter. And I would invite all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to cosign this with us. This is, once again, going to be an issue of budget priorities, and I can think of no more important budget priority than to spend what is needed to evaluate and make sure—— Page 163      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Chairman BOEHLERT. And I would encourage all of our colleagues to sign that letter.

Mr. ISRAEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Mr. Larson.

Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me add to the chorus of those thanking you for conducting this hearing. And let me also second the proposal of my colleague and join in the signing of this, and commend the Skyscraper Safety Campaign for their efforts here. And point out, as my colleague from Connecticut has, the number of people from Connecticut in the audience today, and specifically Monica Gabriel, who lost her husband, Richard, at the World Trade Center.

The questions that have been raised by my colleagues, I think, draw down to a specific point. I believe it was Thomas Friedman who indicated that since the—when we look at the tragedy of September the 11th, and we look at what happened, in many respects it was a failure of imagination. And a failure of imagination that evolves around a sense that sprung up an American government of stove-piping. Stove-piping amongst agencies is so much so that even, as Mr. Weiner and others have asked their questions today, the American public has to look at a specter of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

Now, obviously, there is plenty of blame, I guess, that could be going—that can go around. And our object here is not to lay blame, but to get to answers and solutions. But at the heart of my concern is one that has been raised, I think, by a number of people. And that is that since September 11, perhaps, we know more than we have, but we are no better prepared to address the concerns of the future. And we are no better prepared because of these turf battles and the stove-piping that persists. Page 164      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

So my question is, in general—and the President, and I believe wisely so, has appointed Tom Ridge, the Head of Homeland Security. And as we look to specific appropriations, and as we look, and has been cited here frequently, for specific statutory authority, do we need one central clearinghouse? The dominant theme amongst every group that I have spoken to since September the 11th, is the need for commonality of communication, interoperability, and the ability for onsite control.

In your estimation—and I know this is—you are at the beginning process—is that what this Nation needs to move forward and how do we? And how are you going to be successful in all the information that you are gathering if you can't overcome those hurdles? And I will start with you, Dr. Bement.

Dr. BEMENT. I think there does have to be a central authority that can go in and carry out an investigation and can sequester all the evidence that is necessary to carry out that investigation immediately after the collapse occurs or whatever the event is.

Mr. LARSON. Do you think that Mr. Ridge should be that authority? Do you think that we should have someone and—that can bring all the Federal agencies and state agencies and local municipalities to focus and bear on this issue?

Dr. BEMENT. Well, I wouldn't want to say that that would be the only way it could be done, but certainly it ought to be considered.

Mr. LARSON. Dr. Corbett. Page 165      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. CORBETT. It is certainly an answer to that question. I—we need it. We don't have it right now. We don't have a coordinated response to disaster investigations in my opinion.

Mr. LARSON. What would be the best place for that to reside? Would it be——

Mr. CORBETT. Well, I suggested FEMA because they have a responsibility for disaster response and mitigation, and mitigation is what we are talking about here—mitigating the future, mitigating issues that perhaps we are going to find in other high-rise buildings.

Mr. LARSON. Mr. Shea.

Mr. SHEA. My reaction is that the best way to approach this is to vest that authority and responsibility in a single Federal agency. In this case, my testimony is that would be the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Mr. LARSON. So then—and would someone from the National Institute of Standards and Technology want to respond?

Dr. BEMENT. I think that——

Mr. LARSON. And this is what the American public sees. It is—— Page 166      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. No. Let me give you a direct response to your question. I think where it comes to structural collapse and anything that brings together fire and structural collapse, and NIST would certainly be an appropriate agency to have that responsibility directly, as long as all the mechanisms are in place. And if we can set up the necessary board structure so that all the parties that might be involved, including local and state authorities, can be on the scene immediately, and that there are necessary subpoena powers in order to gather information and——

Mr. LARSON. We have a very serious problem here. And it seems to me, every time we discuss this—and there is increasing frustration in Congress at all levels—that when we talk to the bureaucracy responsible for this, we get the Abbott and Costello line of who is on first?

Chairman BOEHLERT. The gentleman——

Mr. LARSON. And it just goes on and on and on.

Chairman BOEHLERT. The gentleman's time has expired. In all fairness, I think it is very important—and this Committee prides itself on working together—it is very important to understand and appreciate that this is something unprecedented in the history of mankind. And what we are trying—there is clear authority—if there is a hurricane, if there is a flood, if there is an airplane crash, there is clear authority for various agencies to commit. This is something where we are sort of plowing new ground. And it is very important, as the testimony indicates, that we design a protocol so that we will know instantly if something, God forbid, like this ever happens again, we have got people onsite, in charge, action initiated. Page 167      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

With that, the Chair recognizes Ms. Morella, and she has four minutes and 40 seconds before we have to go vote.

Ms. MORELLA. Thank you. Okay. I will talk really fast.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Uh-huh.

Ms. MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing. And I do want to also reflect the fact that to the families of the victims who are here, I offer my condolences and prayers. And this is one of the reasons why we had this hearing. Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentations. And I know the Chairman will allow us to submit some questions to you too, because we have more questions that we haven't gotten to.

I wanted to pick up—Dr. Bement, I know you are getting a lot of questions here, and, welcome, at the helm of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. But some of the——

Dr. BEMENT. Thank you.

Ms. MORELLA [continuing]. Important research that has been mentioned here today is going to—it seems to require a large-scale testing facility. To what extent are NIST laboratories equipped to do that kind of work, to carry on that kind of work? In other words, are you going to need some additional facilities for this and, if so, what will their capabilities be and, you know, what would they—what would it cost? Page 168      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. Well, as you know, this is an unprecedented event.

Ms. MORELLA. Yeah.

Dr. BEMENT. It is probably the first time that—on this scale, structural dynamics and fire dynamics have come together to create an initiating event that created a catastrophe. That is an area where we do need to do research. We need to do research at an appropriate scale so that we can understand the fire response of building materials and building structures. And I can say that we do not have that kind of a facility at the present time.

Ms. MORELLA. So that is something that we are going to have to factor into what happens after the report, is to look at that.

Dr. BEMENT. Yes.

Ms. MORELLA. Because I certainly don't want to see cannibalization of the other research that is being done, you know, at NIST. And I know you don't either.

Dr. BEMENT. I appreciate that.

Ms. MORELLA. So, Mr. Chairman, you are going to have to look at the facility for this too after that. Page 169      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Chairman BOEHLERT. The angel of NIST has spoken. Are you going to be coming back because we have to take a brief recess now?

Ms. MORELLA. I——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Because when we come back, you are—the time will be yours, Ms. Morella.

Ms. MORELLA. Well——

Chairman BOEHLERT. But we only have two minutes and 30 seconds. And unless you can run faster than me, we are going to have difficulty getting over there.

Ms. MORELLA. All right. Fine. Thank you. I will try to. If I can't, I will submit some questions.

Chairman BOEHLERT. And I should have mentioned previously——

Ms. MORELLA. Thank you.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. That after the opening statements by all the witnesses, the statement for the Skyscraper Safety Committee will be in the record for all to see and to consider. We will take a brief recess. We will get back as quickly as can. You can have a pause, a break, in the act. Page 170      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

[Recess]
Chairman BOEHLERT. This hearing will resume. Members are making their way back from the Floor. The Chair is pleased to recognize Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee for five minutes.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to add my appreciation to you for holding this very important hearing. I don't think any of us who live in communities, regardless of whether they are urban or rural, could express ourselves in watching the tragic incidences of September 11. And to be able to find solutions, I think, is a key element to what this hearing is all about.

Having visited Ground Zero in the early stages and knowing what my New York colleagues have been through and how much they have fought so hard for finding a remedy to September 11, I think this hearing may begin to be part of the healing. And I, too, offer my deepest sympathy, and, as well, expression of concern to those who were victims of that terrible and tragic day. To the families, I expressly offer my deepest sympathy.

