I say the pictures and I read the articles, and all I can think is:
Why is that concrete not pulverized?
Why are there frames left to the trucks?
If a 110-story WTC can burn for LESS THAN AN HOUR with much cooler fires, how in the world is this tunnel still in one piece?
"Investigators scour wreckage for cause of deadly Calif. pileup" by Michael R. Blood/Associated Press October 15, 2007
SANTA CLARITA, Calif. - Investigators picked through scorched tire rims, truck axles, and other wreckage yesterday, hoping to pinpoint what triggered a fiery interstate tunnel pileup that killed three, while police and commuters braced for a traffic nightmare at the start of the work week.
With miles of Interstate 5 shut down, traffic was snarled on nearby roads where drivers looked for alternate routes after Friday night's pileup, which engulfed more than two dozen trucks and other vehicles in flames and closed a section of the heavily used freeway north of Los Angeles.
Warren Stanley, California Highway Patrol assistant chief, would not speculate on the cause of the crash but said authorities would finish their on-scene investigation shortly.
He did not know when findings would be released.
Investigators determined that 28 commercial vehicles - including many big rigs - and one passenger car were involved in the crash, which killed two men and an infant and injured at least 10 people, said John Tripp, Los Angeles County deputy fire chief.
The fire spread from vehicle to vehicle, sent flames shooting nearly 100 feet in the air outside the tunnel and reached temperatures as high as 1,400 degrees, Tripp said.
"It consumed everything that was burnable," the chief said, leaving behind only "molten metal, frames of vehicles."
[It left molten metal, but vehicle frames were still in tact?
Weird. Doesn't gibe with what happened on 9/11.
Almost like the MSM just wants you to make the mythical connection.
Amazing how they reinforce and reinforce, isn't it, reader?]
The acrid smell of burned oil and rubber lingered yesterday at the 550-foot tunnel. The roadbed and walls where charred black, and concrete had fallen away in places, exposing the structure's steel skeleton.
[Oh, now that is IMPOSSIBLE, right?
I mean, I saw those huge, 110-story, 47-steel-columned interior towers just fall right to the ground in less than two hours.
Yet this fire burns all night, and the structures steel skeleton is still standing?
Oh, STINK!]
A front loader shoveled blackened debris into a dump truck. Investigators moved among the wreckage, examining debris and taking notes. Charred vehicle parts were discernible in twisted, blackened masses.
The bodies of one man and a child were in the cab of a truck hauling cantaloupe, which appeared to have hit a pillar outside the tunnel, a fire official said on condition his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak about the incident.
The other body was found in a truck about 12 feet short of the tunnel's exit, said the official.
All the bodies were burned beyond recognition, he said.
County coroner's investigator Kelly Yagerlener said it could be several days before the names of the dead were released.
Ten victims suffered minor to moderate injuries, and 10 others in the tunnel when the crash occurred managed to escape unharmed, Stanley said."
[It's a wonder there were any bodies at all, after what happened at the Pentagon on September 11]
"In California, Fiery Crash Shuts Down an Interstate" by JENNIFER STEINHAUER
SANTA CLARITA, Calif., Oct. 14 — Traffic twisted into snarls on Sunday around one of the most essential interstates on the West Coast as officials scrambled to clear debris from a fiery, 31-vehicle crash that killed two adults and a baby in a heavily traveled tunnel in northern Los Angeles County.
The southbound lanes of the highway, Interstate 5, were to reopen on Monday morning, officials announced late Sunday. But a roughly two-mile-long northbound stretch was to remain closed until at least Tuesday, and commuters and transit officials braced for inevitable traffic headaches.
Engineers worked feverishly on Sunday afternoon to assess damage to the burned-out tunnel, which serves as a bypass to the main winding section of the freeway, the main north-south artery in California.
Officials said it would take weeks to determine the cause of the Friday night accident, in which 28 trucks and one passenger car crashed accordion-style in the 500-foot-long tunnel that trucks are required to use as a southbound bypass lane at the gateway to the San Fernando Valley. Rain had just begun to fall before the crash, and high winds fed the flames and quickly created an inferno with temperatures that neared 2,000 degrees, officials said. Debris removed from the tunnel 24 hours after the crash was still smoldering.
[So now the temp went up to nearly 2,000 degrees.
Where is my collapse, hey?!
I mean, geez, Ground Zero was SMOKING FOR WEEKS because of the thermite!]
Several terrified passengers were able to escape the fiery trap, but two men and an infant died and 10 people were injured. Names of the victims had not been released. The loss of life was surprisingly low, in the view of officials — given the number of vehicles involved, the searing heat and the tight space.
“We’re pretty mystified by it, ourselves,” said Tom Lackey, a sergeant with the California Highway Patrol. “Physics was not friendly in that environment, and it led to some very disastrous circumstances. You basically had a furnace here for 14 hours.”
[And yet no collapse? No pulverized concrete? Huh?]
Workers had most of the accident debris removed by Sunday afternoon and had determined that the roof of the tunnel was probably sound, an assessment that may allow traffic to flow along the highway above the tunnel as early as Tuesday.
But the inside clearly suffered structural damage, as evidenced by the rebar that had separated from the walls. Concrete had more or less melted from the walls of the tunnel, once white and smooth, now salmon colored on one side and pocked with deep black gashes. A heavy smell of char and smoke remained.
[The concrete melted?
It wasn't turned to dust like on 9/11?
And wouldn't that rebar have been melted?
And if not.... WTF happened on 9/11 then?
Something about 9/11 and the airplane fires is starting to smell EL STINKO, readers!]
Officials will analyze samples of concrete under an electron microscope to assess the structural damage to the tunnel.
At least 70 California transit workers planned to work through the night into Monday to assess damage and remove debris in anticipation of opening the highway in both directions by early this week.
“We should be able to open traffic even as we repair the walls,” said Douglas Failing, a district director for the California Department of Transportation.
[No repairing the WTC towers, though.
Why, reader?
Because the WTC towers were felled NOT BY FIRE, but by CONTROLLED DEMOLITIONS?]
