The bigger the building, the more important fire-protecting becomes. That’s why today’s buildings have asbestos-cement walls and even floors containing asbestos. Asbestos contain fire, cannot burn, and holds up after metal and glass have melted down, giving vital time for people to escape. You’ll also find asbestos sealing plumbing joints insulating heating pipes, electric motors and emergency generators. Asbestos. We couldn’t live the way we do without it. When life depends on it, you use asbestos.
I had never considered the possibility that retrofitting the WTC buildings to remove asbestos would have cost a fortune, which would not have been covered under insurance, as far as I know.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.maacenter.org/jobsites/WTC/asbestos.php
"In the weeks following the World Trade Center attacks, there was plenty of discussion about asbestos. When construction of the towers began in the late 1960s, asbestos warnings and bans were not yet in place. Engineers suggested the use of asbestos material for the first 40 floors of both towers but, anticipating a future ban on the material, the higher floors did not employ the use of asbestos insulation. Still, about 400 tons of asbestos fiber was in the buildings when they collapsed."
How strange that these insurance policies were obtained less than 2 months before the 9/11/01 attacks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Silverstein#Insurance_dispute
"The insurance policies obtained in July 2001 for World Trade Center buildings 1, 2, 4 and 5 had a collective face amount of $3.55 billion. Following the September 11, 2001 attack, Silverstein sought to collect double the face amount (~$7.1 billion) on the basis that the two separate airplane strikes into two separate buildings constituted two occurrences within the meaning of the policies. The insurance companies took the opposite view. Based on differences in the definition of "occurrence" (the insurance policy term governing the amount of insurance) and uncertainties over which definition of "occurrence" applied, the court split the insurers into two groups for jury trials on the question of which definition of "occurrence" applied and whether the insurance contracts were subject to the "one occurrence" interpretation or the "two occurrence" interpretation."
I had never been one to believe that the 9/11 attack on the WTC was a conspiracy, but this certainly gives me pause to rethink that belief.
Greed breeds evil deeds.