I realize that we have had a long hearing, but I am looking at today's New York Times article. And in reviewing this article, I am noting in particular that the first paragraph announces the adoption of new national standards for the construction of public and governmental buildings, to make them more resilient or resistant to catastrophic failures in the event of terrorist attacks. It notes that the leader of the investigation into the World Trade Center's collapse, and the director of the Federal agency that evaluates major fires and building failures, are calling for such standards. Page 171      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Now, I have listened to my colleagues. I have reviewed some of the testimonies in terms of the presented testimonies. I do apologize for being at another hearing at the same time. But I want to pointedly ask the question. Based upon this article, is it true that we are calling for the adoption of such? And are you advocating for these standards to be federalized, as many of us realize that we have little input at this point?

I would also like to find out how does the present standards systems or the present system work and who is responsible for oversight and implementation. I am also aware that there are many private groups or societies of engineers and others that have a great deal of impact on the design of buildings. And they also have a great deal, with all due respect to the professions, with interfering with the creation of new standards.

So I guess if I can start with some of the representatives here, Dr. Bement, and, Dr. Corley, are we today, at this hearing, calling for new standards? Have you called for them in this hearing? And are they to be Federal standards? That would be my first. And I have two other questions and I would like to—I am looking at the light—be able to at least have them raised before the time runs out.

Dr. BEMENT. I would say that right now we don't have the technical basis for new standards. We have a compelling incident. The compelling incident has to be backed up with a technical investigation and evaluation. So we need the technical basis that will go to a new standards development.

Now, standards development and code development in this country is done by a consensus process through various code development organizations. And there are at least two organizations, the ICC, and the Federal Fire Protection Agency(see footnote 1), that issues a number of model codes that are used throughout the country by local authorities to fashion their own codes for their own region. Page 172      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

NIST provides some of the technical basis for those model code developments, but we are, by far, not the only source of technical information that goes into the development of those codes.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. So that wouldn't be you that the New York Times is speaking of, that you were calling for new Federal standards when announcing them today.

Dr. BEMENT. That is correct.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You believe there needs to be a consensus.

Dr. BEMENT. I believe, first of all, we need to develop the technical basis, and that is the purpose of our investigation. So we will be working very closely with the code development organizations.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me ask Dr. Corley then, as my time runs out. Were you prepared to call for new Federal standards today and have—recommend those adoption of such?

Dr. CORLEY. No. I am not. It is premature to call for changes. Once the work that I have referred to that I believe needs to be done has been completed, and as it gets completed, there may, indeed, be things that come up that need to be considered by the standards-writing groups and may change the existing standards through the processes just mentioned. But it is premature at this point to pinpoint any one item and say that this is ready to be changed. And under no circumstances do I feel that the processes that are currently in place should be changed. They work well and should continue. Page 173      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, can I raise these additional questions for the record minimally, and maybe someone can give me a yes or no? I think they are quick enough to give me a yes or no.

Chairman BOEHLERT. If you can get the yes or no within the minute.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman. And, Dr. Corley, in particular, you were involved in the Oklahoma investigation, as I understand, and made several recommendations. I guess the question would be, and I imagine the families would want to hear, how quickly government can move. My question is, were those recommendations implemented? That can be a yes or a no. And then, finally, is any recommendation made for improving building codes, emergency responses, and evaluation? Are any of those being made? What are the obstacles to making changes in the codes? I think that needs to be answered today by those who have been victimized by this very tragic incident. Were any of your recommendations taken in? Yes or no?

Dr. CORLEY. The ones we made were, yes.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. They were taken in.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you. The lady has very skillfully——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. Page 174      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Chairman BOEHLERT. All right. The additional time is—she is——

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And I will put the other ones in writing, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your time.

Chairman BOEHLERT. She is very adroit at doing that. And we are going to have another round. So, Sheila, don't go away. We are here to stay. Mr. Smith.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing, and thank the witnesses for being so diligent and patient over the last 2b, 3 hours.

My first question—of course, bin Laden was a construction engineer. And I'm just wondering, Mr. Shea, Dr. Astaneh, or whoever else, I am a—as a pilot and talking to other friends that are pilots, wondered at the preciseness of that apparent accident—other pilots and I can agree that these pilots had—were very good flyers to fly at that speed and hit that target. And I am curious, to make—put it on the record, if maybe it was on purpose, hitting it at that particular height. What would have happened if the plane hit in the top two stories or down in the bottom six stories?

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. If the planes had hit at the upper levels, top ten stories, most likely we would not have this tragedy. I feel that you would have burned floors at the top. You could rescue people underneath and then later cut those floors and have a 100-story building. Page 175      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

If they had hit the lower part of building, you would not have the collapse again, because the plane could not enter as intact as it did. The columns there are very strong, very thick, and most likely the plane will be shattered, as I showed in my example analysis, and the fuel will be outside.

I don't know if they did it on purpose, but they really hit the worst part where the plane could enter and cause the fire and there was enough weight above the floors that they hit to collapse it under gravity.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Would you agree, Mr. Shea?

Mr. SHEA. Yes. Absolutely. There is no question in my mind that—there was an attempt made on this building in 1993. It failed. They spent the next 8 years figuring out how to do it.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. I chair the Subcommittee on Research that has oversight for the National Science Foundation. And, Dr. Corley, Dr. Bement, NSF has—well, they have done a lot, with the nanotechnology that we have developed in our research, to help search up there in those facilities. But I am wondering—it is my understanding that NSF now has eight teams out studying. And, Dr. Corley, Dr. Bement, how are the data collected by NSF and these funded researchers being utilized in both of your studies?

Dr. BEMENT. Well, I can answer that they will be fully utilized in our study. Most investigators funded by the NSF would probably show results in the open literature and they would generally make available any of their—the results of their work. We would certainly want to have the full report—— Page 176      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Well, do you have some process or some organization that you are now inquiring and utilizing that in your studies or is it just going to be—is something—is it in——

Dr. BEMENT. No. Our study will be fully inclusive. We will use all sources of expertise that are——

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. But you haven't so far.

Dr. BEMENT. We are in very close contact with NSF. And, of course, we are participating in the American Society for Civil Engineering study, the BPAT study, and I imagine that some of the results of the NSF studies are being utilized in that phase of the investigation.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Dr. Corley.

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. I might—if I could start by referring to bin Laden. My understanding, his degree is not in engineering and I do not have the opinion that if the—if it were studied exactly where to hit it, that he was the one that made the final decision on that. As far as——

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. And why is that?

Dr. CORLEY. His degree was not in—it is in public administration, I believe. He is not an engineer to the best of my knowledge. Page 177      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. But in terms of you would conclude that it wasn't him that made the decision——

Dr. CORLEY. I don't think he would have the knowledge to make that decision. The—in regard to your question about utilization of information, we are utilizing everything we can get our hands on. And the NSF was instrumental in putting together a workshop in December where researchers working on this did exchange information. So we were able to get some of it at that time. And we, of course, look for all the ways we can to get it.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Dr. Astaneh, do you agree?

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. I wish we had more cooperation with other teams and utilize our results as well as data. So far I have done my research based on data that I have collected myself and I have not been able to have data from other teams, including drawings and other information that could be very useful to my research.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Will NIST be using Dr. Astaneh's steel that he collected as far as the evaluation and analysis?

Dr. BEMENT. We have it now, or at least we have the initial samples. And we have more coming. So I don't know piece by piece whether——

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Just shortly—Dr. Astaneh, you had just—— Page 178      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. Yes. I hope that there—the studies that NIST is proposing would involve study of pieces that I have collected and others, as well as involvement from whole community of academia who are doing research.

Mr. SMITH OF MICHIGAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I will look forward to the second round.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. Dr. Bartlett.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. Clearly, we need to understand the engineering of what happened here of this failure. I just signed on to a letter asking for additional money so that this can be properly done. I am really somewhat amazed that you were excluded from the site. Clearly, understanding what happened there, so that we could better design buildings and prevent this sort of a tragedy in the future, should have been the prime objective. I hope that you can get the information you need, even though you have been excluded from the site and still haven't got the drawings and so forth.

I would just like to ask a question about where we go from here. Clearly, the most inviting terrorist targets are where there are a lot of people closely pressed together. If it is a chemical attack, the more people that are in close confines, the better. If it is a biological attack where more people are going to be affected. If it is a bomb, the more people are going to be affected. If it is an event like this, the more people are going to be affected.

In today's world with mass communication, with computers, with teleconferencing, this information travels, what, 186,000 miles a second. It doesn't take very long to get from Manhattan to a corn field in Omaha. Help me understand why it is a good idea to build more skyscrapers that are just more inviting targets for terrorists? Yes, sir. Page 179      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. I think it is the human spirit.

