Independent verification of the concrete core.
By Katherine Stroup Newsweek Web Exclusive
Sept. 13 - Leslie Robertson, one of two engineers who designed the World Trade Center,
“Beyond the reaction that any citizen has—the sadness that we all feel—you have to understand, I worked long hours, seven days a week on this project back when I was young and energetic,” says the 73-year-old, his voice breaking with emotion. “It was just terrible to watch, painful and horrible.”
Still, Robertson, whose firm is responsible for three of the six tallest buildings in the world, feels a sense of pride that the massive towers, supported by a
steel-tube exoskeleton and a reinforced concrete core, held up as well as they did—managing to stand for over an hour despite direct hits from two massive commercial jetliners.
“If they had fallen down immediately, the death counts would have been unimaginable,” he says. “The World Trade Center has performed admirably, and everyone involved in the project should be proud.”