Even after all these years, 9/11 “Truthers” still piss me off no end. While you don’t hear much from ’em these days, there are still people who buy their BS. One of their more annoying claims was that the WTC couldn’t possibly have failed due to the jet fuel and paper and plastic fire because the combustion temperature was well below the melting point of steel. As I pointed out four years ago, steel structures don’t nee to actually melt in order to fail due to fire; they just need to get hot enough for the strength of the steel to reduce to the point where it can’t hold the load anymore.

This AM I had the TV on as background noise while I worked on various things. It was tuned to some “horrible things caught on video” shows. What caught my attention was an incident from 1998: a fuel tanker truck crashed underneath an overpass and caught fire. The overpass was a conventional steel structure clad in lots of concrete. The fuel burned hot and long enough that the bridge softened and collapsed. I tried to find the clip on youtube, could only find this crappy version:

[youtube 4n3xQkwfnHg]

Fiery Truck Crash Collapses Overpass

If a simple gasoline fire can cause an overpass to droop and then collapse, just imagine what it can do to a skyscraper.