Trump is the Hurricane blowing over our Citicorp Skyscraper. Wake up people; America and the World is on the way out.
21
I do not believe Trump. He is a constant liar.
32
Just don’t trust trump, period!
21
I always thought the problem with that building was not wind shear alone but its precarious asymmetrical base not making full contact with its foundation but rather relying on two incorrectly placed enormous columns that supported its cantilever over the historic church that occupied the site and needed to remain.
6
Why would anyone at this point think to trust anything Trump says?
23
Donnie has no reason to be serious or responsible. Donnie thinks his daddy's money will make it all go away.
11
Finally a story that applauds the toiling civil servant that protects the citizens of this country. Quietly doing their job. I am so tired of the bashing of government and government employees. There is waste and excess in the best run companies and we have a President that most likely has never been a successful businessman. The hypocrisy!
41
Most of the world knows not to trust Trump on the weather, or on economics, or on military alliances, or on his allegiance to the United States of America. Donald has publicly lied more than 11,000 times as President. This man has no moral compass and zero ethics. He is a barren vessel.
28
TRUTH ALWAYS MATTERS. You will never be able to believe Trump and his entire Administration because they lie about everything - not those simple social fibs but existentially serious ones EVERY DAY.
It’s no wonder that the average American doubts government - that’s Trump’s game plan for his hostile takeover and tyrannical authoritarianism. He wants to “emerge” as our savior, our arbiter of truth. To that end he demonizes everyone and everything, obfuscates issues and creates chaos.
The only way smart Americans should let The Dotard “emerge” is in handcuffs and leg chains, on his way to Guantanamo. Our country is not a Mafia-controlled Trumpworld - it’s OUR COUNTRY and we won’t let him destroy it.
17
Look, this buffoon held up a NWS "Coastal Watches/Warnings and Forecast Cone for Storm Center" map that had been scribbled on by someone, he tried to decipher it, and couldn't, and mistakenly referred to Georgia as Alabama, obviously because he doesn't know either state properly exists in the great scheme of the USA.
And the scribble, probably, was done on purpose, to manufacture yet another distraction. And the media fell for it.
Trump is a laser pointer and the media are kittens chasing the beam. It's time to IGNORE him.
12
Well?
Is it fixed?
Did those midnight weldings provide the strength necessary?
Did publishing this fact provided a potentially new target to Bin Laden wannabes? I'm assuming that it could withstand 75mph winds.
But, say, what about a large transport or commercial jet?
Can it be knocked down by a big plane aimed at it even after those weld-and-run repairs?
Are folks sweating about those possibilities up there to this day?
GULP!
So is the Big Apple always to rest atop 601 Lexington's William Tellish head?
When is the next horror movie to be made about said possibility?
Gotts love Duh Apple, eh?
:)
Never a dull momment...
All Republicans (particularly the senators and congressmen) are on Trump's side, no matter what. They don't care about the truth anymore, and they don't care about the dangers of Trump's lies and his constant accusations of "fake news" on any news that he doesn't like. We all know that the only solution is to vote all of them out of office.
15
If you look around the world, you would see all those countries that are left behind suffer from two common maladies: Lack of a fair and just legal system, and corruption, in everything from politics to courts to the lowest level of the government machinery.
Guess where we are headed to; or where do we stand now? Trump and the GOP are taking us down the Third World road with their unabashed corrupt ways. The Dems are being of no help with their laggard, lethargic approach to this life-and-death matter.
10
Good op-Ed.
It would be good if NYT would do an investigative piece on building earthquake standards in Japan versus W.Coast fo USA.
Japan has most stringent standards in world, but vast majority of West Coast residents don’t even buy earthquake insurance. Seattle is now known to sit atop an even worse fault than anything in LA.
5
It's an open secret in Montreal that some of the engineers responsible for our only recently retired Champlain Bridge preferred alternative routes across the St Lawrence River, knowing as they did that decades of road salt unplanned for at the time of CB's construction in the early sixties had so undermined the steel beams supporting its road bed that only a few years prior to the building of a new bridge space frame supports along the entire length of the kilometres long original bridge had to be installed to the tune of a half billon dollars -
5
"...reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
11
I still dont understand why Trump put himself into the hurricane coverage. This is an individual who cares for nothing or no one and he goes out of his way to lie to the American people about a hurricane, Why? .
What is going on in his head, people talk about Biden missing a step Trump is completely crazy, he uses a sharpie and continues the lie putting people in Alabama at potential risk. Doubling the amount of work, real weather people had to do to assure people that they were safe. Trump didnt seem to care about the minorities in the Bahamas but maybe he could find them on the map
8
What's the big deal? Gravity is just a theory. As any of trump's political hacks would tell you.
6
For many years, I had a job in an obscure specialty area with which, over time, I had become functionally quite competent. My employer would use that knowledge to avoid loss and earn more money. The losses or earnings in each case could add up to millions of dollars in just a matter of hours or days.
Of course, like many nerds I am not that Instagram-ready. People like me tend to be socially inept and rather unpopular among those with Charisma. Of course, the people with that were the ones who as coworkers eventually rose into management. My patrons in management were small in number, but as time went by (and as we saw from the last Presidential election) the dumbest posts in the room often rose to the top.
My solution to being ignored was to let them take their punishment. As bureaucrats don't like exposure, this usually caused them thereafter to avoid using stupid decisions to abuse me. Their mistakes drew the attention of management which, it turned out, was not personally worth the cost to socially torture me.
It was a nice occupation, in that those mistakes didn't kill anybody--it just cost a lot of money. The bottom line about this is that it would be patently unfair to blame the nerd who spoke up when deaths happen due to stupid executives. It would simply perpetuate the problem of academic suicide that we see in business and government these days. After all, we voted for Trump, so if we all die in a nuclear war or go broke without medical care, whose fault is it?
4
Contrary to the headline, the last people you want to trust are the weather predictors. They constantly blow the forecast and act like noting happened the next day. They are not held accountable. It's almost like news media with Trump /Russia Collusion, all made up for 2 Years and no one holds them accountable.
Physics doesn't lie. Neither does biology. Conspiracy theories about vaccinations have only killed a few people -- so far (check out Marin County, CA). Politics about healthcare for people here in violation of US immigration law ignores that epidemics couldn't care less if you're a citizen or not.
Trump and his enablers have become clear and present dangers to us all. If knowledge is power, ignorance is helplessness.
9
When I look out of the window and it looks cloudy and dark. I know it is going to rain. If there is a tornado or storm heading towards me . I look for a tornado or storm warning on weather forecast. Whats this big deal that is being made about Trump and the weather? Why does even weather have to be about Trump. What I don't understand is why the New York Times allows comments about trivial issues but does not open comments about some critical issues like ICE, Kashmir and others. Why should some reporters and columnists get a pass and freedom to promote a narrative or even falsehood.
There is an article just now about ICE feeling that they are hated. I don't think the majority of America hates ICE and a large majority actually appreciates what they do day in an and day out and all through the day. Same goes with Kashmir. The Indian army is trying to maintain peace and law and order and arrest the brutal barbaric terrorists who cross the border and yet the article blames both the terrorists and the Indian army equally for the menace the Kashmiris faces when almost all the brutality occurs due to the terrorists from across the border. Also there was an article about the brutal ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits whose ancestors were the original residents of Kashmir. That was the first article by someone who endured the atrocities of the extremists and cross border terrorists and it would have been proper if there was a comment section open to any other victim.
2
I found this article very interesting.
But the calculation of probability of collapse (stated as 6 percent) are most definitely not correct. Probability doesn't work like that.
1
"Not newsworthy!" Among the risks we're living with right now--my estimate is that it's a lot higher than six percent--is the all-too-widely held view that Donald Trump's behavior is not actually a multi-dimensional menace to our peace and safety. Leave aside the fact that he appears, for a few moments at least, to have forgotten the existence of his son Barron, and just concentrate on the fact that he not only made a serious mistake about where Dorian would hit, but persisted over more than a week to compound it, making it worse and worse, rather than acknowledge the error or--I'll use a gendered term--"man up" to it. What was he afraid of? In this light, what explains his demented "Very stable genius" tweet on the weekend? Do we have to wait until he orders the nuking of a hurricane or is found talking to the portraits on the walls of the White House to protect ourselves from the chaotic damage he is causing?
4
Sharpiegate is a symptom of the peculiar American way of
public argumentation and discourse. This rarely incorporates
foundational reasoning that is to support a particular assertion. Probably this style goes back to the absence of rigorous philosophy classes in high schools.
In any case, what is striking about the back and forth of Sharpiegate is the tweet from the NWS office in Huntsville in
response to trump's earlier idiocy.
Rather than explaining that the
basis for their conclusion that Alabama would be
untouched was due to a more updated model than that used by trump, which was a few days old
by the time he felt the need to tweet out his particular drivel, the NWS response just stated its conclusion rather than include its reasoning.
This gave an opening to trump to insist that he was correct
and should be duly acknowledged as such. It was this
back and forth ridiculous insisting that blew up the incident into a major epistemological drama.
If the NWS tweet had pointed out that what trump was using
was several days old data, and had been updated in the interim, he would have had no basis whatsoever to keep on harping that his tweet had been correct since it was old at the time he tweeted.
And as with any 8 year old, it is good to give positive reinforcement when possible. So, to add insult to injury, NWS
could have thanked him for his concern, but added that it
is always wisest to use a model with the most current
information to make a forecast.
Ugh, "frail membranes of credibility"?
Under Putin's Trump, there is no membranes, no credibility. That is what Putin wants for the US Government and he is sort of achieving that.
Let's do some imagination. Say Putin's Trump calls that the building is not going to fall down and nobody believes him. And the building did fall down and there are huge casualties. What then? The solution is easy, Putin's Trump will appear at Fox and Friends and announced that the building, after all, did not fall down.
Problem solved. And a few years later, he would say he was the first one to call the building was going to fall and he, maybe along with Putin, were the ones to be first on the scene to help, despite his bone spurs.
The Citicorp Center story is terrifying.
In the 1980s I worked on a high floor of a skyscraper that creaked and swayed on the wind. It groaned like an old sailing ship, and the movement was enough to cause mild seasickness. I was assured that the building was designed to yield that way, but it did not make me feel any safer. I remember experiencing a small earthquake there, while seated next to a floor to ceiling window umpty-nine floors up. I’ve lived through two major earthquakes and am not easily startled by each movement, but in that building it was unnerving.
People tend to ignore “maybe” predictions. But they also close their ears to “definitely happening eventually” predictions that are too difficult to bear. Geologists at the USGS have been warning authorities and citizens in California cities — Los Angeles in particular — that a catastrophic earthquake will happen, and probably sooner than later. They say a large quake is past due, based on models. We in California hear that and just continue with our lives. It’s not news because it didn’t happen. Yet.
2
Weather forecasters have great jobs. They never discuss their mistakes. How many times have you relied on what they say only to have the actual weather be far different? I have never heard a TV weather announcer apologize for wrong information.
1
In 1974-75 I worked at 1515 Broadway, and remember listening to the building creak during high winds. Not a pleasant sound.
Remember when Boston's John Hancock Building was covered in plywood, because the windows had an unnerving habit of popping out on windy days?
3
It has become perfectly obvious across the board—
That while Trump may be "briefed" and "informed" he remains uninformed.
And that untenable reality, is the current president of the United States.
8
I have a good friend that works for NOAA in California. She has worked for NOAA for over 25 years and is a PhD scientist.
Through all the years the civil service scientist positions were filled with competent well trained scientist and the political appointees did not interfere. Since Jan. 20 2017 civil service scientist positions at NOAA have been filed with untrained non-scientists.
Many of these hires brake federal hiring laws but there is no one to enforce those laws. The civil service scientists are being pushed out.
The Trump/Republican destruction of our government is far larger and deeper than most know.
Please register to vote and get others registered. Then make sure everyone you know goes to the polls for every election.
The damage caused by Trump Republican will take a very long time to repair.
10
This is an interesting story in several ways; it shows Mr. Gibson stepping up to do all he could to avoid a disaster in the Citibank building. We see Citibank finding expert analysts to investigate the problem, develop solutions, and to implement them quickly. This is how things should work. Now look at our country's response to climate change. We know it presents a terrible danger, and may well result in the impoverishment or death of our grandchildren. But do we see a serious effort to investigate the problem and choose and implement action by our top leadership? Why do we allow this to happen? One day, the building will fall over.
12
Credibility is very important. No prediction can be perfect. The reality is that the people who asked Mr. Gibson this question were (with all due respect to them) probably science illiterates.
