Scrap a Key in Twin Towers Documentary

The Metal Management Northeast scrap yard in Newark, N.J., will be among the key settings of an upcoming Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television special documenting the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

The documentary, entitled “Why The Towers Fell,” will air on PBS on Tuesday, April 30.

According to an AP report, the special will follow the post-attack investigation of engineers and metallurgists who have been looking through the 100,000 tons of scrap metal hauled from the World Trade Center site to the Metal Management yard in New Jersey.

In the AP report, engineer Edward DePaola notes that clues found in the scrap yard—such as etchings on twisted or mis-shapen beams that indicate where in the tower the steel was used—will help conclude why the towers collapsed so quickly after they were struck by the airplanes.  A report being prepared by engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is due by the end of the month, and will provide much of the information for the PBS special.

DePaola told the AP that his research team is trying to provide the most detailed account possible. “We need to be able to technically describe the sequence of events, minute by minute: This piece bent, this piece broke, then this one gave way,” he commented.

Many of the material samples gathered at the Newark scrap yard have been sent to a lab at Gaithersburg, Md., for further study.

Managers of the Metal Management Northeast scrap yard estimate they have processed 100,000 tons of World Trade Center ferrous scrap, shipping most of it overseas from the company’s East Coast deep water port facility.