Mr. BARTLETT. If you are building them for pride of ownership, I understand that. It is the equivalent of going to the moon and I understand that. But in terms of being concerned about protection of people and fighting terrorism and so forth, I—you know, I just—I am having some problems understanding why bringing more people together in close confines and building skyscrapers, with all the communication techniques now, we—that started when we didn't have the communication capabilities we have today. I am having trouble understanding why it is a good idea to keep on building skyscrapers.

Dr. CORLEY. If I may respond briefly to that, it is my—and this is a personal opinion—the city is not a city without tall buildings. If you have all one-story buildings, all you have is urban sprawl. You have no city.

Mr. BARTLETT. Washington is not a city?

Dr. CORLEY. But Washington does have some tall buildings——

Mr. BARTLETT. Not very tall buildings.

Dr. CORLEY. So my belief is that it is appropriate to design the tall buildings. And I would also point out that it is not just tall buildings that are the target. The Pentagon was not a tall building. Page 180      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. BARTLETT. That is correct. And the damage inflicted by the plane that hit the Pentagon was orders of magnitude less than the planes that hit those buildings, simply because it was not a tall building, which makes my argument that I am having some trouble understanding why it is a good idea to build more tall buildings. Yes, sir.

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. And may I add one comment? What we have done is we have gone up and up over the last century or so without looking into the fact that you cannot expand everything without limit. There is a size effect in everything, in all our engineering work, that when you get to a certain size, you have to change the concept that you are using. We have, unfortunately, added up these floors without looking at the fact that you cannot reach the upper floors for fire fighting and you cannot really protect them against airplanes and other objects. I think it does not answer your question directly and I apologize for that. But I think what we are missed—and did not pay attention is that, in our effort to build tall buildings, we have not paid attention to protecting them.

Mr. BARTLETT. I am personally uncomfortable in a building that can't be reached by the longest ladder on a ladder truck. I know that you rely on other things in those tall buildings. But, you know, I am still—you know, repeat my initial question. This is—our society has been changed. The world we live in has been changed.

And I would submit that one of the things we ought to consider is whether it is, in fact, a good idea to build these inviting terrorist targets in the future. They are a good target for biological warfare. They are good targets for chemical warfare. They are certainly good targets for bombing and this sort of thing. And I am just—you know, we just need to stop and rethink what we are doing, and is that the right thing to be doing in the future? And I would question whether building more skyscrapers is, in fact, in our national security interest in the future. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Page 181      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much. And we are welcoming, as a guest in the Committee, but an interested guest, Mr. Crowley of New York.

Mr. CROWLEY. First, let me thank the Chairman for allowing me to sit on the Committee today and for holding this hearing. I come to this Committee hearing with mixed emotions because I have over 105 families who lost loved ones on September 11. And we have members of the Ashton family who are here today who lost their son, Tom, at 21 years of age. I also lost my first cousin, Battalion Chief John Moran, and I knew at least seven people intimately, very well. So I have, again, mixed emotions.

But, recognizing the need to hold these hearings, once again, I commend you, Mr. Chairman, for taking on this responsibility. I have a number of questions that I think I would address to Mr. Shea, Dr. Corley, and Dr. Bement firstly. And one, can any one of you gentlemen tell me who was in charge of amassing the steel and other debris as a result from the attack of September 11 on the WTC?

Mr. SHEA. I am not sure I understand fully your question, but——

Mr. CROWLEY. In other words, who—what entity was in charge of collecting the material?

Mr. SHEA. FEMA commissioned the Building Performance Assessment Team, and it was that team, led by Dr. Corley, that would have embraced that responsibility. Page 182      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. CROWLEY. Did they determine which debris would be sold off as scrap? And if not, who did?

Mr. SHEA. I will—yeah, I will defer to Dr. Corley on that.

Dr. CORLEY. No. We did not determine that. That was determined, I understand, by the City of New York. We——

Mr. CROWLEY. When did you—when did you become aware that the steel from the World Trade Center was being sold off?

Dr. CORLEY. I think it was on the order of a week or so before we arrived on site, on October the 5th, I believe it was.

Mr. CROWLEY. So they were—they—in other words, the city was selling or was disposing of material within two weeks of the actual event, or was it prior to that?

Dr. CORLEY. It may have been prior to that. I am not sure when the first decision was made on that. But I didn't find out—we didn't find out about it until then.

Mr. CROWLEY. Were you disturbed by that—by finding that out? Were you disturbed to find out that the city was actually disposing of or selling off that material? Page 183      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. CORLEY. We had previously indicated that we definitely wanted to see the steel and select quantities that were——

Mr. CROWLEY. Did you or did FEMA or any other entity actually ask or tell the City of New York to cease and desist from disposing of that material?

Dr. CORLEY. As far as the team is concerned, we made it known that we needed steel. And I don't have any knowledge that anyone had the authority even to ask them to cease and desist.

Mr. CROWLEY. So no one even asked them politely to stop selling what, in all likelihood, could be evidence? Dr. Astaneh.

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. But I believe I was the first one to find out that the steel was being recycled. New York Times Reporter Jim Glanz told me two weeks after the quake—after the collapse. And I tried to contact the city and also the New York Times reporters tried to make sure we could have access to the steel to do the research. It was not happening. And I went myself—directly contacted the recycling plant and made the arrangement. Through their cooperation, I started work there and collected the steel. And later, two weeks later, I believe, the ASCE team came also and they started their work.

Mr. CROWLEY. Now, Dr. Corley, you said that no significant loss occurred, or no significant difference, I think was the word you used.

Page 184      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Dr. CORLEY. Yes.

Mr. CROWLEY. On any outcome that would be determined by the loss of that material.

Dr. CORLEY. That is my opinion at this point. Yes.

Mr. CROWLEY. So you don't believe that there was any material that was lost that was significant that day.

Dr. CORLEY. No. I really didn't say that. What I said was that I believe—or what I implied was that we will be able to draw supportable conclusions and analyze the building to understand what happened without the steel that has been disposed of.

Mr. CROWLEY. In my remaining time—excuse me, doctor. It is—my light is changing here. I just want to emphasize my support of what Mr. Corbett was talking about. I did not know that you were going to make the suggestion today, sir, of a commission. I was prepared to make a statement today that we should ask the President or ask Congress to initiate a commission, similar to what took place after the 1983 and '84 bombings of our embassies overseas, the Inman Commission, to determine what steps are necessary to secure the existing structures, because we can't simply flatten Manhattan or any other major city in this country. We have to deal with the problem because we have major tall structures.

I would—secondly, in the construction of future buildings and of future high-rises, suggest that they be made with the proper structure that could withstand a terrorist attack. Let me just say, and, Mr. Chairman, in closing, I am not so sure that this Subcommittee or this Committee can actually get to the bottom of this, which I think is your intent. I—although I think that your attempt is going to be admirable. I think we need to do more and let some more academics do this as well. Page 185      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

But I do believe that conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this. They are going to make the Warren Commission look like a walk in the park. And that is unfortunate not only for the Members of Congress who are trying to work on this issue, but for all the families out there that are listening very carefully to what we are talking about today, what these experts are saying. And I just think there is so much that has been lost in these last six months that we can never go back and retrieve. And that is not only unfortunate, it is borderline criminal.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Yeah.

Mr. CROWLEY. And I will yield back with that, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Crowley. And the whole purpose of this hearing is to get as much information as we can so that we can be very prudent and very thorough in our analysis and make the appropriate recommendations. Let me point out, in response to your line of questioning, the decision was made by the City of New York to dispose of the material before the BPAT team was even onsite. And I understand fully what the City of New York was doing. Their first interest was the search and rescue operation and they had to get the debris out of the way. And it had a BPAT team, but on site, they would have immediately said, you know, we need this. This is evidence. We need this. This is very important, so get it out of site obviously. We don't want to hamper the research—rescue operation.