Please recognize that the term science illiterate is not meant to demonize/insult these people, rather to note that they (realistically) did not have the classroom education and/or the professional work experience to properly evaluate the risks and then make good decisions. Seeking the guidance of Mr. Gibson was appropriate.
Those tasked as Mr. Gibson was are historians of the weather. Hurricane Sandy tested the metropolitan area as few recent great storms have. At the National Weather Service, it was also understood that there were great storms in 1635 and in 1821 (both East Coast Hurricanes) that would offer us insight into what Sandy was capable of doing.
The reality is that lay people want answers, even when the professional (e.g., Mr. Gibson) recognizes that the event is unlikely. Precious time is dedicated to reassure the Public that the danger has passed.
As we look back in recent times (i.e., 400 years), we see that great storms hit NYC about every 185 to 190 years. While this isn't with the frequency that hurricanes strike the US southeast or Gulf States, the Public has a right to know what are the relative risks and what is prudent to do.
People like me recognize that POTUS Trump is by no means a scientist. As long as the Public is not endangered, let him speak.
1
I have grave concerns about those "pick-up sticks" - the pencil-thin buildings with no broad base for support - popping up all over. I foresee one of them, thanks to construction shortcuts or something similar, falling over and knocking down everything in its path. And no, this is not a political comment - just a realistic one. The majority of tall buildings are tapered for a reason a long-proven credible reason: they are built to withstand the weather. Has anyone revealed how much the penthouses on those "poles" sway in the wind? That would sure be an interesting fact.
1
I was in Le Messurier's structures class as a student at Harvard's Grad School of Design in the early 80s. He recounted the story, as was described in the New Yorker article others have mentioned, but my recollection is a little different. The issue with Citicorp is that it used a "novel" technique of balancing the building on four columns positioned at the center of each wall, rather than the corners as is typical. This changed the way the building would react to wind forces and twist around the core in a way that the standard analyses would miss. He told the story that, a couple years after the building was complete and he was discussing it in class, one of his students asked how the placement of the columns would affect the performance under high winds. As he contemplated the answer, he realized the potential of disaster, went pale and walked out of the room to deal with it. I never did learn the name of that insightful student who wasn't afraid to ask a "dumb" question.
11
Many a story has been written about this. In this case, an error turned out to become an opportunity. Tuned mass dampers, Mr. LeMessurier's innovation, are now commonly used in high rise buildings. His true legacy, is his ethics; from which we can all learn.
http://www.engineersjournal.ie/2015/12/08/citicorp-centre-tower-failure-averted/
3
Growing up my Grandmother used to say, "mind your own knitting", when as a teenager I would go pontificating on some subject I knew little about. Presumably the President never heard this sage advice. President Trump seems to have difficulty in accepting his range of knowledge on matters of science is limited.
Emergencies such as hurricanes, mass shootings and other disasters require leadership from all levels of government. The leadership style of this President undermines his credibility and authority as he fails to serve the America with his sea changes almost as frequent as daily tides going in and out.
I will suggest that if Republican members of Congress do start to filling sandbags and collecting emergency supplies they may find themselves washed away by tropical storm Trump.
8
The reason this tiny blip on the cacophony of arrogance, lies, and self-promotion we have all been inundated with for three years is the fundamental need to staunchly defend the servants and institutions of public safety and democracy against politicization. We saw his stripes during the 2016 campaign, then released in full fury first with the attacks on the FBI and innumerable examples (the EPA, trade, voting rights, etc etc) since; the oligarch's scorched earth policy spares no public interest.
The legacy of the Trump years will either be:
When faced with such an apocalypse, the greatest nation in the history of the world
passionately rebooted our principles of a democratic society
OR
slipped off the cliff of classism and autocracy.
10
The reputations of public servants have taken a lot of flack ever since Reagan started to undermine our own government, and some of our public employees/agencies have taken advantage of that.
Following Reagan's ascendency lying about coworkers became more acceptable and many I knew working in government covered up their own incompetence by attacking everybody around them.
People have climbed the ladder of success by undermining others and this was internalized starting in the 80s when "gov't became the problem, not the solution".
We are reaping the rewards of the oligarch's plans to delegitimize our own basis for an equitable society and Trump is one of the rewards for allowing lies and innuendo to have the same influence as empirical methods of evaluation.
There are no alternative facts but I doubt that our gov't can ever recover from the lies that the Republicans have foisted on us for nearly fifty years.
That doesn't mean we should stop opposing the liars, though.
4
One question I haven't seen thoroughly answered yet by any serious reporting:
Did people in Alabama evacuate or make any serious preparations for a hurricane due to Trump's tweeted warning?
Or did most Alabamans, even those who consider themselves fans of Trump, know to ignore him?
13
As many of the comments noted, there is an excellent article in the New Yorker on this entire episode. As I remember the article, it starts with the chief structural engineer teaching a college course and describing the unusual design of the building. One of the students questions whether the analysis is correct for a wind coming directly at the corner of the building. The professor cleverly blows off the student (pun intended), but the question bothers him. As he continues to think about the question and the analysis, he realizes the student is correct and that a strong wind coming directly at the corner could topple the building.
The rest of the article is an inspiring story of how owners, regulators, engineers, and contractors can work together to solve a problem and avoid a tragedy. Led by the president of Citicorp, they put aside the question of why this happened and who should be responsible for paying for the mistake, and focused on fixing the structure before the hurricane season started.
I have often cited this article and story as an example of how we can succeed if we put aside our personal issues for awhile and work together for the greater good. It's not impossible, but it seems more and more difficult in today's political environment.
10
I remember when Charles DeGaulle said he believed JFK about missiles in Cuba and didn't need to see the photos: "If the American president says they are there, that's good enough for me". We will never enjoy that level of trust from world leaders again, even after Trump leaves office.
30
@Camille,
Every Democratic candidate for president ought to pick up your comment, and post it every single day before the election.
Thank you for speaking out.
3
@Camille Don't forget the WMD fiasco during the Bush 43 administration.
2
Thank you, Mr. Gibson! Hail to the Mr. Gibsons of the world!
We mostly get to hear screaming incompetence; rarely about the dutiful, competent, tenacious who soldier on and keep things in safe running order.
10
Trump is not interested in the real world. He makes things up in his head to please himself. He doesn't care about being accurate, he won't listen to genuine experts. He really does not care what's real; he is more interested in his fantasies of being brilliant and successful. I would not believe him as to the time of day.
13
With Trump, it's the opposite kind of question -- what if a very high political official outright lied to the American people, and many people still believed that person? This is where we are today.
An entire political party has pivoted to blindly enabling Trump to continue this lying behavior. It's not a matter of "insignificant lies", which they claim and brush off as immaterial. Altering a weather map is one thing. Forging an official government document that affects decisions which directly impact lives, is an entirely different matter. GOP would not tolerate this from a Democrat POTUS. They would move to impeach immediately.
7
“This is an interesting story. However, since the building did NOT fall down, it is not newsworthy.” The bigger and more important story here is how so many of our “newsworthy” moments have consistently spiraled down to the once-upon-a-time laughable National Enquirer level. In tandem with “reality TV”, we have seen our collective wisdom reduced to who cusses at a political rally or who is having an affair or the horror of a candidate saying “record player”. Under the guise of “fair” reporting, false equivalency destroys the media’s credibility. In the end, it’s all about money and attracting the attention of a populate that can’t get enough of “the dirt” no matter how often we say we’re tired of drama and chaos. We the people get what we demand and, in the end, deserve.
1
It's so simple, or should be. If you have a toothache, you see a dentist. If you want to file for bankruptcy, you ask Trump what to do. Even if the president was an honest man, why would anyone be interested in his thoughts on climate?
7
Trump is a human manifestation of our creator and must be believed in all
matters despite appearances. Millions of us worship him and approve of all his comments and behaviors . Won’t you join us?
The weather forecasters are not always correct in their reportage. Trump is always correct. He is our creator and is all knowing.
2
Dwyer writes: “So much depends on the frail membranes of credibility.”
But does it? Does it really?
In this strange post-truth world where reality is relative for a swath of the population and GOP congressmen who’d be rallying for impeachment if a Democratic president had drawn on a weather map with a Sharpie, does credibility matter at all?
Just look at someone like Lindsey Graham. Remember his moral majority stance during the Clinton impeachment hearings? But now, he says he couldn’t care less about Trump altering reality with a Sharpie. What gives?
I think it goes something like this: Trump’s presidency is like a Civil War game some old guy plays on his iPad while his wild visiting grandkids are running around the house driving him crazy. He just wants Pickett’s Charge to succeed so he’s lining up his little gray men all over Culp’s Hill and the Round Tops to fire artillery into the Northern lines.
Lindsey Graham et al just feel the need to exact revenge on the Democratic Party for eight years of a black president. That’s it. Reality can therefore be whatever Trump wants it to be. Credibility doesn’t matter when reality is relative.
The tiny light in this mass of darkness that I have personally observed is that people in my state trust our meteorologists more than we trust anybody. Sharpies can’t black out the truth of all the lives saved in tornadoes in Alabama, and Sharpies sure can’t destroy our best-in-the-business Alabama meteorologists’ credibility.
7
Interesting historical sidebar: Mr. Robertson was the structural engineer that designed the WTC.
2
Citicorp building also was the first high rise to install a mass damper to reduce sway, now obligatory in supertalls such as the Central Park Tower nearing completion at twice the height of Citicorp. Another lesser known high-rise shortcoming is the elimination of structural review by the Department of Builidngs in 1975 by Directive 2 under Mayor Koch and pressure from developers. Then, following 9/11 and the collapse of the Twin Towers (esteemed Leslie Robertson structural engineer) structural peer review was building code-mandated. Mr. Robertson's firm is the premier NYC structural peer reviewer, including the Central Park Tower. Whether natural forces, seismic or wind, or terrorist aggression pose as great or even greater hazards than those of Citicorp and, most urgently, supertalls, is an open question far from answered, to the public and most design professionals. An answer may be contained in still publicly unreleased NIST findings of the unexpected Twin Towers collapse and in the brains and ethics of the design professionals who aided NIST, revised high-safety requirements and fully know these high-risk findings but are silenced by non-disclosure agreements and "standards of the profession." Despite its slogan of Build Safe Live Safe, NYC Department of Buildings since 1975 has been an unwilling toothless overseer of construction documents evidenced in rubber stamps of unexamined industry-standards engineering drawings: "Approved under Directive 2/1975."
7
@John Young
Thank you. Which is why I’d never live in a super tall tower (even if I could afford it). No way. Not after 9/11.
1
This story is a small metaphor for global warming. SAD!!!
5
I am seriously stumped over who on this earth would still believe anything that comes out of drumps mouth.
9
Trust weather forecasters, LOL. They got the hurricane path just as wrong as Trump did.
2
@M
Nope. their forecasts for time spans indicated were very reliable.
When you read a nws zone forecast or hurricane cone forecast, key in on the word “valid”. It tells you the time the forecast is best used for, their models update every 90 min or 3 hours depending on the model. What no one told you to doo, and you took upon yourself was to rely on a 24 hour forecast for 5 days.
3
I would believe anyone, about anything, before I would believe Trump...about ANYTHING!
8
Finally, the real problem with Trump’s ongoing war with truth: truth never really loses. Truth doesn’t care about tweets. Dorian did not hit Alabama. A sharpie pen did.
Telling me when I’m truly safe, a thing parents do with their children on a daily basis, is as crucial to our wellbeing as warnings of impending danger.
The terrific weather folks are furious when they get people to stock up and board windows and then the storm moves away. They know their credibility will be in question next time. Listen to the dozens of “we’ll ride it out” stories during the next onslaught.
Trump is dangerous, not just because he won’t tell us when we’re in danger as with Russia. He also refuses to tell us when we’re safe, as with asylum seeking refugees.
170
As a public servant, I used to have hearings across from that building and there was a PBS documentary about it’s structural problems. So glad that the warnings by public servants were heard!! This is why I joined public service-to make society better!
3
Mr. Lewis' book 'The Fifth Risk' is casually mentioned in this article.
That fine book should be read by every citizen of this country, and particularly by those who threw their ballots in the trash for third party candidates or who sat home on November 8, 2016. It is monumentally frightening. It is siren warning.
We must do much better in 2020.
We must in order to survive.
10
Or what the cost of those retrofits for Highwinds were? Add CSSJ I did a study of earthquake retrofit (of foundations etc. ) On buildings, which turned out to be something more interesting than just the spring dampers that they commonly put on buildings in the 70s
1
I honor science and scientists.
I have provided analyses of market data to executives who listened and saved millions and to executives who ignored me and lost millions on their self inspired development projects.
