Reply #111: CYA [View All]

It does not seem to me that Bassman is implying anything sinister about the FDNY http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=192084&mesg_id=212540">here. When a fire department makes a decision to allow a fire to burn out of control, there's always the risk that the department (or the chief who made the decision) might get sued later, or otherwise called on the carpet, no matter how justified the decision may have been.

And it seems to me that high-level officials, in the FDNY or anywhere else, would naturally keep in mind the need to document potentially troublesome decisions, in anticipation of a possible future need to prove that the decision was justified. It seems to me that such concerns would be second nature to any high-level manager in a position to make such momentous decisions.

Of course, on 9/11/2001, the FDNY did have many other things to worry about. But someone in the FDNY did take the time to call Silverstein. If they took the time to call Silverstein, why not take the time to document the severity of the fires and structural damage too?

(One possibility might be, perhaps, that the FDNY did take photos and NIST just hadn't obtained them from the FDNY by 2004 for whatever reason. All the photos in the MIST 2004 interim report on WTC 7 seem to have been taken by private photographers.)