But at one time, they were even talking about dumping it into the sea to build a new reef for fish. But, in any event, it just points up to the fact that the material should have been saved. And had there been a timely response of a BPAT team, had we had a protocol in place to get people onsite, we know who is in charge and when, someone would have said that. Page 186      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

And, Dr. Corley, I must say this—I have never found any instance in this whole aftermath where anyone has indicated that the City of New York, which has been absolutely magnificent, was anything but cooperative. So you may not have had the authority legally to say, hey, listen, don't destroy this stuff. This is very important for evidence in our investigation. I am sure that if someone had said, in a timely manner, we would need this, we request that you save it, and you would have got the same response whether you had the authority or not. They were trying to be as cooperative as possible.

But we have to understand the whole circumstances. The world literally was collapsing around everything. And they were all in there—and everybody—and the FEMA people and the NIST people, when they got onsite, the NSF people, everybody was just trying to do everything they possibly could to tie everything together and to get to the bottom of it and to make recommendations on future actions so that it will never happen again, as much as we can prevent. And we hope and pray every day it never will happen again. So no one here is suggesting that people were intentional in some of their actions that didn't get us where we wanted to get in a timely manner.

But we have got an awful lot of questions and we are determined to continue this probe and—probe is—to continue this review to make certain we have good standing to make very specific and very timely recommendations. Who is next? I guess—I am next. All right. Well, that is good.

Mr. SHAYS. Time is up.

Page 187      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Chairman BOEHLERT. Yeah. Time is up. Dr. Corley, we understand that the blueprints were finally obtained when members of your team signed agreements with the Port Authority that you would not testify against it in court. And apparently that delayed getting the blueprints in a timely manner. Is this a routine procedure, and can we get copies of these agreements?

Dr. CORLEY. As far as the copies are concerned, I presume that those can be made available. Yes. As a routine, I guess I would have to say that this is the first time that I have signed one like that.

Chairman BOEHLERT. But why did it take—why did it take so long to sign these agreements and get the drawings?

Dr. CORLEY. The agreements were signed very early. The timing I would have to go back and see exactly what it was. But——

Chairman BOEHLERT. But it seems like—wasn't it something like four months later before you actually got the drawings?

Dr. CORLEY. That is roughly the way I remember it. I am not sure it is exactly four months, but it is on that order of magnitude of time. Yes. Three-and-a-half, I think.

Chairman BOEHLERT. January 8. Well——

Page 188      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Dr. CORLEY. Yeah. January 8 is when we finally got——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Well, that is pretty close to four months.

Dr. CORLEY. Yes.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Did FEMA help you in getting access to the drawings?

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. Very definitely they did.

Chairman BOEHLERT. And so you had to intervene. You had to step in.

Mr. SHEA. Yes.

Chairman BOEHLERT. What did you do? Can you tell us?

Mr. SHEA. We called New York City and asked them to release the documents.

Chairman BOEHLERT. And they immediately said yes?

Mr. SHEA. They did say yes.

Page 189      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Chairman BOEHLERT. You mean—why didn't you just call them? If they immediately said yes to you, why wouldn't they say yes to your designee?

Mr. SHEA. I——

Chairman BOEHLERT. And when did you call? You—I mean, can you get that for the record?

Mr. SHEA. Yeah. I can get it for the record. Although I—Craig, you made the call. Do you know?

Mr. WINGO. We made a number of calls, I believe, the 20th and 21st of December, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Of December?

Mr. WINGO. Correct. Thursday or Friday.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Why so long?

Mr. WINGO. Well——

Chairman BOEHLERT. That is almost 2b months later.

Mr. WINGO. At that particular point in time, we felt that the BPAT team was working in a diligent manner to obtain the blueprints. We recognized that there were possible concerns that the city had legally in a host of other areas. But I will tell you that once we addressed it and focused on it, they—the Port Authority released the plans on December 26. Page 190      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Chairman BOEHLERT. Boy——

Mr. WINGO. Approximately four or five days after our discussions.

Chairman BOEHLERT. That is—I mean, I would hope you would have been working diligently immediately. And I—you know, and, boy, that is—2b months. That is an awful long time. And that is lost time. In the meantime, a lot of the evidence, if you will, the steel, is being dumped someplace, nevermore to be found for one—and I am not suggesting any sinister plots.

And, as Mr. Crowley has indicated, the tabloid press could have a field day with this. We are not interested in providing fodder for them. What we are interested in are facts. Learning from this experience, recommending corrective actions, working in partnership to see that that corrective action is initiated ASAP. All right. What else do we have here?

Oh, yeah. Dr. Corley, you also mentioned in your testimony—I was amazed by this—that you had some problems getting videotapes from news organizations. Why would they have any problem with giving you videotapes?

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. We did have some problems. My understanding is that the tape that had not been played on the networks was not available to us. Anything that had been played eventually we were able to get access to, which is——

Page 191      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Chairman BOEHLERT. But the one that wasn't played—I mean, you had a reason for requesting it.

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. We did.

Chairman BOEHLERT. This is a very important review and investigation. And why wouldn't they—I understand that the networks didn't have some of the taped—tapes on television for all to see because they felt it was not appropriate. Is that your understanding?

Dr. CORLEY. There are more—very likely was tape like that also that they did not feel was appropriate. But my understanding was that what had not been used yet was not available to us. And I——

Chairman BOEHLERT. But so what you are suggesting to me that our TV networks were not cooperative in something critically important to the Nation.

Dr. CORLEY. I would say they—I felt that they were cooperative in many, many ways. And they did——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Yeah. I understand.

Dr. CORLEY [continuing]. Provide us with lots and lots of material.

Page 192      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Chairman BOEHLERT. And then I applaud them for that and that is wonderful and I think they should as a civic responsibility. But are they going to be selective in what they provide you? Are you going to have a selective investigation review and recommendations? I mean, I would think they would want to be complete. Is there some liability questions or do you—what—when you asked for something and they didn't give it to you, what was the reason they gave you for not giving it to you?

Dr. CORLEY. I really did not personally hear those reasons. I simply was told that we would only get the tapes that we got which——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Was the request in writing or was it verbal?

Dr. CORLEY. I—it certainly was verbal. And to the best of my knowledge, it was also in writing.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Would you share, for the Committee, for the record, a copy of the written request and also a copy of the written response?

Dr. CORLEY. We can find that information. Yes.

Chairman BOEHLERT. All right. Thank you. Mr. Weiner.

Mr. WEINER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am troubled by what I have heard first and my suggestion—my colleague, Mr. Bartlett, that we shouldn't build up—just build left and right. Perhaps that is true, but I doubt very much there is much demand for skyscrapers in rural Maryland. But I am also surprised by the characterization of the Chairman, however well-meaning, that the city was cooperative. We just heard testimony that the city was the opposite of cooperative. That they had refused to provide basic information. Page 193      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

And the issue isn't when members of the panel signed a document agreeing not to sue, it is where you get off agreeing not to testify. You are public officials gathering information for the public. You don't own it. You don't have the ability to say I won't use it here. I will use it there. You will use it wherever we say you will use it. If you come before us after looking at these blueprints and you decide that the Port Authority was at fault, and you raise your right hand because the Chairman asks you to, you are going to tell us, I don't care what you sign.

The idea that—and this is a government agency, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It is not a foreign planet. It is not a private company. These are—this is an organization that is funded with our taxpayer dollars, with our fees when we fly in and out of airports. The idea that they should demand that whatever information is collected should not be held against them, well, that is not, to me, being cooperative.

And let us not kid ourselves. Whenever you ask for it, Mr. Wingo, you aren't going to get it unless the New York Times ran a story on Christmas Day. All right. The truth be told, that if it weren't for the fact that attention was called to this and bright lights were shown on it, they would not have cooperated to this day—I would be surprised if you would have the blueprints that you needed.

And to give you a sense, the importance of the blueprints, so we all understand it, you know, if we are going to do an investigation of the strength and weaknesses of the trusses that firefighters speak so much about, well, you need the blueprints to find out where to even look—where do you look in the rubble. Page 194      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

And the idea that the city was cooperative—well, I am not so sure. You know, the two things are not mutually exclusive. Recovering someone and examining the steel that might have been laying on top of them, are not mutually exclusive. You can do that at Great Kills. You can do that on the truck before it is loaded onto the barge. You can do it on the barge.

The idea that there was some level of cooperation, I have to tell you, the anecdotal record is replete with stories of people having cameras confiscated from them, being stopped at checkpoints. You are officials of the United States Government. The idea that this should have to be a subject of a long negotiation over what information would be at your disposal, to me is most troubling.