Recently I worked with business people who don’t believe in climate change. They put a factory in a 100 year flood zone and were shocked when their factory was underwater 3 years later.
Hubris almost always wins in the short term but can be found right behind every major failure.
Deepwater Horizon anybody?
Space Shuttle Challenger?
Those of us who trade in truth need to stick with our craft as if it is a life or death issue. We will often save lives.
10
Hilarious. Our mortal enemy is our government not some foreign government or terrorist group.
Most Americans strongly, vociferously oppose Congress and the executive yet repeatedly elect the former. Any catastrophe resulting from greed negligence or incompetence is well deserve.
Because we chose... repeatedly.
1
Trump has managed to discredit all pronouncements that emanate from himself or his cohorts. Few accept the notion that he knows the weather better than the professional meteorologists, although his political supporters are afraid to cross him. In the world at large, what is announced by our federal executive department is taken with a pound of salt. And it is doubtful that allies will follow through when collaboration is needed.
Take Mike Pompeo blaming Iran directly for the recent drone attacks knocking out a large chunk of Saudi Arabian oil ----it could just as well have been the rebels in Yemen (albeit supported by Iran---but in large measure their own people). Why accept Pompeo's assertion as definitive? Thank Trump for a loss of credibility throughout the world, where the help of allies would make a difference.
8
We don’t deserve allies and in fact I fervently pray they ally instead with Russia or China and work together to render us an insignificant entity. Not only can we be replaced , we must be relaxed.
And in another article re border patrol I think they are equivalent to the 1940s Germans and should be treated accordingly. They are human rights violators.
1
More and more the idea that governments have to have a single "leader" invested with power seems dangerous--unless that "leader" is a figurehead kept in luxury and fulfilling only a ceremonial role while the actual work of governing is carried on by interlocking bureaus and departments staffed by knowledgeable and responsible people who have passed stringent tests measuring competency and ability. Well, we can dream, can't we?
5
Trump’s Sharpie forecast is based on “linear thinking” - if the storm track were projected in a straight line it would hit Alabama. But meteorologists don’t make such naive projections. That’s why we rely on them.
Where else will Trump’s linear thinking and defiance of expertise take is?
10
It's hard to reconcile the fact that this county has descended into such a state of passivity and insanity that they're willing to overlook the facts for the sake of believing a President who is not only known for his denial of scientific evidence, but the inability to tell the truth.
13
Sadly, these types of situations occur more frequently than expected. Fukushima is one example of catastrophic failure. The tsunami threat and consequences were know in advance, but it was deemed not likely to occur and not worth the cost. The cleanup will cost over 50 billion dollars.
7
And the coverup of the massive lead contamination resulting from the Notre Dame fire?
I believe governments are intrinsically evil and must be dealt with accordingly. A few examples include Britain, Saudi, China, Russia, Syria, Iran, India and of course most importantly the US.
I don't really understand the point if this article. The meteorologists are supposed to tell the truth so that when the city government lies to you, you will still be safe?!
I lived in NYC during 1978 & 1979. The fact that the Citicorp center might fall over in a high wind was hidden from the public. There was fencing around the building as I recall, but no widespread knowledge that the structure was unstable.
2
NOAA, NIH, and FDA and the numerous academic research institutions throughout the country should be trusted over president Trump. You may disagree with one scientific perspective over another but Trump is not to be trusted, full stop.
10
This story reminds me of the time the expert in paleo-polar-glacier history and its effect on sea levels warned the people that, due to the 'fat tail' of expected climate change damage, the risk of 10 to 15 feet of sea level rise within the lives of our children was actually significant: more than 5%, if less than 30%. Even though this would drown every coastal city in the World, none of the people appeared to care. Oh, wait, that's not just a story. Google 'richard alley 10 to 15 feet of sea level rise possible sooner rather than later'
7
The profession of weather forecasting is to predict the unpredictable using science and expertise. However, of late the biggest challenge the weather forecasters have faced is predictably unpredictable tornado Trump. Mr. Gibson’s story succinctly drives home the point about the thankless service many government scientists perform out of sight, and by a perverse fate, their work is newsworthy only when their science or judgement fails causing major losses. Similarly, the dilemma of environmental scientists at the EPA and elsewhere is that Mr. Trump and his ilk have refuted their well-founded environmental science, and if their predictions are unheeded the damage would be the worldwide collapse of many species including humans. I challenge Trump to defy the weather forecast when a hurricane is heading towards Mar-A-Lago. Let Mr. Trump stay put at his beloved Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when a hurricane is taking a direct aim at Mar-a-Lago, and he will become a believer in science (and possibly god) in an instant.
6
He believes in God. He is certain that he is God and millions of Americans behave as if this were true.
If God in the Biblical is real we are in for big trouble for in this scripture God is emphatic, repeatedly so, that we should not worship other gods before Him.
Though the commandment is directed at the Israelites, I think it applies to us all.
If precedent holds after the deluge a remnant will be left to try again as at the time of Noah.
Great story. As a species, we only remember disasters, not the ones that we manage to avoid. Not enough drama.
2
It has been many years since I read the New Yorker article which I remember as quite long and very detailed.
I think I remember that Robertson, the structural engineer or the architect, knew when he designed the Citicorp building, that because of its shape, width and height, a "Quartering Wind" would be a very great hazard.
Perhaps because of his extreme knowledge and expertise or from years of sailing experience, he understood that even a thunderstorm over Manhattan could produce winds which would have an effective force far beyond their actual speed.
Because of his understanding of the effect of a quartering wind on the planned Citicorp building, Robertson specified that the steel columns and beams be welded - not bolted.
After the building was completed and had been in use for some time Robertson found out, to his horror, that his specification had not been followed.
He immediately advised all parties of the emergency situation and dramatic steps were taken to modify the building. Even, if I remember the New Yorker article correctly, since there were not enough licensed welders available, they used inexperienced welders who were instructed on site and observed and licensed on the site by New York City Building Department inspectors - which understood the emergency nature of the problem and cooperated in the highest manner possible.
Perhaps Robertson, in his shock at the failure of the builder to follow his specifications, also consulted the Weather Bureau.
3
This story a nice metaphor for this administration. Let's imagine we have an open secret: experts are telling the American public that their leader is damaging our democracy, government, environment, economy, world peace, etc. He's surrounded by a roomful of sycophants who tell him he's the greatest ever (big foam finger #1), He only gets his news from television personalities who also tell him he's the greatest and only show news that fit his pre-existing beliefs. .
What responsibility do the experts have to tell people their society is at risk of tumbling over? And, even if they did, would people really listen?
In other words, do we need to wait until something truly disastrous happens before we fix the corruption that's rotting the foundation of our society?
366
Yes we must wait because that is our nature, a species that was a mistake of evolution.
3
@Crossroads:
Absolutely right.
The single word that explains the lack of catastrophes in the US three years into this administration is "Lucky".
Sooner or later, the odds will catch up with this incompetent, fact-denying, wasteful administration and people will lose their lives and livelihoods.
25
@Crossroads
Apparently, yes.
9
The danger of arrogance, hubris, false assumptions and just plain mistakes has always been with this and this includes meteorologists and other scientists. After all we are human.But when lies, misrepresentations and slanders are deliberately perpetrated by a president the consequences and probability of disaster are magnified and preventable.
Meteorologists have one great advantage in their search for accuracy, well, perhaps two. They are committed to finding the most accurate result possible and they cross check their data with computer models and their fellow meteorologists which reduces the risk of errors and the probability of inaccuracy.
With Trump we have a man, a so called president, who deliberately lies and depends on those fabrications to maintain his power and ego. Accuracy means nothing to him. Add to that he sees no need to ask for any other opinions than his own gut and disaster is almost inevitable.
155
@just Robert
You distill down, so well, the essence of the horrible risks we face with this person at the helm of our nation. As so many of us bewildered folks have asked: "Why don't enough Americans comprehend this?!" Or, maybe "enough" now do understand and we will be rid of this guy in 2020.
35
@Mephitis However, it's not just the president. It's also an enabling Congress, and a corrupt Supreme Court.
14
I've known a few meteorologists and know the great pains, skillset and hours they devote whenever any major storm could be looming on the horizon.
While I constantly give them good humor flack about drawing weather circles in the old days in addition to getting a storm result wrong on occasion having citing perhaps the house odds in Vegas are better, in al seriousness, I know how complex and complication the science of weather is.
Which is why I was and continue to be dumbfounded when folks will listen to Trump over qualified, accredited and professional meteorologists.
Good grief - I never believed a word out of his mouth when he was running for office. Why would I believe a word out of his mouth now that his IS president?
And now weather predictions coming from a person who thinks, feels, believes climate change is a hoax and fake news.
168
@Marge Keller If Trump and/or Fox News decided the earth was flat, millions of his followers would be cancelling travel reservations for fear of flying or sailing right off the edge of the earth. They will believe ANYTHING he says, without question.
43
@Craig I find the belief on the part of his followers mystifying. I would not know how to believe it, even if I wanted to. I have too strong a bias towards reality.
25
@Craig His followers don't necessarily believe everything he says - they just don't care if what he says is true or not. I'm not sure which is worse.
29
The columnists makes a valid point - we're in the midst of an "anti-intellectual" movement by certain segments in our society. It is very broad and covers many disciplines, but it centers on essentially certain aspects - a distrust of science, educated expertise and government.
What amazes me is the number of people that believe Trump over the NWS! "It's a 'deep state' conspiracy to make Trump look bad," is a refrain I've heard here in NE Florida. "Trump was right; the bureaucracy is just trying to make the President look bad ahead of the election."
IMHO, this is the result of decades of right-wing attacks on "coastal elites," education and science, all designed to attain and maintain political power. At some point, if you repeat the attacks long enough, people believe the attacks no matter how much evidence to the contrary anyone provides.
When a significant portion of Americans transforms weather forecasts into political fodder, or ignores fact-based, peer-reviewed science because it's a "Chinese plot to weaken American businesses," or discounts verified facts by preferring "alternative facts," or vaccinations are assumed to be profit-motivated plots by drug companies that cause disease, this country is in far worse shape than previously assumed.
190
@John I agree with you. I don’t know how people in NE Florida of all places can ignore scientific weather predictions. Eventually, some of them will pay with their lives during a hurricane or other emergency that they dismissed as “fake”. Will Trump care? Please!
25
This national contempt for expertise is one of the least appealing characteristics of Americans. The quest for truth is completely subservient to personal autonomy and opinions. If one wants an accurate understanding, consult and expert. They aren't always right, but they are your best shot. I can only conclude that Americans like the stories they tell themselves more than truth. Sad but true.
27
@John
I'm a wildlife biologist and GIS analyst, worked for the US Forest Service, and was interacting almost daily with other scientists for many years. After I retired 12 years ago, I moved to a resort town in north Idaho.
I couldn't figure out what felt "off" here. Your comment precisely describes most of the population here; they have a deep distrust science and the government. Once an aquaintance said, "don't you think you have too much information?" I'm sure many people I knew thought that about me.
Thankfully, I am finally able to move to the northern California coast with a university nearby. I can't wait to leave this deeply ingrained society of willful ignorance.
23
I worked on the 47th floor at Citicorp Center from 1978 to 1981 and recall the scramble to reinforce the interior "chevrons" which sliced through many of the offices within. Of course, mere employees were not aware of the urgency of the work. In fact, it wasn't until a well-written article appeared in "The New Yorker" in 1995 that I realized the danger I and many others were in. The building's features, such as double-decker elevators, a pleasant store-filled atrium, a "mass damper" under the iconic slant of the roof, and the never-utilized solar panels on that roof did not balance the risks that anyone in or near Citicorp Center experienced. We all dodged a bullet.
295
@Tim H.
This is why ALL citizens, not just professionals, need fact based information. It is THEIR lives that are at risk.
54
@Tim H. I worked for a company that had a restaurant in the Citicorp lobby, I was at the opening party, where I serve John Belushi a oversized scotch. His reply “whadda ya trying to kill me”. He then retired to a elevator opened and locked at the lobby to snort coke.
I also remember that the slanted roof would drop large sheets of ice onto the street in winter.
18
@Tim H.
We all dodged a bullet at the time, but I never knew any of this. Perhaps just as well. It would have flipped me out.
10
In these times of climate change with ever increasing severe weather events, which are also of longer duration, the importance of meteorologists can not be understated. Often there is little warning. On air meteorologists often have to interpret data quickly to warn the public in their viewing areas. Their analysis often beats warnings put out by the NWS.
Since public safety is the primary goal, why do many television stations hire personnel who are NOT meteorologists, but give them that title? This is a disservice to the public and their safety.
