Letter to Newsday (no response)
(c) 2001, Mike Barkley
From: "Michael Barkley" , mjbarkl@inreach.com
To: letters@newsday.com
Subject: Letter to the Editor - Criminal Negligence? Locked stairwell doors in the WTC
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 13:23:29 -0800
Dear Editor,
As I've explored the Internet looking for WTC answers to the
same questions I have whenever I visit a high-rise, that is, where are
the exits and how to use them, I've been amazed at the discussions of
design concessions in the WTC towers forced by the Greed of the
Port Authority in specifying a project of that size on such a small
amount of land, see for instance WTC design defect discussions on the
"DesignCommunity Architecture Forum" website bulletin board in
September and October,
http://www.designcommunity.com/discussion.html , and
http://www.DesignCommunity.com/discussion_2001-09.html ,
as well as the learned discussion at
http://www.hera.org.nz/PDF%20Files/World%20Trade%20Centre.pdf .
But what has appalled me the most are the many, many accounts of
locked fire stairs in the towers, locked doors leading INTO the stairs
and locked doors leading OUT of the stairs. This is criminal negligence
and should be prosecuted. Doing an internet search I find,
World trade center stairwells locked , 195 hits on Yahoo, 326 on Google
Or, leaving off the "s", yields,
World trade center stairwell locked , 696 on Yahoo, 1,460 on Google
(Boolean and wild card searching don't always work on these engines....)
Naturally, there are duplicates and irrelevancies, but still, here are
some scary locked stairwell stories:
http://www.cambridge-reporter.com/news/SurvivingTerror.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010916colferap9.asp
http://alumni.udayton.edu/np_story.asp?storyID=612
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-091201color.story
http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/092401/24ian.html
And one fellow who apparently died behind locked WTC stairwell doors:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/special/attack/pages/humanimpact_0919_a3.html
I thought we learned the "locked stairwell" lesson with Triangle Shirtwaist.
I hope Newsday will use its great power to ensure nothing like this ever
happens again. Thank you.
--Mike Barkley, 161 N. Sheridan Ave. #1, Manteca, CA 95336
(H) 209/823-4817 , mjbarkl@inreach.com - MS is not Microsoft.
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Return to Sentinel Home.
--Mike Barkley, 161 N. Sheridan Ave. #1, Manteca, CA 95336 (H) 209/823-4817
mjbarkl@inreach.com