But let me just ask one question. Mr. Shea, you got my mind spinning when you said the following. You said, you think that in 1993, after the failure of bombing of World Trade Center, they immediately went to work on some other ways to topple it. Did you?

Mr. SHEA. I am sorry?

Mr. WEINER. You said that in 1993, you believed that bin Laden and the terrorists immediately went to work on trying to figure out how to topple the building——

Mr. SHEA. Yeah.

Page 195      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Mr. WEINER [continuing]. Since they failed. Did you? Did you immediately go to work on that? Did you start to contemplate, well, they failed this time. Let us look at why they failed and what we can do to make sure they don't succeed next time?

Mr. SHEA. Now, Congressman, the answer is no and——

Mr. WEINER. Did anyone in the United States Government do that?

Mr. SHEA. I have no idea. I do not know.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Corbett, as an academic, are you aware of any academic studies that were done to say, you know what, they missed, but they only missed by a few inches, or they missed by a mile? Or if they would have done this or that, it might have been cataclysmic? Has anyone—did anyone do the same type of thinking, with all of our—there is about 150 years of experience in front of us—did anyone do what bin Laden—Mr. Shea says what bid Laden probably did, which is to say, well, we struck out this time—how are we going to get it right next time? Does anyone do that in the academic world?

Mr. CORBETT. Yeah. We certainly do. There was actually a mitigation report—survey team report from FEMA, Document #984-DR-MY, that looked into the issues of the 1993 incident. I don't know what of these issues that were ever applied to the building. I know there were improvements made to the Trade Center, certainly, as far as fire protection.

Mr. WEINER. Dr. Astaneh-Asl—and I apologize for getting your name wrong. Page 196      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. Astaneh.

Mr. WEINER. Weiner, Weiner, Astaneh, Weiner, whatever—what—are you aware, sir, of any of the recommendations that were made following 1993 on structural performance that contemplated a large fire in the building?

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. No. But that is because I am not in fire engineering.

Mr. WEINER. No. No. I understand. I just thought in—perhaps in your research.

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. But I can comment that after tragedy of Oklahoma City, a large number of research and activity was conducted. I did, myself, quite a lot of studies of how you can prevent tragedies like that and GSA funded and recently finished the development of that.

Mr. WEINER. You know, but it is—if you will forgive me, my time is just about expired. But my concern is, the World Trade Center—you didn't need to have an imagination. You can see they came at us in the World Trade Center and they tried to do something. During the trial it was clear—in all the testimony—what they were trying to do was bring down the World Trade Center. You didn't need to think that far out of the box for someone to sit down at their computer and say, wow, now that we know what their target is, let us figure out whether or not we are safe from those targets and what steps you could take, not just stopping cars from getting into the garage, but figuring out you—because we might have—— Page 197      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. Yes.

Mr. WEINER [continuing]. Stumbled upon information that might have been helpful. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. Yes. There was some activity on——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you, Mr.—thank you, Mr. Weiner. Mr. Shays. And I would ask the audience to refrain from any expressions of support or disapproval of somebody's statement. This is a very serious, very important, hearing. And our witnesses are resources for the Committee and they are giving us their best counsel and best recollection. And we are trying all to be involved in something worthy of our best effort. Thank you. Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps, with a few number of members, we could even have a third round. I want to say that one thing I am pretty convinced of since September 11, is there is enough blame to go around for all of us. I mean, we can say what you all should have done and we can say what we should have done. We have been at war with terrorism for 20 years and acted like we didn't know it.

And if we had listed to what some of the terrorists were saying in their native tongues, we probably would have known about 9/11. So I am pretty convinced that we all need to look at ourselves as well.

I am pretty convinced, though, that what I have heard today leaves me less comfortable than before I started the hearing. And it started with Mr. Weiner's question of who is in charge, and I thought I knew. And then I asked one of the staff who I should ask my question to, and they told me the person I thought I should ask, I shouldn't. I was going to ask you, Dr. Bement—— Page 198      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. Bement.

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. What you were—Bement?

Dr. BEMENT. Bement.

Mr. SHAYS. Bement. Dr. Bement, I was going to ask you what you were going to do on all these things. And I realize it is not you—it is Dr. Corley that is really doing this investigation. You just want the investigation, but you have $2 million and would like more, and so on. And you want the authority maybe in the future to do hearing—do these investigations. So I have two sides to this. What?

Dr. BEMENT. Let me correct you. We have actually done some elements of this investigation.

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Dr. BEMENT. And we have done some computer modeling. We have modeled the fire. We have modeled the——

Mr. SHAY. Right. But the overall investigation is not your responsibility. It is Dr. Corley's. Correct?

Dr. BEMENT. I—no. I would—I—— Page 199      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. CORLEY. Yeah.

Mr. SHAY. No. I can't have a no and a yes. I mean, I thought this was—yeah.

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. Mr. Shays, I did raise my hand that as far as the actual field work and——

Mr. SHAYS. Okay.

Dr. CORLEY [continuing]. The collection of data, I am in charge of that for the——

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Dr. CORLEY [continuing]. FEMA ASCE team.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, in the five minutes that is slowly leaving me, I have two sets of questions. One is a set of questions that some of the families who are here would like to know the answer to. And then I would like to know—and I would like to maybe ask this question for my third round—I want to specifically know before I leave here exactly what you would be recommending to Congress. And, Mr. Shea, every time they call on you, I jump. But, Mr.—only because——

Page 200      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Mr. SHEA. Well, I will jump for you.

Mr. SHAYS. Yeah, okay. The bottom line is, I would like to know specifically what you want us to do, what powers you think we need to do so this chairman can recommend to others if it doesn't all go through his Committee—specifically what we should do so there is no question as to who has authority and things happen right away and people have the statutory power and the ability to demand information and to hold people accountable. So that you can start to think about. I want a list, before we leave, on that.

But the—for the families—they—is this investigation, Dr. Corley, looking at evacuation procedures? I want a simple question—answer—no, or, yes, if it is——

Dr. CORLEY. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. Okay. Is it—is it going to report on the sprinkler systems not working?

Dr. CORLEY. We will mention that and recommend things to be done.

Mr. SHAYS. Access to roof eliminated. In other words, people couldn't get to the rooftop because it was blocked off, whereas the last time they could, so some went up rather than down. Will you be looking at why those doors were locked?

Page 201      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Dr. CORLEY. No.

Mr. SHAYS. Reports of stairway doors being locked? Will you be looking at that?

Dr. CORLEY. That will be something in our recommendations. We are not specifically doing it here.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, will you be checking to see if they were, in fact, locked? Will you be interviewing witnesses?

Dr. CORLEY. No. That will be future work.

Mr. SHAYS. Overall safety procedures, i.e., fire drills, fire inspections, and so on—will you be making any comment about that?

Dr. CORLEY. Again, that is future work.

Mr. SHAYS. Lack of communication between the Port Authority and the rescue personnel?

Dr. CORLEY. Same answer, future work.

Mr. SHAYS. Okay.

Page 202      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Dr. CORLEY. We are not directly addressing that.

Mr. SHAYS. Is NIST going to do——

Dr. CORLEY. Yes.

Dr. BEMENT. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. Okay.

Dr. BEMENT. All those things that you mentioned and more. And let me say that——

Mr. SHAYS. And by future, now future?

Dr. BEMENT. I am talking about the investigation that we have been talking about——

Mr. SHAYS. Right. Okay.

Dr. BEMENT [continuing]. During the hearing. This broader investigation that we are taking responsibility for, we will address all those issues.

Mr. SHAYS. Okay.

Page 203      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Dr. BEMENT. And we will start with the investigation that the American Society for Civil Engineers——

Mr. SHAYS. So we will have some answers to these questions.

Dr. BEMENT. You will have answers to those questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Doors were locked. And so some of what——

Dr. BEMENT. That is right.