6
What is the possibility of a skyscraper collapse now, or in 20 years given that global warming is producing more severe storms? Is the U.S. infrastructure prepared for an event that was previously highly improbable, but is now much more likely? Might one assume that buildings constructed in Manhattan by a less-than-scrupulous investors be of greater risk of collapse in a major hurricane ? Trump comes to mind?
5
There are some who predict a "Trump Dynasty" consisting of Don Jr., Ivanka and perhaps their offspring. Should this become true and America becomes a poor imitation of Gilead or a Russian puppet state, historians will look back in wonder that this all came about because in 2016 Trump snagged a mere 70,000 + votes across 3 states to win the Electoral College against Hillary's 4 million + popular vote margin. I guess politics and life, like American football, is a game of inches.
2
What if greenhouse gases were accumulating in the atmosphere and climate scientists found that this was causing global warming which will be catastrophic world wide without prompt action to reduce emissions from human sources and the president of the United States claimed it was all a hoax and began rolling back efforts that the former president took to deal with the crisis? It sounds like fiction, who would elect such a president? But what if it actually happened?
18
I recall reading the article New Yorker magazine published on this many years ago. I just looked it up on their site.
"The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis" published in 1995.
Riveting story at the time. The coordinated disaster preparations quietly marshalled were massive to say the least. If I recall correctly, the architectural student's concern was initially and. strenuously dismissed by the begrudged architect.
4
The underlying lesson in this story is the, not mentioned, use of the risk metric.
Risk is the multiplication of the probability of a negative outcome (in this situation) and the economic cost of that negative occurrence. The units are monetary.
Somewhere in the negotiations surrounding the decision to repair, I'm sure this was discussed. It should be emphasized that the use of the risk metric is only one of the several decision metrics that might come into play.
The atmosphere is by nature chaotic. For forecasters that means there is no one single forecast that can be correct as was the case until numerical weather forecasting and big, fast computers provided the possibility of at least some use of probabilistic forecast systems now in use.
This now makes the use of the risk metric for situations like this and for the larger problem of global climate change a real possibility. The climate science community has done (and continues to do) their job. It is heartening to see economists starting to do theirs so we can use the risk metric as part of the decision process on how we, as a global village, respond to this threat.
We have come a long way from that building collapse situation, a long, long way.
1
Excellent piece! Thank you!
13
“You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
--- Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues
But it helps.
18
In a short 55 years, we've gone from Richard Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize winning Anti-Intellectualism in American Life to "peak stupidity" in Trump's America.
That didn't take long, did it?
There's a one word epithet for what America has become. It starts with "Dumb" and ends with "stan." Based on recent polls showing Trump's approval rating at 44%, I'd say that 44% of Americans don't have the intelligence to figure out the word I'm alluding to.
Sad . . .
17
@Greg Gerner I'm sorry. I voted for Hillary, I consider myself reasonably intelligent but I don't get what you are alluding to. Can you help me out here?
Trump wouldn’t have pooh-poohed the danger of the Citicorp building falling - he would have told people in New Jersey that they were also at risk.
9
In general, human beings do not understand what they cannot see with the naked eye. Weather patterns and climate change are a good example. This recent episode in the travesty of comedic error by Donald Trump is one of the most preposterous, outrageous episodes in American history. And anyone disputing Trump's attempt to intimidate the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hasn't been paying attention. Denying climate change after Harvey, Maria, Michael and now Dorian prove beyond a shadow of a doubt Trump is a buffoon. Hopefully, the sane and sober part of the American electorate will turn him out of office in November 2020.
12
Great remainder for why some things are important. Thanks.
12
I'd really be interested to hear what in the world Trump Supporters are supporting ?? Between the not so Sharp Weather Forecast..and all the general chaos of the Trump Administration...including rollbacks to vehicle emissions laws etc. and opening up Alaska for oil exploration...what's to support? Well maybe Chaos, Confusion,Dysfunction, Division..Lies, Deception....and on and on and on …..and this is the MAGA Trump Supporters have been waiting for??? Even the Weather Forecast is not exempt from Trump's distorted view of Reality !!
9
They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round. They all laughed at Cassandra, the Trojan seer, when she forecast the obliteration of Troy. Columbus and Cassandra predicted the truth. They laughed last and best.
Re trusting our weather forecasters, won't It will be interesting to see if a Cat 5 hurricane (the new normal of terrible storms on earth these days) will hit and topple any of the swaying iconic Manhattan buildings? Or if a drone from afar could attack any cool places in New York (or anywhere in the U.S.)?
President Trump incorrectly tried to reforecast the weather with his Sharpie in the Oval Office. Alabama was never in the "cone of uncertainty" during Hurricane Dorian's attack on the Bahamas and east coast of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
Trump's arrant disbelief and mockery of climate warming and climate change on Earth is just another of his grotesque failures as our president. A weather disaster (beyond Hurricane Sandy, Cat 3 in 2012) still hasn't attacked New York City. But weather forecaster's prophecies must be heeded at our peril.
5
Columbus wasn’t laughed at. Educated Europeans in the 15th century knew the world was round. The Catholic Church was secretly paying astronomers to predict Easter.
3
@Nan Socolow FWIW, by Columbus's day, the earth was widely understood to be round.
3
@Nan Socolow
I doubt that Cassandra laughed last or best. I doubt that she did any laughing for many years before she was raped and murdered.
Maybe I'm wrong.
President Trump's tweeted error about Hurricane Dorian's threat to Alabama was boneheaded. His malign insistence on keeping the issue roiling for more than a week by browbeating the Weather Service with threats of job dismissal was criminal.
Criminality is what Trump does, just as skunks spew intolerable stink. Letting him get away with it is what the rest of us do in our upside-down world of ethics.
17
The subject of this article reminds me of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state in 1940.
8
A fragile ego is Trump’s Achilles heel. The Democrats should exploit it to defeat this unhinged and dangerous man.
Otherwise what can you really say about such infantile behavior, but destructive menace to public safety. Didn’t Stalin used to throw the same type of tantrums?
4
Me thinks Trump has yelled "fire" too many times. And this time he had push back from a tiny agency who had the courage to call his bluff and showed Trump for the liar he is. He got caught in his lie and then of course blamed Alabama forecasters.
Then to make matters worse his appointed head of NOAA threatens to fire the Alabama staff.
What a farce this Administration is.
23
A frightening story of what informed civil servants sweat about - reality. How about the scab labor and cheap steel that went into Trump Tower. Anyone take a look?
5
What to say when a tyrannical narcissist would willfully mislead the people to whom he has pledged to Preside faithfully over?
Nothing that Bob Dylan hasn’t already said better.
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows
2
The 1995 New Yorker story is a great read, and I hope today's readers will be interested in seeing it. There are fascinating details about the intersection of engineering and personal integrity.
http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~sheard/course/Design&Society/Readings/59Story/59_story_new_yorker.pdf
6
Unfortunately, the Trump maladministration has corrupted our Constitution, and almost every agency now. EPA, DOJ, USAF, and now NOAA. The Cabinet of Clowns has done additional damage to our country.
This stain will likely take years to remove.
8
Uh, would have been nice to add the "student's" name.
Diane Hartley.
5
Yet, billionaires...even progressive and leftist ones that believe that climate can be controlled and tamed by “man”....buy waterfront property for crazy prices.
Let me know when they are selling waterfront property for $1 per square foot. Then I’ll take man-caused climate change seriously.
1
@cjmeq0, it is already trending that way. For example, real estate prices in Miami are making the highest ground more expensive in comparison to lowest lying areas. Flood insurance is starting to trend towards the point where some property owners won't be able to buy flood insurance. Another "tell" is that many of the world's large corporations (and not so large) are spending money on determining their exposure to the increased impacts of climate change and how they can better protect themselves.
As a parting thought, I expect few others than yourself would put your life in the hands of untrained laymen regardless of their net worth. Nor would most, beside yourself, take the word of someone with a seriously deep stake on a subject or policy without any reflection. The expression for someone who does is "sheep".
When I lived in NYC, Tex Antoine, a tv weatherman, did a two minute forecast that was 90% true. He would sketch on a pad and perhaps add an umbrella to his beloved Uncle Wethbee.
Untrained yet a real personality, he relied on the New York Weather Service and followed their leads.
Things have improved maybe with a National Hurricane
Center, images from space, projections done rapidly etc. But they are reliable and believed. Tex was fired for making a flippant 'rape' comment. 45 has exceeded those type remarks; is President and unlike Tex always did- won't trust the experts on a subject. Any subject.
It's not the forecasts that need to be challenged- it's POTUS claiming to know stuff. He doesn't know what he doesn't know and we know he doesn't. Thoughts and prayers ? The 'leaders ' are too slow in actions against this impulsivity and this is not the 'new normal'. Please.
6
As is almost always the case, our Stable Genius was wrong about matters of which he knows nothing, dug a hole with a big shovel,dragged in imbecile underlings to dig deeper, hunkering down as if it’s a foxhole he built because he’s at war, and eventually led lots of people to write editorials to which people like me and my neighbors to reply. All this because Mr Trump can’t say he was wrong and he was sorry. That a lifetime of this bluster and bullying hasn’t exhausted him is proof enough of serious mental illness, but of the sort that enables folks like Madoff and OJ to spend decades in prison without dying of identity loss. They are a different and demented breed of human. In Trump’s case he insists he’s wealthy and successful and a good Christian when he isn’t and has never been. Unless we consider the sinners like Augustine who become saints. But then, let’s face it, the grifter and nation’s first hurricane decider would have to choose redemption and, even worse, write a great long book about it. Easier to pretend vices are virtues. Vote, brethren.
8
I trust no one, only if I can see it & touch it. Government is a lie... right left center!
And let's not forget the glass being blown off skyscrapers for decades, such as
https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/glass-pane-falls-from-bank-of-america-tower/
1
Great story about trust on many levels. For more backstory on the woman whose math set this in motion, here’s an article and podcast link.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/structural-integrity/
2
@CuriousBee great story, thanks for sharing!
The man living in the White House has proven so many times that he is a liar and as trustworthy as chocolate fireguard! To trust him as a weather forecaster is plain stupid, he certainly has no qualification in meteorology and I find it hard to believe that he has studied it in any depth. The best advice as far as the weather is concerned is to listen to those who are truly qualified to give that advice; the same can be said on any subject, trust those who are the proven experts. As far as the man who sits in the Oval Office is concerned, if he says "Good morning" to you check your watch!
6
Scientists should not have to swim upward through a stream of fools.
8
This story drives home the real significance of the crimes Donald Trump committed by playing games with the danger of Hurricane Dorian.
The first crime was to misinform the public in Alabama by putting out a lie about the path threat of the hurricane. One could give him the benefit of the doubt and say it wasn't a lie it was simply that he was misinformed. But this president deserves no benefit of the doubt. He has proven over and over he lies without compunction.
His cavalier lies and indifference to the consequences are evidence of his pretension of being a president for the purpose of calling attention to himself, further inflating his ego - if that's even possible. He may have endangered the lives of people and caused emotional distress for those who acted on his lie to protect their property and lives. He didn't care a whit about the harm he might be causing.
But the harm extends much further...nationwide and into the future. The damage will last for years.
He undermined the National Weather Service, politicized and jeopardized the credibility of NOAA, made a farce of the hard work and dedication to service of civil servants and brought worldwide ridicule upon the American people.
Mr. Dwyer is to be commended for pointing out that this latest escapade of egomania by the child president is more than simply making himself the butt of jokes (which he deserves), he is a dangerous threat to the American people and our nation.
10
I’ve been waiting and waiting for the NOAA to come together as an agency and issue a statement saying that they work for the good of the country, have the mandate and expertise to properly forecast the weather, and that with all due respect to the President of the United States who has no background in meteorology, they know what they’re talking about and he doesn’t.
Why didn’t this happen? I guess I sound like a naive idiot, but I thought that surely — surely — where something as objective and apolitical as the weather is concerned...
Nobody in a position of power is willing to confront the president regarding the weather? THE WEATHER?
8
Engineer reporting in!
We take our work very seriously. We are the people that make each project our personal responsibility. We do not politicize calculations. The calculations rule.
If, on any project, a rookie engineer can present calculations that a project will fail or topple over, he or she will be listened to and the potential error will be investigated. No one cares about egos or rank when public safety is involved.
Back then, computers were not used like they are now to calculate how to size beams and support structures, but the results must still be reviewed. Back in the 70's, there would have been several layers of review to insure that the project would stand. This is why we have rigid building codes and a high degree of professionalism in structural design. When was the last time we had a modern building collapse in the US?
