Transcript of NIST Public Meeting in New York City – February 12, 2004 Table of Contents Jim Hill, National Institute of Standards and Technology.............................................................. 1 Shyam Sunder, National Institute of Standards and Technology ................................................. 2 Public Comment Session I....................................................................................................... 12 Sally Regenhard, Skyscraper Safety Campaign......................................................................... 12 Patricia Lancaster, New York City Department of Buildings ....................................................... 15 Jim Tidwell, International Code Council...................................................................................... 17 Robert Solomon, National Fire Protection Association ............................................................... 18 Jack Murphy, New York City Fire Safety Directors Association.................................................. 19 Bill Bowen ................................................................................................................................... 21 James Quintiere, University of Maryland .................................................................................... 23 Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, University of California, Berkeley....................................................... 25 Lawrence Shapiro, W.R. Grace & Company .............................................................................. 27 Tim Vellrath, Vellrath Engineering .............................................................................................. 29 Question and Answer Session I .............................................................................................. 32 Public Comment Session II...................................................................................................... 43 Anthony Pugliese, New York City District Council of Carpenters ............................................... 43 Monica Gabrielle, Skyscraper Safety Campaign ........................................................................ 45 John McCormick, Society of Fire Protection Engineers.............................................................. 47 David Harris, National Institute of Building Sciences .................................................................. 48 Donald Bliss, National Association of State Fire Marshals ......................................................... 50 Peter Gleason, former Fire Department of New York ................................................................. 52 Glenn Corbett, John Jay College of Criminal Justice.................................................................. 53 Jake Pauls, Jake Pauls Consulting Services .............................................................................. 55 Arthur Scheuerman, retired Fire Department of New York ......................................................... 57 Zia Razzaq, Old Dominion University ......................................................................................... 59 John Cole.................................................................................................................................... 61 Stephen Vassilev ........................................................................................................................ 62 Bruce DeCell, Skyscraper Safety Campaign .............................................................................. 64 Roger Morse, Morse Center Associates ..................................................................................... 66 Leonard Cricsi............................................................................................................................. 68 William Rodriquez ....................................................................................................................... 70 Allison Crowther.......................................................................................................................... 72 Question and Answer Session II ............................................................................................. 73 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE National Institute of Standards and Technology Public Meeting to Present Progress and Preliminary Findings of the NIST Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster Morning Session, February 12, 2004 Dr. Hill: Good morning. My name is Jim Hill. I'm currently the Acting Director of the Building and Fire Research Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Welcome to this public meeting on the federal building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center disaster. The first thing I'd like to do is to inform you on the emergency exit routes out of this particular room. This is a diagram, the layout of the third floor of the hotel. We're in this room right here, this is the podium where I stand, and in case of an emergency, you can go out the side doors here. You'll have to walk through a kitchen door, but there's a stairway where you can go out to the outside. In a similar way, if you go out the two side doors on the opposite side of the room and simply walk down the hall, there's a stairway here, there’s also a stairway here that will lead out of the building. The purpose of today's meeting is to brief you, the public, on the status of the investigation that we're conducting and to gather public input in three areas: specific technical aspects of our investigation; suggestions for things we should consider within the time and scope of our current eight projects: and areas we should consider for specific improvements to building practices, standards and codes. We have a very busy, tight schedule for the day, and we're going to do the following: First, our lead investigator will give you a detailed report on the status of our investigation. As you will hear, it's well under way and scheduled to be completed by early next fall. Twenty-four people had preregistered to formally address the NIST team today. We hope to complete about half of these presentations before lunch. We'll take a lunch break at 12:15. And the other half will be completed after lunch, starting at 1:45. There is an opportunity for additional people to sign up to speak this afternoon. Registration forms are outside at the registration desk. We'll accept those requests up until noon, and then we'll schedule the additional speakers this afternoon on a first-come, first-served basis. Finally, there's going to be an opportunity for anyone from the public to ask questions of our lead investigator and the other NIST team members who are here at two different sessions. One will run from 1:15-1:45, right after lunch. The other one will run from 3:30 to 4, later in the afternoon. If the press wants to present any questions to us offline, we're happy to accommodate you. Michael Newman at the back of the room is from our Public and Business Affairs office and he'll be happy to arrange that with you. I'd also like to introduce at this time, Mat Heyman, at the front of the room. Mat is the NIST Chief of Staff. He's here today to help out in any needs that individuals may have. We hope to complete the meeting and adjourn by 5 p.m. A transcript of today's meeting will be posted on the NIST WTC Investigation web site. It’ll be up here on the screen in just a moment. If you want to provide us additional information after today is over, you can also contact us in a number of different ways that will also be on the screen shortly. 1 Transcript of NIST Public Meeting in New York City – February 12, 2004 Many of you are aware that this investigation is being conducted under the auspices of the National Construction Safety Team Act. It was an act passed by Congress and signed into law by the President in October of 2002. This law gave us many authorities that are similar to those of the National Transportation Safety Board. However, there is one major distinction. This investigation is conducted inside of NIST. There is no Board like there is with NTSB. In fact, the NIST Director serves in that capacity. The law did authorize an advisory committee whose purpose is to advise the NIST Director on our procedures, activities, investigations, and recommendations. We've been very fortunate. We have a current advisory committee that consists of ten superbly qualified individuals who’ve been in place for a year. They've met with us collectively three different times during the past year, and they've just finished their first report to Congress that was delivered earlier this week. Copies of that report are on the table outside of the room if you're interested. Some of the members of the advisory committee are here today. First, I'd like to introduce Paul Fitzgerald. Paul, would you stand? He’s the Chairman of the Committee. He’s had a distinguished technical and executive career with FM Global, one of the world’s largest commercial and industrial property insurance organizations. Glenn Corbett. Glenn is professor of public management and fire science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice here in New York City. He’s had extensive experience in fire protection and fire science. He’s going to address the group later this morning and give us his comments as an individual professional, not as a member of the NCST Advisory Committee. We also have David Collins with us. David is a president of The Preview Group in Cincinnati,