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. Dr. Corley responded as to future, that is basically——

Dr. BEMENT. We will take a much more deliberate approach to getting answers to all those questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Okay. Okay. And, Mr. Shea, I am going to come back my second round to ask you and others what specific powers you—we need, who should have those powers, and so on. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you. It seems to me, Mr. Shea, that BPAT did not get the aggressive support it needed from the minute this whole thing started from FEMA. I mean, I can't understand, for example, on the blueprints, why it took until December—December—no, it was actually January 8 before they finally got them. Wasn't it? Page 204      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHEA. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Chairman BOEHLERT. I mean, wasn't that one of the first requests you made? And I understand you didn't drop everything on September 11. I mean, we were all shocked. And, once again, let me stress, rightly, everybody was focused on search and rescue—everybody.

But it seems to me that fairly soon thereafter—and I am talking about hours, not days—some action should have been launched to do things like protect the steel and the evidence, to gather the blueprints, to recognize that this was a disaster of monumental proportions, and it is going to require a most comprehensive investigation. And it doesn't appear that there was that instant response in the manner that I would like to have seen from FEMA. Can you address that?

Mr. SHEA. Well, Mr. Chairman, I will do the best I can. I——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Well, let me let you think a little bit more, because I wanted to get to Dr. Corley's statement. One of the things he talks about in his testimony—When studying damaged structures, it is important to understand the physical nature of the original structure as soon as possible—as soon as possible. And then later on he said, The delay in the receipt of the plans hindered the team's ability to confirm their understanding of the buildings. Delay—delay—and so they couldn't do the job that we expected them to do as rapidly as we wanted them to do. So, please talk to me a little bit about that, if you will. Page 205      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHEA. Mr. Chairman, my reaction to your question is, frankly, I agree with you. There were many things that in hindsight now that we would have done different differently. But I have to also say this—it wasn't just a matter of being distracted by other things. We weren't, in fact, trying to react to the entire World Trade Center event. The agency was—had all its resources pulling——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Well, you were stretched to the limit. I understand that.

Mr. SHEA. I—there was no question in my mind that that was the case. And while, again, we would have liked to have done things better, part of the rationale here is this. My belief is—and this is somewhat in response to Congressman Shay's question as well—we started out this hearing by making a recommendation that the National Institute of Standards and Technology be the appropriate agency to carry this type of work out. Part of the reason, quite frankly, is because of the size and technical capability of our agency, I frankly, think they won't have the same kinds of issues confronting them should they address an issue of this kind in the future. So that is my recommendation. I mean, I am serious on that. I believe——

Chairman BOEHLERT. So——

Mr. SHEA [continuing]. That from a good government standpoint, it makes much more sense to have an agency not directly involved in the immediate response activity involved in this kind of an issue. Page 206      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Chairman BOEHLERT. So we learn from experience, and the experience in this unfortunate incident leads us to conclude that we were not as timely and as forceful as we should have been in some areas, including requesting that the debris be segregated and preserved for future investigation. Because, as Dr. Corbett points out, it is very important. Dr. Astaneh points out—Dr. Corley—they all agree it is very important. And that the blueprints—I think you have to be scratching your head and yourself wondering why it took four months to get those blueprints to begin.

I can only conclude that we have never been through something like this before and, boy, I hope we never go through it again. And we better darn well move forward very aggressively in developing a protocol that says if—and we hope it never happens—but if something like this ever happens again, we have got people onsite right away. We know who is in charge. We have got video teams and we have got oral history teams and we have got—bringing in Dr. Corley and his people right away. And we are getting—and we know what questions to ask and who to ask of them. And it is sorry that we had to learn the hard way. But I hope we have learned an awful lot from this experience. And, well, with that, let me go to Mr. Crowley.

Mr. CROWLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, once again. Dr. Astaneh, are you involved officially in the investigation of the World Trade Center disaster—attack?

Dr. ASTANEH-ASL. Well, my involvement—I am not involved with the ASCE team at all.

Mr. CROWLEY. And, Dr. Corbett, are you? Page 207      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. CORBETT. No. I am not involved officially.

Mr. CROWLEY. Okay. Dr. Corley, are any academics involved in the investigation?

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. Forty percent of our core team is from the academic community.

Mr. CROWLEY. And is—Dr. Corley, is your—is ASCE in charge of obtaining oral testimony or oral evidence?

Dr. CORLEY. We are—I would not say we are in charge of that, but we are obtaining some oral—well, oral descriptions of what people saw, did, and what happened——

Mr. CROWLEY. I am assuming you know what you are looking for. In other words, the questions that would need to be asked from a technical term would have to come from either yourself or someone like yourself who knows what they are asking. Right?

Dr. CORLEY. Absolutely. We know what we are looking for in the areas that this study concerns.

Mr. CROWLEY. And is that ongoing?

Page 208      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Dr. CORLEY. Yes. It is.

Mr. CROWLEY. And when did it begin? When were you getting that—when did you start collecting that oral or—testimony?

Dr. CORLEY. With—we started collecting some of that before we were onsite. We were in contact—people contacted us and we collected some of that information even before we got onsite. And we have continued to collect it when we can find people that have information we are after.

Mr. CROWLEY. Let me just ask this question, Mr. Corley—Dr. Corley. You mentioned future studies——

Dr. CORLEY. Yes.

Mr. CROWLEY [continuing]. As opposed to the present study. Can you just clarify, for me—I mean, for the people in this room, what you mean by that?

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. What I am referring to is that when we finish our report and it becomes—or is transmitted in the month of April, I am talking about whatever happens after that point.

Mr. CROWLEY. Are you running into any other roadblocks in terms of not only the city or the state or any other entity, in terms of obtaining information that you request? Page 209      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. CORLEY. Well, as—in any project like this, there are difficulties in collecting information because people don't know where it is, things like that. And we have the normal number of problems like that in this study.

Mr. CROWLEY. I mean, I am talking specifically about government agencies. Are you still running into roadblocks, like the one you experienced in January in which you had to sign a document saying you would not testify in court?

Dr. CORLEY. I would not be able to name you any additional ones than things that have been discussed today, but there—if I thought about it, I might come up with something. But I don't think of anything right now.

Mr. CROWLEY. Dr. Bement, you said earlier that—well, I don't know if you said this or not—but there apparently seems to be a problem in terms of being able to gather information and in terms of working cooperatively with local and city government. Is that correct?

Dr. BEMENT. No. We haven't run into any of those problems as yet. As a matter of fact, one of the most valuable sources of oral history will be from the New York Fire Department in the recounting of the events from the firefighters themselves. And we——

Mr. CROWLEY. Would you describe the events of early January as a problem? Page 210      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. And tell me what events you are referring to.

Mr. CROWLEY. In terms of Dr. Corley having to sign a document stating that he would not testify in court against the Port Authority or the city, I am assuming.

Dr. BEMENT. It certainly was an impediment to his study. I consider it to be a problem.

Mr. CROWLEY. I thank you and I yield back the balance of my time.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you. Let us see—well, Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, to my—to the witnesses, I would like to know what powers are needed specifically and who should have these powers to do an investigation almost in with the—well, I don't want to prejudice this—to do a thorough investigation? Mr. Shea, do you want to start?

Mr. SHEA. From our perspective in FEMA, I think that we, again, would want to say that we feel the National Institute of Standards and Technology is the appropriate agency. They have some existing authority. But I think this Committee, through this hearing today, has already identified some areas where they would need some additional authority.

Mr. SHAYS. Okay. So they should have the authority. Page 211      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHEA. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. And then what particular powers should they have or should it have?

Mr. SHEA. Well, again, I would defer to Dr. Bement on that. But my belief is they obviously want to have access to sites, ready access to the design and construction drawings, things of this nature.

Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Bement.

Dr. BEMENT. Yes. I think, first of all, we would have to have a reserve funding mechanism so that we could bring parties on board. We would have to have something like a National Construction Studies Board where people——

Mr. SHAYS. And let me ask you, in the National Constructions Board, was this what looked at L'Ambiance in Bridgeport when we lost 18 people?

Dr. BEMENT. No. The——

Mr. SHAYS. Well, who did that work? That was—was that——

Dr. BEMENT. There is a National Transportation Studies Board that has the authorities and the first response responsibility. Page 212      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHAYS. Is someone—can you consult with anyone who can tell you who did L'Ambiance? No. I don't——

Mr. SUNDER. We did the study and OSHA changed the mandatory standards——

Mr. SHAYS. Excuse me, sir. I don't know—you need to identify yourself.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Identify yourself for the record, please.

Mr. SUNDER. I am Shyam Sunder. I am the Chief of the Structures Division at NIST.