Now enter Trump. He has taken that high level of responsibility and professionalism that any 22 year old rookie engineer has and trashed it. Think about that. This guy is the President of the United States. He has demonstrated that he has nowhere near the respect or sense of public responsibility that any rookie engineer has. All he cares about is his ego.
In doing so, Trump has displayed gross negligence and incompetence. His office holds the highest responsibility of all. Any lawyer could sue the pants off of him if he were a design professional and did something similar. This is our president.
293
@Bruce Rozenblit
Except, Bruce, that the building was under-designed for the wind load it should have been designed to resist because the engineers at LeMessurier Associates made a conceptual analytical mistake. It didn't matter whether they were using an abacus or a computer. The loads were applied in the wrong direction, and the layers of internal review did nothing to discover the error. I'm sure the building met all applicable codes under the erroneously applied loads, but that doesn't matter much if the loads are wrong.
As my advanced structural analysis professor said when he announced that there would be no partial credit given on his exams: "You get no partial credit if the building falls down."
The important lesson learned is that LeMessurier owned up to to the mistake, even though it was found, apparently by some graduate engineering student at Princeton, after tenants had already moved into the building. He didn't try to bury it or blame other people. That's what an ethical engineer, or for that matter any ethical person, does--admit mistakes made.
Trump? He draws fake lines on a chart. Sad.
69
@Bruce Rozenblit
"When was the last time we had a modern building collapse in the US?"
This is a stunningly tone-deaf question during this week of remembrance, is it not?
16
@A. Reader,
It seems clear from the totality of Mr. Rozenblit's remarks, that he is speaking of collapses from natural failures. And Trump's lies about science wouldn't have prevented 9/11.
20
Let us hope that the magazine that rejected this story did the right thing by declaring bankruptcy and ceasing publication. This is a great story of risk management, probabilistic thinking, and prophylactic action. So glad to see it reported here in time to consider the consequences of Trump faking government economic numbers.
For decades the Commerce Department bureau that produces the most sensitive economic data has been lauded for its independence and security. Early in his term, Trump violated that security by releasing the jobs report early. The risk now is that, after threatening to punish NOAA, that he and his minions will go after the economic data offices.
This column puts us all on notice of the consequences of such actions.
8
Today, if it fell down and then there was a domino effect, trump would only see the advantage to him to buy up the real estate, and/or jack up the prices on his hotel.
5
Trump's muted reaction "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know" when asked if someone wrote on the hurricane map with a marker indicates one thing: He knew, he knew, he knew.
10
Hurricane Dorian, which devastated the northern Bahamas, also was the pretext for several US deaths of people in the United States preparing for a possible hit. In the panic of preparations there are accidents and stress.
This is why we don't need a thoughtless President announcing non-existent risks to a state, Alabama or otherwise.
6
How many weatherman qualify as a stable genius' like our President? Trump is a wizard who can predict what is to come even if all the experts disagree. Check out his rallies the people there know who to believe. Trump has the power to bend reality with a single tweet.
3
Why don't you see chandeliers in dining rooms on top of tall buildings anymore? On more than a few occasions it was always sort of amusing to me but so much to others that they were swinging from the ceiling. Also ice cubes would slosh around in glasses. You certainly knew you were in a tall building.
'He needed to demonstrate the urgency of making repairs to senior executives'...
Yes, quite a few senior executives need repair!
3
Mr.Trump has built a shaky house of cards-each card a lie which is supposed to help hold the other cards up.It does not take a high wind to blow down his house of cards-a light breeze will do the trick.It is a sad time when the president has to be fact checked to be credible but the weather forecasters are believed and our panning depends on their word.We know that at a moments notice they will correct a forecast-Trump is just doodling on maps to impress his constituents.Credibility and expertise are crucial-Trump has neither.
7
Would it work better if they connected all the skyscrapers up there with big ropes or plastic ties? When the wind blows, they'll hold each other up, no? Save some money, too.
Trump's fantasy forecast for Hurricane Dorian illustrates a much more serious problem than undermining scientific weather forecasts. His massive narcissism requires that he be right, be praised, be admired or else; which implies attacking critics, undermining scientific fact, and corrupting the very institutions of government essential for our democracy and its "rule of law" to function if they threaten his bottomless narcissistic need to be seen as grandiose. If we are the point where Donald Trump can tamper with the weather forecast to maintain his fragile narcissism, our very Constitution is on the brink of collapse into the dark narcissistic autocracy of Donald Trump.
3
This story makes me think of 9/11.
If those two buildings were hit at a much lower angle, they would have indeed, toppled over.
2
I loved what Jim Dwyer said of Harold Gibson: “I never forgot how seriously he took his job.”
In the late summer of 1988, working as a fire behavior forecaster on a wildfire in Yellowstone Park, it was my job, working with National Weather Service meteorologist, Milo Radulovich, to predict the fire behavior of the North Fork fire, a large forest fire burning near West Yellowstone. Our concern as forecasters was whether this fire would burn into the Old Faithful geyser area, potentially burning the iconic Old Faithful Inn.
Like Harold Gibson, Milo and I took our jobs “seriously.”
I cannot imagine how it would have affected our psychologies as forecasters to work knowing the President was looking over our shoulders. Surely, such a bizarre situation would produce forecasting jitters.
We predicted the North Fork Fire would burn into Old Faithful complex.
Later, I learned that Milo was famous, that the CBS newscaster, Edward R. Murrow, during the McCarthy era, had used Milo as a subject for his “See It Now” program. Milo had been charged with having Communist sympathies. He was stripped of his Air Force position. It was all untrue. A movie, “Good Night, and Good Luck,” starring George Clooney, was made of Milo’s case.
Trump, forecasting a hurricane’s path, smells of the McCarthyism that affected Milo. That Trump cannot easily sense how seriously federal employees take their jobs shows how sick he is. That regular Americans put up with such behavior is even sicker.
19
Sadly the politicization of science by the GOP has been long in coming, and certainly predates Trump.
It is based rather on the white conservative evangelical consensus which has fueled the GOP since 1980 and now in effect owns it, and is owned by it.
Anti-science is not the mainstream Christian view. But it is the sectarian view of evangelicalism, and is yet another reason why the global ecumenical church needs to confess the faith against it as false doctrine.
Trump is just using these misguiding and ignorant ideas for his own ends, as he uses anybody, anything, anywhere, anytime. He is a lifetime user.
5
The President's petty fragile ego is more important than the truth. Donald Trump's re-election is far more important than the lives of American citizens. So let's politicize the National Weather Service so that it works for Trump and not for us, be we private citizens in a tornado's path, farmers planning their crops, or state government planning new flood control measures. Let's pretend that global climate change doesn't exist and this ephemera is absolutely not caused by human activities. Let's use our Army to make Donald Trump look good, be it staging a parade or brutalizing Latinos struggling for a better life who come to our borders. Our US Marines now work for the Trump Re-Election Campaign.
No, in his sick selfish mind, the entirety of American government should be serving his needs and not ours. And the racists and homophobes and science deniers love him. Our nation itself is today's Citicorp building--and the engineers are pulling out supports rather than correcting them. We should fear the coming thunderstorm.
9
Trump's fantasy forecast for Hurricane Dorian illustrates a much more serious problem than undermining scientific weather forecasts. His massive narcissism requires that he be right, be praised, be admired or else; which implies attacking critics, undermining scientific fact, and corrupting the very institutions of government essential for our democracy and its "rule of law" to function if they threaten his bottomless narcissistic need to be seen as grandiose. If we are the point where Donald Trump can tamper with the weather forecast to maintain his fragile ego, our very Constitution is on the brink of collapse into the dark narcissistic autocracy of Donald Trump.
4
Just think what would have happened had Trump been the builder. The building would have blown over and he would have blamed Hillary.
7
We decry bureaucrats as parasites on the nation and mock them when buildings do not fall down or hurricanes change course.
We have researchers tending sentinel rabbits who live in secluded hutches in the wild to be bled to check for emerging mosquito-borne diseases. The CDC regularly sends its EIS officers around the world to study outbreaks before they reach our shores.
People tend to trust people in their locality more than those they have never met. But your family doctor cannot help you if he or she does not have a clue about what is heading to your community. Those rabbits and those EIS officers are just as much a part of your health team as the doctor who writes you a prescription.
3
Trump's nominee to head the NOAA, which oversees the National Weather Service has spent decades trying to privatize weather forecasting because he runs a private weather service.
He wants us to pay for his weather forecasts - Accu/Weather. (link below).
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/climate/senate-noaa-barry-myers.html
4
To hear Donald Trump, his conclusions supersede those of the experts. He would have you believe that he knows more than the Generals, scientists, weapons experts, doctors, historians, among others, in their respective fields.
That childlike sharpie circle around Alabama was an especially pathetic representation of Trump’s dangerous pattern of undermining professionals when their expertise doesn’t fit his agenda.
4
The article neglects to mention one salient fact that led to the crisis that I will call Windgate: it was precipitated by religion.
The building now called 601 Lexington sits on what can only be described as giant stilts. They are the weak point that would have led to the building’s collapse in a sustained high wind.
Were those stilts an aesthetic choice? No. They were an economic necessity: when Citicorp acquired the land to build their headquarters, one tenant, St Peter’s Lutheran Church, at 619 Lexington Avenue, refused to sell the tract on which it sat. It refused to move, but they were willing to surrender air rights over the church in exchange for Citicorp and its partner developers building them a new church.
So, the skyscraper was built, with St Peter’s nestled under it like a gosling under its mother’s protective wing.
Only this gosling turned out to be in grave danger of its mother crushing it to death depending on which way the wind blew.
If there’s a moral to this story, it may be Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, but hang onto your air rights.
1
The story was newsworthy then even if the building did not fall down. The article deomonstrates the importance not just of reliability, but of serious sources of neutral information in government and academics. We should not rely on news media alone--even the NY Times--not to speak of social media.
4
Neil Jacobs, acting NOAA chief, just did irreparable damage to NOAA. By caving to the demands of Trump/Ross/Mulvaney he put the welfare of our nation behind the narcissistic ego of the Autocrat-in-Chief. Weather forecasts are extremely important; they directly affect lives, businesses, travel, etc. They matter.
Of course, we’ve heard nothing from the Republicans who apparently are just fine with Trump telling us what he thinks the weather will be. They accept everything he does without a peep.
We often joke that meteorology is the only profession where one can be wrong half the time and still stay employed. Thanks to Jacobs, we now have a Meteorologist-in-Chief who, with Sharpie in hand, is wrong 100% of the time. Trump, Ross, Mulvsney, Jacobs and the whole corrupt, incompetent Republican crew need to go. Make it happen in 2020. Maybe then we can get honest, apolitical weather reports.
3
What scares me is that our president has told so many outrageous lies, if something big really did happen and he actually told the truth and needed to be believed, people will think it’s just another lie. His squandering of any credibility he had could be a very dangerous thing for this country.
2
There is a difference between scientists who must be allowed to tell the objective truths about facts. What is done with facts (whether or not to evacuate the building that is about to fall in the author's example), is a political decision.
Politicians need have no particular training in anything. Sometimes we get lucky with a nuclear physicist president (Jimmy Carter) or a legal specialist in our Constitution (Barack Obama). This time we have someone spectacularly dishonest and, it would seem, probably illiterate. When you are illiterate you miss out on a lot of knowledge.
I would not trust anything a dishonest or uninformed person has to say against people with specific training on the objective facts.
1
This all rings as so true. I, too, spent decades working as a federal government scientist. If you haven’t read Michael Lewis’ The Fifth Risk, you should. I worked in one of the agencies described in the book. Just leave it at that. “News” is too often synonymous with “sensationalism;” thank you to the New York Times for pointing out all the many small unlauded contributions from civil servants deeply committed to the public good. I’m one of them, too.
4
I trust our forecasters, but then I don't get my news and weather report from Fox networks. And I'm not a Republican, and Trump is the last person on the planet that I would believe anything that came from his mouth.
3
Can we actually believe the NWS or NOAA in these days of the magical Sharpie?
2
Sadly, it is readily apparent that we can no longer trust our newly politicized weather service. Trump's war on science has taken its toll and his shallow state has corrupted every agency that it touches.
2
“This is an interesting story. However, since the building did NOT fall down, it is not newsworthy.”
Lots of people said the same thing about the Y2K Bug. The world didn't come to an end when the clocks and calendars rolled over from 12/31/1999 to 01/01/2000 and lots of people cluck-clucked "I told you so." But that was only because thousands of programmers took the risk seriously and rewrote large amounts of computer code in the preceding months and years.
In contrast to Greek mythology, sometimes Cassandra _is_ taken seriously, her prophecy is taken as warning and acted upon, and disaster is averted.
