World Trade Center Disaster Response

Ensuring Safety at a Disaster Response

On the afternoon of 9/11 our engineers conducted an initial walk-through of the World Trade Center site with city officials to survey the situation and begin planning for widespread building inspections and on-site engineering operations. By the morning of September 12, more than 30 of our engineers reported to the site for what became the longest and largest single, continuous mobilization of our engineering expertise.

Highlights

• We conducted immediate damage assessment of buildings in the collapse area, assistance with demolition and temporary stabilization procedures, design of grillages and analysis of structures to support construction equipment, and coordination of the survey monitoring of damaged structures.
• Working with the New York City Department of Buildings, we inspected more than 400 buildings in Lower Manhattan.
• Large cranes with long reaches and capacities of up to 1,000 tons provided access to the search and rescue areas, which were designated by the New York City Fire Department.
• At one point more than 30 cranes were on the site, there was not a single case of a crane support problem during the entire rescue and recovery efforts.
• Over the next 10 months, the recovery team removed more than 1.6 million tons of debris from the site.
• The team completed the recovery program in 2005 at $1 billion under its original cost estimate and four months ahead of schedule.