Mr. SHAYS. Okay. I am sorry. And what was the answer?

Mr. SUNDER. And we did the study and OSHA changed the mandatory standards as a result of that.

Mr. SHAYS. Okay. Thank you very much. So you all did the study. I interrupted you. So you talked about the construction board and then—I am sorry, Dr. Bement.

Dr. BEMENT. Well, we are all talking about a faster response. And what that means is there has to be an organization in place that is empowered to immediately arrive on the scene that has sufficient authority to gather evidence that has subpoena power and that has the adequate funding mechanisms to carry on whatever investigation at whatever scale is needed—whatever is necessary. Page 213      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

I would also add, it is almost a no-brainer that there is no reason why building blueprints have to be in paper or vellum format. They could be on electronic format, in which case everyone could have the zip file. I mean, the firefighters could have their disk and a lot of people could have that disk.

Mr. SHAYS. But there would some we wouldn't want to have that information. Yeah. Right. Anything else?

Dr. BEMENT. No.

Mr. SHAYS. To the gentleman that just came, could I invite you just to come back and just tell me with L'Ambiance was there subpoena power? Was there other powers that accompanied that investigation?

Mr. SUNDER. No. We have typically not required that because the statute, as you know, says that any work we do is not—cannot be used in a court of law. And also, Federal employees can't serve as expert witnesses in general. So——

Mr. SHAYS. And what was the purpose for not being in a court of law? What is the motivation for that?

Mr. SUNDER. Usually we draw a distinction between structural failures and failures after natural disasters. In the case of structural failures, there is usually litigation problems between different parties. And since we are doing a technical study, focusing on the technical issues, we don't go in to the issues of finding fault and negligence in our work. Page 214      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Dr. Bement, if you would help me a second, wouldn't you need also the authority to look at malfeasance, just a failure to—for someone doing their job—probably—wouldn't it have to involve not just structural issues, but other issues as well?

Dr. BEMENT. Again, our role is to do technical studies and not——

Mr. SHAYS. No. But that is maybe—suggests that maybe you should only play a part. And, Mr. Shea, that there needs to be some other organization that looks at this from a holistic point of view. I mean, if doors were locked, if processes aren't followed that should be, it would suggest to me that NIST wouldn't be——

Dr. BEMENT. Well, I think there would be many, many organizations that would get involved at that stage in——

Mr. SHAYS. No. But that is what we are trying to avoid.

Dr. BEMENT [continuing]. Providing evidence.

Mr. SHAYS. We are trying to avoid if everybody is responsible, nobody is. We want one board ultimately or one group ultimately, it seems to me, to have the authority to look at every aspect of why something happened that shouldn't have happened. And so that really argues for you being a part of this, but somebody else having a greater role. Page 215      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. Well, I think the point here is that at what point do you want to get beyond conducting an independent, open, public, unbiased study that is inclusive to going to the other extreme of developing evidence and fault-finding and——

Mr. SHAYS. Yeah. But when NTSB looks at something, they look at pilot performance besides looking at structural issues. They look at a lot of issues. They don't just look at one part. So I mean, I understand where you are coming from. It may make sense for you to focus on just structural issues, but ultimately this Committee needs to make a recommendation that I think that is one that——

Dr. BEMENT. I agree with that.

Mr. SHAYS. Okay.

Dr. BEMENT. Yes. I agree with that.

Mr. SHAYS. Okay. Thank you.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you, Mr. Shays. You know, as I mentioned in my opening statement, this investigation seems to be unusually concerned with secrecy. Can you explain that to me, Mr. Shea, why that is so, and why—we know, for example, that the Port Authority did not take this approach after the '93 bombing. And what is the nature of the confidentiality agreements that BPAT participants were asked to sign?

Page 216      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Mr. SHEA. The nature is that the team members won't disclose publicly the conversations and opinions that are going on during the course of their deliberations. This is primarily intended to protect the scientific integrity of the process. That is——

Chairman BOEHLERT. You are saying—but that—Dr. Corley, didn't you say that is unusual?

Dr. CORLEY. My comment was that I don't recall when I have signed an agreement like that in the past.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Mr. Shea, do you recall requesting such agreements in previous instances?

Mr. SHEA. Yeah. Our confidentiality agreements are standard fare as part of the way that we have historically done these Building Performance Assessment Teams.

Chairman BOEHLERT. But why all the secrecy? I mean, we didn't have a spokesperson for FEMA out talking to the public? I mean, obviously, when you have got an ongoing investigation, you don't give chapter or verse——

Mr. SHEA. Right.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. Along the way. But it seems that there was undue secrecy and people were just hungry for more information. Do you think I am unfair in characterizing the situation as one involving undue secrecy? Page 217      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHEA. I guess I am a little taken aback by that, Mr. Chairman. I—my opinion of the situation is that what we were attempting to do was provide an environment for scientists and technical engineers and academicians to come to judgments—and this often involves opinions—and give them an opportunity to bring their opinions forward in an unbiased way and free from any undue influence from outside parties.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Yeah. But do you have a spokesperson to deal with the rest of the world, other than the—Dr. Corley and his team, the BPAT team, and those who are involved internally in the process? I mean, there are a lot of questions understandably from the rest of the world.

Mr. SHEA. Right.

Chairman BOEHLERT. But was there a spokesperson to address those questions on behalf of FEMA?

Mr. SHEA. Well, as far as I understand, if we were asked questions that we did try and respond to them. Now, I am not aware of any circumstance in which we were unresponsive to somebody. In fact, I was interviewed as part of this process. I did engage in a conference call with some people who had some concerns about our issue. And I——

Chairman BOEHLERT. I am just reading from the SOP here, Standard Operating Procedures——

Page 218      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Mr. SHEA. Right.

Chairman BOEHLERT [continuing]. Of March 2000, Building Performance Assessment Team Program. ''A BPAT media advisor's liaison is selected by the DFO public information officer to act as a liaison between the BPAT and media relations staff and the DFO and the media. All media contacts are referred to the media affairs liaison.'' So if I—if my office called up or just John Q. Citizen called up on the 17th of October and said, who is your media affairs liaison, who would you have referred?

Mr. SHEA. Well, that would have been somebody in our disaster field office in New York City. Frankly, I am sorry, I don't have a name to give you right now.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Okay. I don't expect you to know the names of all your employees.

Mr. SHEA. But, in fact, there was somebody there. There was a media liaison who would deal with issues of that nature.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Yeah. Well, counsel just points out to me that in some instances leaks to the media sort of backfired, because that is not a desirable way to do business—have leaks.

Mr. SHEA. I couldn't agree more, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BOEHLERT. But leaks only come about when there are people who are sort of frustrated in many instances that information isn't getting out to the public, and so they do it in bits and dribbles, and sometimes it compromises an ongoing investigation or works contrary to the desired result in terms of the ongoing investigation. And that is why I happen to believe public information is very important. And I would have thought that maybe a higher level person than just a person on the site in a field office, not having a great deal of authority and not being able to speak with authority for FEMA—that is really an awesome responsibility to put on someone like that. Page 219      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Mr. SHEA. I don't disagree with you. I—in those circumstances, I—my anticipation is that the field office would have brought that up to Washington and that they would have involved myself or Mr. Wingo or others in the response to any of those issues.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you. Mr. Weiner.

Mr. WEINER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, let me begin by offering my apologies to you, Mr. Chairman, and to members of the panel if I got a little excited and loud earlier. Being from New York, we sometimes don't modulate our voices and——

Chairman BOEHLERT. I want you to know, Mr. Weiner, I also am from New York and I am proud of it.

Mr. WEINER. And I also, by no means, mean to imply that any of the members of the panel are responsible for these lapses. I believe you are cogs in a badly flawed—not to the extent that there are any cogs there—that you are cogs in a very flawed machine and a bad apparatus. And let me make that clear. But I think what we are seeing increasingly from both the Chairman's previous questions and others throughout the day is that the model you should be looking at is the NTSB.