134
@A. Reader Thank you! I was a software engineer in the run up to Y2K. If we had done nothing to deal with Y2K, it would have been a disaster. But because a lot of smart people (like myself, my colleagues, and many of the people reading this) busted their rear-ends to fix the problem, that disaster was averted.
27
@A. Reader
Is your point that Alabama residents should have taken Trump seriously?
What if he stated warnings about Oklahoma?
Arizona?
Hawaii?
2
Engineers bring bad news. Management often disagrees, especially if the cost of the bad news is high. A manager faced with the bad news has a big decision to make: accept and act on the engineer’s news, or relegate the engineer out of the team. This decision is based on morality, character, integrity, and the risk/benefit ratio. It is the moment when the CEO must earn that huge salary.
Trump doesn’t believe nor accepts risk/benefit ratio analysis. He goes by his gut. His morality, character and integrity have no bearing on his decisions. He buys more insurance, borrows more against the property, and invests nothing in structural retrofit. He buries the report, and fires the engineer. If the building falls, he won’t be harmed: he blames the engineer, and sues the firm.
If a hurricane damages or destroys Maralago, he will sue the NWS and NOAA for damages, and direct disaster assistance to himself.
Vote him out, please America.
10
We have many agencies, departments and offices within our federal government that need to be politically neutral with NOAA standing out.
We the public use the weather forecasts daily, air operations depend on the most accurate weather in flight planning to insure their crews and their passengers are safe, highway operations depend on forecasts to prepare for severe weather and many more such as hurricane watches and warnings.
We we allow a politician, particularly an imbecile, to politicize an important agency that agency loses credibility and many may be harmed.
A case in point would be the agency entrusted to certify aircraft and the politicization of that agency in favor of the manufacturers, not the public.
But, we get the government we asked for and with the current president, a person with little knowledge of government save for IRS and bankruptcy rules, and his "shaking up the establishment", we may see much more grandstanding that will pale the sharpie incident.
7
Who was that engineering student and why is she or he not given credit for raising the question?
22
@GiGi The story was covered in The New Yorker, May 29, 1995. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/05/29/the-fifty-nine-story-crisis
That article says he called LeMessurier from New Jersey, but his name has been "lost in the swirl of subsequent events." It might still be possible to track him down.
1
@GiGi The story was covered in The New Yorker, May 29, 1995. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/05/29/the-fifty-nine-story-crisis
That article says he called LeMessurier from New Jersey, but his name has been "lost in the swirl of subsequent events." It might still be possible to track him down.
Update: another reader has identified the student: her name is Diane Hartley, see
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/structural-integrity/
5
The fundamental problem with the Citicorp building was that the supports, normally at the corners, were placed instead at the center of the walls to create a space for St. Peter's Church that refused to move.
As the story goes, a student from a NJ engineering school heard in a lecture from his Prof that the supports were wrong and risked the buildings integrity. That student called Le Messurier to verify it and was assured it was OK, but doubt was triggered. Le Messurier pursued it and found to his horror that the building's integrity was in question because of the unconventional support locations.
Le Messurier presented his findings to the owners along with a potential fix involving stiffening of the building. The weather issue presented here had to do with the urgency of the repair, no one questioned the forecast.
Later, Le Messurier would tell his students "You have a social obligation ... you’re supposed to be self-sacrificing and look beyond the interest of yourself and your client to society as a whole. And the most wonderful part of my story is that when I did it nothing bad happened”
There are three things to take from this account:
1. When presenting a problem try to have a solution to it;
2. Don't assume that showing integrity will always be rewarded as the Weather Service in Alabama learned; and
3. The Citicorp "fix" has still not been tested under sustained hurricane winds.
5
@GerardM,
Super Storm Sandy didn't test the structure?
@John
Sandy landed near Atlantic City, NJ as a tropical storm.
What was unusual about this storm was because it combined with a Nor'easter at high tide during a full moon, which produced devastating flooding results not seen in generations such as a record 14 foot storm surge at Battery Park on Manhattan, flooding various parts of Lower Manhattan including various tunnels and subway systems, making them inoperable for weeks. As of late 2019 some are still damaged and are in the process of being repaired.
As bad as it was, the Citicorp building did not experience any sustained hurricane winds.
The destruction of the public sector, trust in government and the ascension of propoganda over facts has been the goal of the Uber wealthy since they bought the Republican Party decades ago. Democrats need government to work; the wealthy need it to fail.
14
The title "Trust Our Weather Forecasters, Not Trump" masks for me the most frightening thing about Jim Dwyer's piece-the construction error in the building many of us New Yorkers still think of as the Citicorp Center. I always marveled at how a building that looks like it could topple could be structurally sound. That is, I trusted the engineering experts and whatever construction process followed. The story about the events leading to the repair of this building in the late 1970s needs to be better known-many warnings and lessons are there.
9
"Drain the swamp!" really means to totally destroy the public sector.
We need to remember that the Party holding power in the White House, the Senate and the Supreme Court hates all government with an intense contempt that borders on pathology. Whatever is in the public sector is ipso facto bad, even when it saves American lives, which it does in so many ways.
Years ago, Paul Krugman wrote words to the effect, "a society that holds all government to be bad will always have bad government." We are now learning how prescient Dr. Krugman was.
18
Reality exists outside of our hopes and whims. It cares nothing about those. It will have its way without fail. “Alternative facts” have no effect. No Sharpie can change it.
It’s tough to see reality when blinded and deafened by our passions. Yet it rules us.
4
I worked at Citicorp in 1978 and the article exactly describes what happened. Our law firm had just moved in from another location and occupied multiple floors. The partners had just enough time to admire their new digs when the construction workers arrived with their noisy machinery and ripped the walls apart at all the chevrons. Ironically this occurred mostly in the partners offices. We junior associates generally didn’t occupy space that contained a chevron. We also referred to the corrective work as “steel bandaids”. And we hoped that they would work.
10
Having seen what happened to NOAA, I doubt that the National Weather Service (or any other Federal agency) will make the mistake of contradicting Trump again. This is what happens in an authoritarian regime where the "leader's" ego is far more important that the truth.
13
@David Indeed. And we become just like that cursed Venezuela that Trump warns us about-a country with a despot who controls all aspects of the government.
3
Funnily enough, I was just looking at the Citicorp building from across the river last night, feeling an affection for it, surrounded as it now is by skinnier, taller newcomers, but I didn't quite realize why. And now I remember this story, and feel inspired by how sometimes (unfortunately, not always) there are people who persist in doing what's right. May they prevail!
15
@Allecram
In our present-day times, there is still a minority who have integrity and are willing to accept ridicule to go against the easy, inexpensive ways of conducting business. Thank heavens for people like these men. As we have seen, the unthinkable does occasionally occur....
1
Yes I trust our weather forecasters. But I don't trust the people in charge of them if they buckle under pressure from Trump and his Cabinet.
14
I have no doubt Mr. Gibson fretted over a humanitarian crisis in midtown. However, let's be realistic. I would be sleepless too if an engineering student had inadvertently made me the fall guy for the worst New York disaster since the General Slocum fire. Pun intended. Citibank's mistake is now my problem in a way no hurricane ever would be. That's not what I signed on for. Outside of my job description. Needless to say, emotions oscillate between sheer terror and complete rage.
1
Nice story. But the problem is not a building falling from wind. The problem is the glass. I worked for a testing lab in the late 60s that was testing glass panels for buildings. The standard was structural integrity up to 75 mile an hour gusts. That's not even a cat 1 (and as your article noted, a thunderstorm could do this). There's a lot of glass up there in the urban skies.
11
@Jimmy
Reminds me of Hurricane Andrew. Fortunately for Miami, but not for those of us who lived south of downtown, it veered south as it made landfall and missed Miami’s skyscrapers. The damage done was bad enough, but the cost would have skyrocketed if Andrew had hit downtown with the force it hit Kendall and points south.
1
@Jimmy, no one said that only concrete would kill when the building fell. The topic is the seriousness with which many unstoried civil servants do their jobs. The same civil servants trump derides as 'the swamp'.
1
Nicely done commentary. The major difference between the 1970s and now is that no matter how flawed, we, the people, still had a republican form of democracy. That's pretty much gone now and Trump and his sycophants (he's not alone in the use of deception and he's not the first) will redraw weather maps, present cartoonish weapons' sales reports (while a dictator from the Saudi Arabia sits nearby and laughs), and attack the press ruthlessly for daring to tell the truth and present the facts. There was some sense of cohesiveness in the US in 1978, but that is nearly gone now and the authoritarians are having the time of their lives!
While falling buildings are indeed newsworthy, the seriousness of climate destruction has not been taken seriously and the peril we all face, even to oligarchs, is existential.
31
Trump won his position as president based on the glitz and glamour of his name, not on any sense of expertise which seems less important to his supporters than doing it right. Trump did not care about the fate of Atlantic City or that of the Scottish neighbors to his golf courses in that country. The affects of his projects never mattered only the advertisement value of his name. Is it any wonder that he does not value the advice of scientists and experts who to him seem to get in the way of what means most to him, making money and advertising his huge ego.
35
Let’s not forget that NOAA is part of the Department of Commerce. If weather forecasters are instructed to lie about hurricanes to protect the president, why won’t economist be told to lie about monthly data they release in order to let the incumbent falsely boast how ‘great’ we are doing and cause him to be re-elected?
72
@Scott And then you could say the same thing about anything he says. If something like his view of the weather is being protected, all bets are off on what else they are lying about and the extent they will go to in order to protect his HUGE ego.
33
Thank you for this beautifully written, inspiring article. Brought tears to my eyes. A reminder of how we all depend on each other to take our work seriously and to tell the truth.
41
Thank goodness the structural engineer, LeMessurier, unlike Trump, acknowledged his mistake and did not let his ego get in the way of doing what was right.
145
There a companies that build strictly to code and there are companies that go beyond that. There are companies that hire unqualified imported inexpensive workers and their are companies that use journeymen, union employees. There are companies that buy quality steel and other materials and there are companies that buy the cheapest materials they can obtain.
Guess what methods were used to build trump tower.
60
@Paulie
Unfortunately, it isn't just trump. Read about Boeing's 757 factory in Charleston SC and their quality issues due to a non-union workforce. All in the pursuit of more profit. Their latest answer to quality problems is to reduce the number of inspectors!
As if their 737 Max problems aren't a bright enough red flag showing how corporate greed trumps safety and trust.
7
Guessing ain’t the point here.
2
A story of the dangers inherent in the increasing belief that there is no such thing as expertise. A specialist in real estate scams, self-congratulation, mendacity, and getting attention is not more capable of predicting or even communicating a weather forecast than professional meteorologists. This would seem to be logically obvious. To about half of Americans, it isn’t. They presumably didn’t believe their teachers knew anything either.
51
@Ralph
The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it. —Neil DeGrasse Tyson
The first rule of the Dunning Kruger Club is that a member does not know that he is a member of the Dunning-Kruger club. --David Dunning
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." —Isaac Asimov
3
@Leading Edge Boomer
Additional quotations on this theme:
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
— Philip K. Dick
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
— Richard Feynman (from the Rogers Commission Report on the loss of Challenger)
5
Meteorology is losing credibility these days because it has incorporated the same hype that we see everywhere in our culture. The decision by one very popular weather channel to start naming summer storms and to treat 40 mph wind gusts from tropical storms as important news left me to conclude that, as a result of their increasing pursuit of ratings and money, meteorologists could no longer be trusted and their forecasts had to be taken with a grain of salt.
5
Large scale American industries such as agriculture, transportation and construction rely heavily on commercial forecasting products from NOAA to guide their businesses and prevent heavy losses. NOAA is comprised of dedicated scientists and meteorologists to get these forecasts as accurate as possible. That's why stunts like Trump's Sharpie event is so serious, it denigrates the science we use every day to protect and prosper.
64
@ehillesum NOAA has saved countless lives by improving weather predictions. Just compare death rates between the 1938 hurricane and those today.
34
@ehillesum In my 70 years I have seen weather predictions based on weather balloons and visual forecasts by weather watchers to the satellite observation systems and computer models we have today. And those forecasts, while still probability based, are much more believable than in days of yore.
However, we are marching into uncharted territory with more violent storms that are becoming more unpredictable due to those unsaid words of Trump-climate change.
However, as many of us will heed the warnings of the weather service to provide guidance, you are free to ignore the advice of those scientists.
3
The whole story of how the design and construction flaw was discovered and dealt with is fascinating and inspiring.
The New Yorker of May 29 1995 has a good but paywalled article. There may be other sources.
