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Mr. Levine said that because of the presumed value of the
information, the court might look favorably on requests to
make it public. But the uncertainty over the fate of the
material is unnerving to many people, especially experts
who believe that only a complete review of the evidence -
not piecemeal disclosures by litigants eager to protect
their own interests - could lead to an advance in the
federal investigation of the trade center. 

"It's important for this to get presented and published and
subjected to some scrutiny," said Dr. John Osteraas,
director of civil engineering practice at Exponent Failure
Analysis in Menlo Park, Calif., and a consultant on the
case, "because then the general engineering community can
sort it out." 

The scope of the investigation behind the scenes is vast by
any measure. Mr. Levy and his colleagues at Weidlinger
Associates, hired by Silverstein Properties, have called
upon powerful computer programs, originally developed with
the Pentagon for classified research, to create a model of
the Sept. 11 attack from beginning to end. 

The result is a compilation of three-dimensional images of
the severed exterior columns, smashed floor and damaged
core of the towers, beginning with the impacts and
proceeding up to the moments of collapse. Those images -
which Mr. Levy is not allowed to release - have helped
pinpoint the structural failures. 

The FEMA investigators did not have access to such computer
modeling. Nor did the FEMA team have unfettered access to
the trade center site, with all its evidence, in the weeks
immediately after the attacks. But no such constraints
hampered engineers at LZA/Thornton-Tomasetti, brought to
the site for emergency work beginning on the afternoon of
Sept. 11. Daniel A. Cuoco, the company president and a
consultant to Silverstein Properties on the case, said he
had assembled detailed maps of the blazing debris at ground
zero in models that perhaps contain further clues about how
the towers fell. 

Though the FEMA team could not determine "where things
actually fell," Mr. Cuoco said, "we've indicated the
specific locations." 

Mr. Cuoco said he could not reveal any additional details
of the findings. Nor would Mr. Osteraas discuss the details
of computer calculations his company has done on the spread
of fires in large buildings like the twin towers. Mr.
Osteraas has also compiled an extensive archive of
photographs and videos of the towers that day, some of
which he believes have not been available to other
investigators. 

And the investigation has not limited itself to computers
and documentary evidence. For months, experiments in wind
tunnels in the United States and Canada have been examining
the aerodynamics that fed the flames that day and stressed
the weakening structures. 

Jack Cermak, president of Cermak Peterka Peterson in Fort
Collins, Colo., was retained by the insurance companies but
had previously performed wind-tunnel studies for the
original design of the twin towers nearly 40 years ago. For
the legal case, Dr. Cermak said, "we've done probably more
detailed measurements than in the original design." 

"The data that have been acquired are very valuable in
themselves for understanding how wind and buildings
interact," Dr. Cermak said. "Some of the information may be
valuable for the litigation," he said, adding, "I think
I've told you all I can."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/30/nyregion/30TOWE.html?ex=1034388663&ei=1&en=0d3143a997e5e2e1



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