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CNN Live Today

America Under Attack: American Express Building in Danger of Collapse

Aired September 13, 2001 - 14:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, we have a structural engineer on the phone, Jim DeStefano. Jim and I talked I think it was on Tuesday, and we talk again now.

Jim, tell me, as you have listened to all of this, how are we doing and what do you think is happening to that building?

JIM DESTEFANO, STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: I have to apologize, because I don't have your broadcast here, so I don't know exactly what is going on. But it's my understanding that one of the adjacent buildings is in critical condition?

BROWN: Yeah, well, they are evacuating the American Express building. There is some smoke coming out of the building. There is, as described to us, some listing of the building. And this is about a block to the west of the Trade Center building -- 51 stories, 738 feet. Those are the stats.

DESTEFANO: OK. Now, I understand that there have been a lot of broken gas mains and things like that in the neighborhood, which are a particular hazard in an instance like this. I'm not sure if that would be a contributor to what you are observing right now.

BROWN: How would that contribute to the listing of the building?

DESTEFANO: Well, if you had an explosion caused by a gas leak, that could cause that sort of effect on a building.

BROWN: OK. I have not heard any of our reporting there suggest that any of our reporters say they have heard an explosion. I'm not saying there wasn't one, we just haven't heard it. Anything else that might be causing this come to mind? I realize you are not there and you can't analyze it. Give me your best guess, I guess.

DESTEFANO: There have been a lot of things that these buildings have been subjected to in the last few days. Just the ground shaking associated with the impact of the two towers falling and collapsing the way they did creates a seismic force on the ground, not dissimilar to an earthquake. And that of course, can do some serious damage to adjacent buildings and to their substructure.

So, it's very possible that some damage associated with the collapse of the adjacent buildings have now triggered some structural failure within the adjacent building.

BROWN: At some point, assuming the building doesn't fall here, people like you, the structural engineers, have to go in and look at it and see how stable it is or is not. What do you look for in those situations?

DESTEFANO: Well, it's very difficult. You need to look at all the key structural components, look for signs of structural damage or structural failure. You look for members that have buckled or are in the process of buckling. You look for deformed members, you look for anything that could be critical to the safety of the structure.

BROWN: OK. Jim, help me with -- I didn't quite understand what a member was. You talked about a buckled member.

DESTEFANO: A structural frame is comprised of a number of different structural members. There are beams, which are horizontal members, there are columns, which are vertical members, there are diagonal bracing elements that are also structural members. And you got to look at all these components and try to identify critical elements that are deformed or showing signs of structural distress.

BROWN: Stay on the phone, Jim. I want to bring in John Vause who is quite close to the area now. And Jim, as you listen to John, you may pick up some information that helps you analyze this for us. John, what have you have got?

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, we are being moved again. A few moments ago, we all stopped because they thought that there was -- they heard something under the rubble.

We are trying to work out which building is which in this area, which has been incredibly damaged by those terrorist attacks. The buildings are covered in dust, it's so badly damaged and they're just virtually unrecognizable. So, when we talk about a particular building, quite often we are talking about two different things.

So, you were talking about the Millennium Hotel, and you were talking to me about the American Express building. Both of those buildings we believe have suffered some sort of structural damage and both are in some kind of danger. The American Express building is to the south of the World Trade Center. The Millennium Hotel is directly opposite, to the north. So, that's basically where we stand at this stage.

Once again, the workers have stopped. I believe they may have found or heard something underneath the debris. I have to stop talking.

BROWN: OK, you say -- Jim, did you hear anything there that helps you analyze what you think might be going on?

DESTEFANO: It's hard from that kind of information to be very specific about what might be going on, but clearly when structural elements start to fail, you do get rumblings, you get shattering of the structure, and those are all early warning signs that something is on the verge of collapsing.

BROWN: I'm just getting a report, and there is no elegant way to do this, let me just read it to you, on this building, the American Express building. As they were moving people out, according to Dr. William Bradley (ph), who is an ophthalmologist. Dr. Bradley (ph) was treating rescue workers who were getting all manner of soot and fiber glass in their eyes, and he has been working on that. He says in there -- in there -- there was some panic in getting people out of the building. Some of the doctors who were working there got clogged in the revolving door.

Quote, "there was a stampede of doctors trying to get out of the building. I'm never going to forget that. I thought I was going to die." He praised a group of firefighters who returned to the site shortly afterward, and on it goes.

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