The following quote is from the article and can be a touchstone for all professions
“Over the years, LeMessurier would discuss this crisis in his Harvard course and he reminds his students that: “You have a social obligation. In return for getting a licence and being regarded with respect, you’re supposed to be self-sacrificing and look beyond the interest of yourself and your client to society as a whole. And the most wonderful part of my story is that when I did it nothing bad happened”.”
73
The quote from Mr. LeMessurier that “ nothing bad happened” rings a little untrue for me, anyway. I read the 1995 piece in the New Yorker. The “bad” that happened was the unsettling realization that things were overlooked in the development of the ambitious pushing of the envelope of the Citicorp tower’s daring cantilevered design. The “good” that came out of it would be the caution future engineers and architects would have applied to later designs.
Ironically and coincidentally Mr. Robertson was, I believe, part of the engineering design team for the World Trade Center towers, another ambitious (and cost and profit-making) approach - later deemed to be a factor in the “pancaking” collapse following the attacks.
The wind load on the Citicorp tower would have been part of its engineering calculations. A strike by an aircraft on the Trade Center towers was anticipated- just a much smaller plane.
Sometimes conservative design and double checking is best. No, all the time.
In today’s news section, there is a story about a flight being diverted back to safety due to coffee being spilled on an audio button.....
2
The difficulty is that the US is responsible for only 15% of global CO2 emissions. All of our discussions here center on how awful Trump is. But it is not the way to a solution. Of course Trump is wrong.
But "Trump is wrong" cannot be the battle cry if we are to protect our species from the coming climate change.
I suspect the NYT and its readers of putting their hatred of Trump ahead of their concern for the planet.
Mr. Obama signed the Paris treaty. But he basically gave China a pass. There has been hardly any criticism of Mr. Obama or of the country which emits twice as much CO2 as we do.
In a way my main reason for hoping that Trump will lose in 2020 is that perhaps the NYT and its readers will recover their sanity and start thinking, NOT about Trump but about our planet.
18
The Accords did not give China “a pass,” and the point is, Trump’s acting irresponsibly.
3
@Ludwig
Absurd. First place China didn't get a pass, and second place, China is not-anti-scientific; they understand climate change and have been adapting to try and reduce their own admissions. As one example they had planned several dozen coal fired plants which they cancelled. They are also breeding horses again for agricultural use, since they are efficient in many circumstances and contribute less to carbon emissions than internal combustion engines.
We are the one nation with a really huge carbon footprint which is actually trying, under this administration, to make matters worse.
2
When we consider the complexities of modern society, we need to view them as the products a system: there is the knowledge (and skills) necessary to address the desired goal; there is the necessity for rigorous and disciplined application of such knowledge: there is the necessity for unfettered information flow; and...perhaps most importantly...an overwhelming need for humility. Breakdowns in any of these areas can lead to failure. But it's the triumph of arrogance over humility that virtually mandates catastrophic failure. The Titanic is a lesson that keeps being retaught.
12
It's interesting that an engineering error as serious this was never a news story, even before our national attention span decreased to less than a day.
We need to be able to trust experts and more and more we don't.
A good many of prefer to believe that the government, Big Pharma and the bulk of pediatricians are in a conspiracy to injure their children with vaccines.
We believe that the government, paleontologists, geologists, physicists, anthropologists and education officials are conspiring to deny God by teaching evolution.
We believe in the power of the acai berry, green tea, unproven supplements, and all sorts of internet therapies over physician recommendations for good health.
And when we have a genuine controversy - a genuine mystery about why something is happening, such as the mystery of what is going on with people with the after effects of Lyme infection - we tend to see conspiracy of government and health providers to keep people in the dark and suffering as a reasonable explanation.
We need both trust and skepticism - but more and more we are trusting the charlatans and skeptical of the scientists.
45
@Cathy this was a big news story when it happened. There was a major retrofit of the Citicorp building. The first winter it was up, large sheets of ice also fell from the slanted roof to the street.
2
There is no “mystery,” about Lyme infection and its sequelae. Please speak for yourself, not this “we.”
2
Ask the people of Flint, Michigan about the importance of receiving credible information from government officials.
78
This article speaks to how important it is to pay attention to scientists and information we may not want to hear. It also raises the question of how many buildings have been built over the years with the correct safety standards to withstand storms, since we are getting bigger, stronger, more destructive storms due to the climate crisis, and more of them.
With a president who lives in his own little thought bubble world, surrounded by enabling cabinet members and Congress providing little oversight, we need to rely on courageous people like the author of this article to keep us honest and safe.
26
@Ellen S.
I remember reading that the Trump Tower was built by illegal immigrants ( it saved money) and that the contractor was concerned about getting caught. I wonder how much consideration was given to the stability of the building.
23
@Charlesbalpha I am guessing that it wasn’t shoddy work by “illegal immigrants” as much a cutting costs by using inferior materials and construction “shortcuts, as well as paying off inspectors, that likely makes Trump Tower worthy of skepticism regarding its stability. My experience with immigrant labor is that they work VERY HARD, and carefully follow the directions that they’re given.
4
This is part of the consequence of a money first, profit for corporations first government that we will face for a long time post-Trump in the US. Decisions irresponsible government leaders led by Moscow Mitch and djt are making now have deprived the US of plans for climate change, for disaster relief, for infrastructure development, have rooted these responsible decent people out of government service as they see it is pointless to work for leaders who are simply taking tax money for their own profit and do not have the interests of citizens or nation or future at heart. It takes a long time to develop a system which develops, recruits and employs serious people in responsible trustworthy positions in a government or really any company. The destruction of the US government means we are in a more precarious situation every day.
As a long time international worker and citizen I mourn the US State Department that Trump has destroyed, his previous Republican presidents simply placed ridiculous ambassadors, I met a car dealer from the state of NY in Trinidad and Tobago who was a Bush 1 appointment - he was scared to leave the embassy grounds in that delightful island nation. But he had the team of State people laughing at him with the islanders and doing the work. Now we are none abroad.
11
Thank you for retelling this lesson. I do a lot of work with data and was sweating the first time I read this account.
If Trump told me the sky was blue I would stick my head outside to check. If the NWS told me the sky was green, I would do likewise.
9
Thanks to all the anonymous civil servants who keep us from disasters of all kinds. While Mr. Dwyer focuses on one (anonymous no more), there are thousands more toiling on our behalf.
51
I'm sure you could relate many instances when politicians or, say, police--even reporters--chose not to believe someone because it was easier than doing something about the danger at hand.
16
Mr. Trump's government would assess the building's repair based on a cost analysis to the company. If the cost of retro-repair was too high, they would allow the building to stand as is. I know that because of all the environmental and commerce regulations Trump's people have written off the books. After all, if polluted water or air is only going to kill a few extra Americans, but costs a corporation millions, aren't the millions of more worth? The same with endangered species; if saving the polar bear or grizzly costs the Koch brothers or ranchers billions, do we really want to save them? Trump's government is all about the money at the peril of people and the environment. There is no value, no god, of more value than money. The eleventh commandment according to Trump.
179
Disbelief is almost as great an influence as belief: faith healing, if it exists, is based not on the faith of the healer but of the healed. President Trump loses no sleep over environmental disaster because he sincerely (?) believes that there is no such thing: so passionately that he has apparently convinced most Americans that global warming is an unfounded rumor.
Anyone who has stood on a high floor of a skyscraper while a gale was blowing will understand how alarmed it makes us feel. Has Mr T ever experienced it? If so, whose fault would he say it was?
8
@Bill George
We lost Peter Sellers and Andy Kaufman and 14 US Astronauts to magical thinking. I’m sure there are many more, but those are the ones most people can recognize.
3
Key elements of the natural and built world topple daily by our collective paralysis, not by not knowing and not believing the climate scientists for 40 years, but now by not acting on what our eyes tell us. We don't trust that we can save ourselves so we give in to the nihilism of our towering ways.
12
From meteorologists to nuclear scientists, FBI agents to Navy combat pilots, thousands of federal employees undergo rigorous education and training and extensive background checks to ensure that they’re competent and trustworthy.
And yet, for the most powerful government job of all, Commander-in-Chief, we are willing to hire game show hosts and we are somehow unable or unwilling to perform even the most perfunctory examination of the applicant’s tax returns or neurological and mental health. It boggles the mind.
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@Evangelos never mind the fact that every government employee is subjected to random drug testing, except the ones that created that requirement.
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@Evangelos
Perfectly put!
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@Paulie And guns are allowed in public places but not allowed in the legislative locations where gun laws are made.
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trust the weather forecasters? if i trusted the forecast i could really only do so about 1 minute before they said something was going to happen. i would say the forecast is wrong more than its right. similar to trump.
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@Rob C: I read the weather forecasts daily and almost daily they are 100% correct. I don't know where you are getting your weather info, but mine is correct.
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@Rob C
So wrong.
Current NWS zone forecasts for temperature and precipitation are 90% accurate for 24 hours. Confidence, like gambling odds, multiplies, so 0.9 probabilities after five 24 hour forecasts is just above 50%, which is why you see five-day forecasts.
Now, just because it doesn’t rain on your head as much as you heard on the local tee vee doesn’t mean the science is wrong. It means the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.
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Nice article. Which has nothing to do whatsoever with Trump, since:
Trump erred on the cautious, not on the reckless, side.
The NOAA prediction was at the time completely off as well. The hurricane went north, not west.
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@otroad
The prediction track of a hurricane provided by the NWS is a dynamic product. As more current data was received the track was revised, turning north as the storm did.
Mr. Trump's continuing insistence on returning to an old prediction and even modifying it with his Sharpie did a disservice to NOAA and the people of the Atlantic seaboard who might have believed it was STILL going west across Florida and not heading directly to them.
Being cautious to the point of being adamantine is itself reckless.
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@otroad
Yet by the time Trump was pushing his "Alabama will be hit" story, he was basing it on days-old forecasts, which had already been revised. So, somehow, the C-in-C was the only one who didn't get the memo? Furthermore, he absolutely REFUSED to admit he was wrong, or to change HIS forecast. As this article so correctly points out, the danger of a narcissist snake oil salesman like Trump lies in his efforts to erode trust in the institutions our country relies on and NEEDS to be able to trust, e.g. our national weather service (our judiciary, the free press). It has EVERYTHING to do with Trump.
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@otroad- The point is credibility, not the accuracy of this one event.
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That’s a great story about the 1970s, when we could trust the people in government to do the right thing. In 2019, it’s just a really great story.
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I seem to remember that one of the fixes was to place a railroad type flatbed on tracks loaded with heavyweights at the top of the building. The idea was that when the wind blew the building from the direction a, and the building began to sway toward a. the rail car with its counterweight would move along the track in counter direction b, and neutralize the movement.
Am I remembering this correctly?
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@Lucretius, that's not a fix. That kind of damper was part of the original design of the building, to reduce sway. Many buildings use this kind of damper. They work quite well.
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@Lucretius "Am I remembering this correctly?"
No. If the top tilted at all, the weights would move to the tilted side and help topple the building.
The problem arises all the time with cars in curves, which tilt outwards. The modern way is to make an active, computer driven, suspension, which tilts the car inwards.
That may be though expensive for buildings.
One way which I can see, inspired by the buildings in seismic regions, is to put the building on rollers, in a kind of slight bowl. Then the wind would push the building towards the edge of the bowl and tilt it backwards.
It can be done. California just put all the UC Berkeley buildings on rollers, but it cost more than rebuilding them on rollers from scratch.
And cities are not as rich as universities...
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@otroad
Passive mass dampers have been used to effectively reduce interstory drifts and floor acceleration of buildings during seismic events. The mass added in these systems is a fraction of the building's mass so it will not cause the building to tip over. Even if the an added mass moved to the far side of a building the building structural system and foundation could be designed to resist the overturning moment created. Due to inertia the mass movement is typically delayed and acts counter to the overall building movement.
Active mass dampers coupled with force actuators also are used to effectively control structures in wind and seismic events. A feedback controller is provided with information on the current building motion and a control strategy is implemented in real-time.
Taipei 101's tuned mass damper pendulum is a very visual example.
Base-isolation systems as you noted are also an effective control strategy. These systems typically use isolation elastomeric bearings under column/foundation elements, which help to reduce the transfer of ground accelerations to the building. The spherical concave dishes are often used because they provide friction resistance and also use the building's own weight as a restoring force during events.
All these systems are 'tuned' by the designer to get the best performance. The use of special frames and braces that are designed to dissipate energy in events can also be cost-effective.
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Has an honest person not related to the Real Estate Industry checked the calculations for all the other skyscrapers? Why do I seriously doubt it?
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We might also trust the weather forecasters who work for the CDC that point out that:
1) vaccines are necessary for life in mass societies
2) consumer access to technologies that cause 40k deaths per year should be better regulated
Unfortunately, too many people only hear hot air.