The NTSB would be absurd—borderline ludicrous—for them to go to American Airlines and say, please let us see the diagram of your 767, please. We promise that if we find out that fibercarbons had weakened the tail, we won't tell anybody. It is mind-boggling. It is silly. I don't see any reason why the motis operandi should be any different from examining a building. Page 220      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

The NTSB has made a—has—did about a dozen or so briefings in the first five or six days. Sometimes they said, you know what, we can't tell you stuff because we just don't know it. As a matter of fact, you know, I had dozens of conversations with the head of the NTSB and I always commend her. I said, you know, the temptation must be to say, well, maybe it is this or maybe it is that, and they don't do that. And—but what they do do, is they do give regular updates. They let reporters throw the questions. They let members of the—of Congress know—they let the families know, we are going to be giving an update. And, as things are discounted or ruled in or ruled out, they let you know.

And the final thing that they do is they come out with a report. And by the time the report comes out, there is such credibility imbued in that document, that instantly airlines start reacting, the FAA starts reacting, and we, as citizens, start saying, I am glad they go to the bottom of that. The theory that I heard on day one turned out not to be exactly right.

So the easiest and best answer to give to the Mr. Chairman's—and to the Chairman's last series of questions was, you know what, we are going to start giving an update to you, the public, to members of the press, to you Members of Congress every so often. Even if we don't have all the answers, we are going to stand in front of you. We are going to clarify the chain of command. We are going to have the people there, the experts who are going to answer the questions.

Can—I don't know who to ask anymore, but can you assure that you will do that in the months to come? Say that, well, if we don't have a report in the next 6 months, we will come back and maybe not give it to you in Congress, but we will have regular briefings at the NIST headquarters on how things are going. Page 221      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. Sir, yes. I can assure you that that will happen.

Mr. WEINER. Terrific. And let me just ask one other substantive thing, and as you proceed with your investigation. A couple of things that have come up—one has come up from the oral history given by the firefighters about the problems with communication. Part of it, sadly, was a reflection of 1993. They found there were problems with repeaters in the buildings that allow the radios to work. If one of the things that you could look at is ways to design into buildings a black box type of apparatus to allow the infrastructure of fire fighting to remain intact. To allow—you know, it is the old joke—you know they always recover the black boxes. Why don't they make the plane out of the black box materials so they can recover everybody.

Dr. BEMENT. Yes. And I am just delighted for you to bring that up because that is in our '03 budget request.

Mr. WEINER. Okay. What—but if you can look at that. And a second issue that has come up repeatedly, as I have spoken to the families—you know, something that unifies the families of the victims, almost to a person, is they were on the higher floors. If you can take a look at the idea of building into high rises is a place for a helicopter to land. Figure, I know what—all right, we need to have antenna and the like. Figuring out ways, as you design buildings, to think about the people who are on the Rotunda floors and thing about the ones that are not. And even if it is not, as Mr. Bartlett, perhaps, you know, would like us to take any building that is over six floors and chop them off and put them next to each other—— Page 222      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. Right.

Mr. WEINER. If we can start thinking about the real world experiences of firefighters, that I don't care—you know, these guys were on the 50-something floor on their way up. We have witnesses who were talking about firefighters carrying enough gear to make up my body weight going up while people were coming down.

If we can think about this as not just an academic exercise—if we can think about ways to design buildings and retrofit buildings to think about the men and women who are going to be called in, in the worst possible case scenario. That doesn't mean tear the buildings down. But figure out a way to include in the infrastructure ways—who knows—I mean, I think it was—I don't know—it was Mr. Corbett or Mr. Shea who talked about how the wing cut through the——

Dr. BEMENT. Yes.

Mr. WEINER [continuing]. Pipe that carried the water. Maybe there is no way to avoid that. But I can tell you one thing—that, you know, there was only nominal thought given to what would happen if there was a fire up there. You know, to be honest with you——

Dr. BEMENT. Right.

Mr. WEINER [continuing]. I don't know of anyone—even, you know, you can put a standpipe on the 103rd floor. If you are not thinking about how someone on the 103rd floor is going to talk to the base downstairs, what is the point? So if you can think of that as well, and make that part of your research—— Page 223      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Dr. BEMENT. Mr. Weiner, we are in violent agreement on that point and we will carry that out as a key part of our investigation without doubt.

Mr. WEINER. I thank you. And let me reiterate my thank you for you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you very much, Mr. Weiner, and, Mr. Shays. You two have been magnificent. You have been here all day. And it is obvious—it should be obvious to everyone in the audience that this isn't the first time they have been introduced to the subject. A lot of preparation goes into a hearing like this, a lot of discussions. And I really thank you for your diligence and your active participation.

And I want to clear up something for the record, Dr. Corley, because you said—just I want to make sure I understand it correctly—that shortly after September 11, you signed a confidentiality agreement, and you said you hadn't signed one like that before. Which confidentiality agreement were you referring to, the one from the Port Authority or the one from FEMA, or both?

Dr. CORLEY. I was referring to the one from the Port Authority.

Chairman BOEHLERT. So that is—an SOP, as Mr. Shea had indicated, the type of agreement you signed with FEMA.

Dr. CORLEY. Yes. I think that agreement—— Page 224      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

Chairman BOEHLERT. Standard.

Dr. CORLEY. That is a standard agreement I had signed——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Yeah.

Dr. CORLEY [continuing]. Before.

Chairman BOEHLERT. I mean, it didn't sound out of line when he mentioned that to me.

Dr. CORLEY. Yeah.

Chairman BOEHLERT. So—but I wanted to make sure the record was clear.

Dr. CORLEY. Yeah. I am sorry if that—if I confused you.

Chairman BOEHLERT. No. No.

Mr. WINGO. Mr. Chairman, if I could, that was a standard agreement in the Oklahoma City report as well.

Page 225      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2 Chairman BOEHLERT. Sure. I understand.

Mr. WINGO. Yes, sir.

Chairman BOEHLERT. But I just wanted to make sure for the record that we got that there.

Mr. WINGO. And for the past 20 or 30 or 40 BPATs——

Chairman BOEHLERT. Well, look, I think we have learned a lot of things this afternoon—some things that raised concerns and that underscore some of the points I made right at the beginning.

First, right now, there are no clear lines of authority as to who in the Federal Government is to conduct an investigation of a building failure. No one is in charge. No one is sure what powers the Federal Government can exercise. No one is sure of the scope of an investigation, and that has to be fixed right away. And I see a lot of nodding of heads from the Panel, and I appreciate that.

We need an enhanced disaster investigation protocol in place—thank you, Dr. Corbett—so that from minute one, someone will assume a recognized leadership role. Someone has to be in charge or no one is. And having no one in charge is unacceptable.

Some of it can be fixed by the Federal agencies, and I understand that handing the ball from FEMA to NIST, which I think is logical and makes sense, but some of it has to be fixed by those of us up here in the Congress with legislation. And we are going to be looking for very specific proposals. Page 226      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

For starters, we have to know right now who is in charge in the instant case. Second, NIST needs to move forward with its more extended work on the lessons of the collapse. We need to see that NIST has the authority and—and this is essential—the money to move ahead. And we are not talking about nickels and dimes. Money should not, and will not, be an obstacle if this Committee has anything to say about it—to a thorough and timely investigation and recommendations. But NIST is going to have to present a more detailed plan on exactly what it will spend its money on and when.

Dr. BEMENT. Now, Mr. Chairman, we can provide more detail for the record than what you have received so far. But the——

Chairman BOEHLERT. And we are doing that—one—a lot of questions have been asked. One question that hasn't been asked directly of you. You have had 14 different pronunciations of your name today. Would you pronounce it for the Committee so that we will have——

Dr. BEMENT. Well, Mr. Chairman, I have eight children and they all pronounce it differently also. It is Bement.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Bement. Thank you.

Dr. BEMENT. That is the official version.

Chairman BOEHLERT. Thank you. And let the record show that. I want to emphasize again that correcting these deficiencies will not only help in this case, but will help us learn from future events regardless of whether they are caused by nature or by man. This Committee is committed to following up on today's hearing to ensure that the confusion and uncertainty we have brought to light today does not persist into the future. Page 227      PREV PAGE       TOP OF DOC    Segment 1 Of 2

With that, let me thank the very patient panel, my colleagues up here who have given so much of their time and talent, and to all of you witnesses. You will be hearing further from us with written submissions, and we ask that you give us a timely written response. With that, if I can find the gavel, I will adjourn this hearing.

[Whereupon, at 3:57 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]