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Guy just waited 39 years to publish his story.
Jokes aside, well-written article, Mr. Dwyer. The responsibility even our most humble civil servants bear every day is enormous.
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@James E
Nope. New Yorker story back from 1995. For engineers, this is right up there with the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and two space shuttles. Better, because the lessons were heeded and fixes made.
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@James E This story has been recounted many times before today and there is even a PBS documentary film about it.
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@James E
There have been many many stories written about Citicorp and its myriad structural problems -- a great feature in The New Yorker, many years ago, was one such article.
To Mr. Dwyer's credit, this is written to discredit 45, his idiotic tendencies with a Sharpie, and to justify NOAA's (or rather, the National Weather Service's commitment to accurate weather reporting.
It was timely and was a perfect example to drive home the foolishness of Mr. Trump.
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I worked in the Citicorp Center, now called 601 Lexington, from 1986 until 1991. This was the period after it was "fixed" with the steel plates. When the wind blew (and nowhere close to 75 mph), the building still swayed and swooned, like a steel palm tree in a stiff breeze. Some of my coworkers were completely unnerved by it. During storms, more than a few with windowed offices would find reasons to work in interior conference rooms instead.
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@Jack Sonville, all large tall buildings sway in strong wind. They're built to do that, though typically they have a damper to lessen the effect. Think of trees - they bend, but they don't break (for the most part).
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@Oh what the heck. Thanks for that. I worked near a window on the 9th floor of 100 wall st and the swaying was very scary and while we might look at each other no one followed the instinct to run.
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@Oh what the heck
Agree, but I've worked in many tall buildings and never felt one sway like that one.
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As a sensitive speech writer for Chicago politicians I remember from the 1970s when I was in one of the Loop's skyscrapers feeling on top of the world when my corner office began swaying. That kind of thrill was new to me and my office mates as we stared at one another and wondered if this were the end. Later that day I was told that such tall buildings could sway about 2 and a half inches before they tumbled into the busy streets below. Jim Dwyer's piece brought that all back and I haven't ridden an elevator in 40 years.
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Regarding the comment about nit riding in elevators, when was the last time you heard of an elevator falling in a building - exactly never! All elevators have fail safe devices held open by the tension on the cable, hence they stpo if tension is lost for some reason.
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@Jim Dwyer
Oh, so funny. Actually, skyscrapers sway a couple of inches all the time without any danger of tumbling into the busy streets below.
Here--read all about 'tuned mass dampers,' and enjoy the 'googly eyes' which I thought was a cute touch:
https://practical.engineering/blog/2016/2/14/tuned-mass-dampers-in-skyscrapers
Without tuned mass dampers, buildings can sway enough to make people seasick.
Regarding this article, the Citicorp Center issue was a serious design error, not a construction error. You can google that one, but it gets a little technical.
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I met a structural engineer years ago who talked about the influence of money in California real estate and politics during the 1980s, and how developers had used it to buy off pols and quickly put up apartment buildings and condominiums utilizing cheap, inferior steel. This has the potential to endanger millions as we was by the 1995 Northridge earthquake. I hope people understand how important the science at the federal and state level is. These are banks of experts we have invested in as taxpayers--and we deserve to know the facts and hear from them on a regular basis.
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@Ann I thought of earthquake zones immediately as a person from the Bay Area. California is fortunately standing up to our current irresponsible government and post-Northridge does serious safety regs and checks but we must have in place rigorous anti-corruption counter agency to check up on standards fulfillment. RE as evidenced by the current occupant is the most corrupt big easy money industry after maybe casinos, the other deal he managed to do poorly - and bribes/mob money/shady deals are an everpresent situation.
In the Mexico City 1985 earthquake the Torre Latinoamericana maintained its integrity while the entire neighborhood around collapsed, its a fascinating early work of earthquake engineering for extreme seismic danger zones. Legend has it that its engineer was on the roof during its first challenge just after its 1957 completion and got to ride out the shake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre_Latinoamericana
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I know an actuary who developed an App that could tell one the odds of a pedestrian standing at a any street corner in a major city of getting hit by a car.
That of course does not mean that one would ever get hit by a car.
The weather though is different because it is always there, the theoretical car may not be.
However, weather forecasting is not absolute. There are margins of error.
In research or for the average citizen, this is fine.
When somebody has to make a call to take action, things are difficult. Too much, the leader who cried wolf and will be ignored or worse, ridiculed. And there are limits to the number of times one can take extreme action. Too little, possibly blood on one's hands.
What do do?
Play the odds and probably be cautious.
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The Bureau of the Census, like NOAA and the National Weather Service (NWS), is in Wilbur Ross's Department of Commerce. And like the NWS it deals in one of the most critically important but also most misunderstood areas of math used to make political and economic decisions — statistics. People like yes/no answers, not the fuzziness of probabilities and confidence levels. There is little doubt in my mind that the professionals at the Bureau of the Census will be under tremendous political pressure to skew results of the 2020 Census to Trump's liking. I hope they resist as the NWS has.
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The good news is we don’t have a totally self-centered president who insists he is right all the time, and when necessary uses a Sharpie to alter a weather map to “prove” he’s right.
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@Yojimbo
Thank you for pointing out a very important “unintended consequence” of disbelief. Gerrymandering, which we see now has changed the outcomes of elections. Science, too, must be monitored.
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@Yojimbo - Makes you wonder what other statistics have been doctored to conform to trump's wishes. If they will go after something as politically benign as weather science, what won't they cross? I believe nothing that comes out of this 5th rate administration - nothing.
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The opposition to climate change science by politicians may pose a bigger risk than the Citicorp Center. Ignoring the warnings lets commerce continue to flow and the 1% to get richer but at what price to the 99%?
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Should the forecasters who predicted things that would happen by 2019 - things that have not happened- be held to account?
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@Ambrose Rivers
This is not about any particular forecast being right or wrong. Rather, it is about one person who loudly made an incorrect forecast, in direct contradiction with forecasts made by people who actually understand the weather and the science behind it; refused to admit that he'd been wrong; applied political pressure to get the NOAA to back his demonstrably false version after the fact.
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@Ambrose Rivers
Which forecaster and what things are you referring to?
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@Ambrose Rivers A forecast defines likelihood but not assurance.
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An excellent demonstration of why politics must be kept out of many functions of government. When lives are at stake, politics of the ideological kind, strange to say, have no place.
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This is essential course work in architecture school, the great engineering near-miss during a time of great daring feats with calculations still done long hand. There are many reasons for revisiting this for lessons, but none more important than demonstrating the essential place for expertise, math and science, engineering, and fact based professionals. All dangerously missing from US leadership today in a most dangerous time for the world. The world used to look us for leadership, but now sees amateurs and politicized posturing. Playing games with the weather is a harbinger of more danger to come.
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@AL In general, architecture students are math-ignorant. They are taught concepts that are mathematically faulty but usually work OK. Architecture firms rely on engineering consultants (soils, civil, structural, mechanical, electrical) to vet designs to make sure a building is safe and won't "fall down." The best firms also have people who know national and local building codes and ensure that a design conforms to them.
Potential liability also forces firms to rely on consulting expertise, so they have someone to sue when they are sued. No practicing architect or consulting engineer would dare to work without proper insurance.
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It seems there is a tremendous outcry over this in the Washington Post and the Times, but hardly a murmur in Alabama. With all of the targets of opportunity that Trump presents on an almost daily basis, I think it is time to move on.
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@Thomas J Pain
“...a tremendous outcry over ‘this’...”
Define “this.” The concern is over an administration that dismisses science and dangerously makes decisions based on greed and the president’s ego (eg, his fear of looking not just wrong but ridiculously so). You really think it’s time to move on from “that”?
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@Thomas J Pain The implications of Sharpiegate go far beyond Alabama — and far beyond just weather. No, it’s not time to move on.
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@Thomas J Pain
It has been a big deal in Huntsville along with our Congressman saying the oceans are rising because rocks are falling into them.
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Many years ago, I found myself sitting at the bar in a hotel in Boca Raton, chatting with a guy with a 2-foot tall stack of textbooks in front of him. He was due to take his PE exam the next day and said he was intrigued by the construction codes in the area. He pointed out the window at a row of one-room wide 20-storey condos lined up like dominoes along the beachfront. He explained to me how the foundations for them worked and opined that a cat 5 hurricane could "knock them down like dominoes" if the storm approached from just the right direction. It hasn't happened. Yet.
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Mr. Dwyer's timely story is fascinating. Actually, The New Yorker had a fairly full account some years ago, I recalled as I read Mr. Dwyer's. It was newsworthy then. It's newsworthy now.
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@Larryman LA "The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis," Joe Morgenstern, The New Yorker, May 29, 1995.
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We have gotten much better at predicting the path of hurricanes. We still have much to do re the strength. And in a state of global warming a Cat 6 is being considered to be created. Considering the huge increase in strength in recent hurricanes including Dorian, all in a hurricane's path now need to shudder that the president's ego may take precedence over the accuracy of forecasts. Very bad precedent.
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@Mary: I heard a reporter relate a Bahamian saying during the run-up to Dorian's hit, "The water feels like hot tub water". That shocked me. If true, we definitely will need a Cat 6 designation.
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Great story. No one probably remembers the commission delegated to look into the causes of 9/11; just recently passed on the calendar. Front and center was "a failure of imagination." We could not imagine that the US could ever be attacked: so we took no steps to prevent this tragedy.
Hindsight is cheap.
Foresight is essential.
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The 2nd Hancock tower built in Boston had a vulnerability to wind. The story is that it wasn't on the wide face, but the narrow edge. Someone looked for it, and acted. If they hadn't, disaster might have occurred.
Although I can't vouch for the veracity of this parallel story, it raises this important question: who do you trust, and to what extent. I trust engineers.
We have become complacent about hurricanes, those of us living in the NE. If the powerful storm of '38, the Long Island express, were to strike, would we be ready? My guess is that are not. Ask the Bahamas if we are prudent.
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@eric williams
I worked on the 54th floor of the Hancock building for ten years. The staff had many stories about the famous out–popping windows, but the corporate legend I remember best concerned the east–facing broad side of of the building. Supposedly, a study had shown that in the event of a propane transport explosion occurring in Boston Harbor, the approximately (if memory serves) 5'x12'x1" windows on that side would be pushed, largely intact, straight in across the floor, rather like a razor blade cleanly scraping whiskers off a cheek. Hearing that story, we whiskers would shudder, and return to our desks.
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@eric williams. I remember my Mom talking about the hurricane of 1938 and the fact that on the day it happened no one had any idea it was about to hit the L.I. Coast.
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@J K P
They had no satellites then, so nothing but ship radio reports to warn of coming weather. Same with Galveston, which is why those two and others saw such death and damage. Hurricane deaths plummeted with the use of satellites and computer data analysis and modeling.
11
As knowledgeable, experienced and truthful as they always are, meteorologists are also the first people to tell themselves and everyone else that they also know what they don't know about anything and everything. Alas, if our Weatherman-In-Chief knew only half as much as those renowned meteorologists forgot, we'd
all be in a better place, regardless of the weather.
Vote.
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@Guido Malsh
Good point.
I would add that this goes right to the heart of overcoming some of the climate deniars as well.
Some people expect simple answers to most everything.
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Why weren't wind load calculations part of the overall plan review submittal to the city? Something seems to be missing here; to discover such an oversight AFTER the building was constructed AND occupied is outrageous! Poor plan review protocols notwithstanding, it is critically important that building codes be enforced to the letter. Applicants routinely complain about the amount of paper work and review time involved in obtaining permits, but the bottom line is the overarching function of government, to preserve and protect the public health, safety and welfare, clearly a legitimate and vitally important function of government!
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@Grungy Ol' Dave
If I remember what I read correctly, there were protective structural elements in the design that were not understood and then not incorporated during construction
22
@Grungy Ol' Dave A TV documentary a few years ago stated that the original wind load calculations were based on wind hitting at a 90 degree angle to a side, which ordinarily would make sense. The revised calculations were based on wind hitting at a 45 angle, i.e. directly at a corner.
Why that's significant: take a look at the exterior of the (former) CitiCorp building at street level. The corners are not actually supported by anything; just lots of empty space. The first time I saw it, around 1980, I immediately thought: that just looks wrong. So when I heard the real story years later, I was shocked but not surprised.
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@ghsalb
Supports were not placed at the corners, to allow the building to cantilever over an existing structure, St. Peter’s church. I believe it was this radical design that caught the attention of a female graduate student who pointed out the vulnerability. She deserves mention, but apparently her name has been lost to history.
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