DBA Claims WTC 2 Powered Down Prior to 9/11

Thought I'd post this. Although the blog is authored by George Washington(?!) it's interesting testimony and the individual gives his name.

georgewashington.blogspot.com...

Interview with Scott Forbes

Scott Forbes, who worked in the South Tower of the world trade center, witnessed a power-down of the tower in the weekend before 9/11.

[...]

GW: In 2001, you were working as an information technology specialist for Fiduciary Trust. Were you the main IT person for Fiduciary Trust, or were you an assistant IT person?

SF: I worked within an IT department of around 100 as a senior DBA [database administrator] and team leader.

GW: Fiduciary Trust had floors 90 and 94-97 of the South Tower at that time. Did you work on a specific floor, or did your duties normally keep you roaming on several floors?

SF: I and my technology colleagues worked on the 97th floor ... in the course of the day we would have meetings or give support on other floors but most our time would have been spent on the 97th floor.

THE WEEKEND OF SEPTEMBER 8TH AND 9TH

GW: You've previously stated that on the weekend of September 8 and 9, 2001, there was a "power down" condition in world trade center Tower 2, the South Tower, and that this power down condition meant there was no electrical supply for approximately 36 hours from floor 50 up. Do you know what time the power-down started?

SF: All systems were shutdown on Saturday morning and the power down condition was in effect from approximately 12 noon on Saturday September 8, 2001.

GW: When did it end?

SF: Approximately 2PM on Sunday 9/9.

GW: How do you know that there was no electricity from floor 50 up, if Fiduciary Trust was on much higher floors -- starting at the 90th floor?

SF: I can't absolutely verify that there was no power on lower floors ... all I can validate is that we were informed of the power down condition, that we had to take down all systems and then the following day had to bring back up all systems ...

GW: You've previously stated that you were aware of the power down since you worked in the IT department and had to work with many others that weekend to ensure that all systems were cleanly shutdown beforehand ... and then brought back up afterwards. How many other Fiduciary Trust folks were you working with? Can any of them verify your story?

SF: Many, many people worked on the power down, both from the IT department and from the business, revalidating systems when they were available again. Other people can validate my information. Some people do not remember the circumstances, some people will not revisit that time ... but others acknowledge the power down freely and can validate my information.

More at the link.

Could something fishy have been going on inside WTC on the weekend before 9/11? Scott also says he's got an interview with Dutch TV coming soon where he comments on explosions above the impact points. No mention of how he would have heard these, but it's alluded to. Hmm...

I'm sure I'll be called all kinds of names about this, but I'll post it anyway.

After being posted on scores of websites for over a year, this story has failed to elicit any corroborating reports, even about the identity of 'Scott Forbes'. Aside from the fact that the sourcing of the story doesn't meet the most basic journalistic standards, its content is thoroughly implausible.

* It makes no sense that the perpetrators would do something so obvious as powering down half of a tower so shortly before the attack. This would create a profound disruption of business for dozens of companies, and would be noticed by thousands of people. Thousands of e-mails would have been broadcast and a great deal of work would have been done by scores of employees to prepare for the outage.
* It makes less sense that they would take such a drastic action but only for one half of one tower. Why was the disruption only necessary for the upper floors of the South Tower, or how would similar power-downs of the other sections have gone unnoticed?
* Powering down for cabling upgrades is laughable as a cover story for demolition preparation work. Cabling upgrades for data bandwidth do not require interrupting AC power at all. Even if the AC wiring were being upgraded, the new wiring would have been installed and powered up in parallel with the old wiring. Any interruptions would be minimized to a few minutes. Powering down large portions of a tower, and for 36 hours, would have generated numerous protests from tenants.
* Contrary to the e-mail's assertion, security cameras are designed to use independent uninterruptible power supplies. If power to the security systems were interrupted, many doors would remain unopenable except by key.

911review.com...

From what I see, the question is not "how unusual would it be if a building was powered down" because all questions of "usuality" must be tossed out since a few days later something very unusual happened (towers collapse). If that was an unusual week as a whole, maybe other unusual things happened as well.

Zaphod58, I ran across this through another site, but your comments sound as if this might be old news. I hadn't heard of him. Is this story posted elsewhere (I know there are other threads on this subject but hadn't heard of this guy till now)?

* It makes no sense that the perpetrators would do something so obvious as powering down half of a tower so shortly before the attack. This would create a profound disruption of business for dozens of companies, and would be noticed by thousands of people. Thousands of e-mails would have been broadcast and a great deal of work would have been done by scores of employees to prepare for the outage.

On a Saturday afternoon and evening? Few people would be affected except maybe some spoiled food in their fridges. It WOULD leave the building available for whomever through the night however. Day to day workers would not question the reason for a building to be powered down.

* It makes less sense that they would take such a drastic action but only for one half of one tower. Why was the disruption only necessary for the upper floors of the South Tower, or how would similar power-downs of the other sections have gone unnoticed?

Hmm... Well if one subscribes to some kind of bombs-in-the-tower theory they may not need access to the lower floors. His interview says that the lower floors may have been powered down also but he cannot confirm that, only his own floors. On the weekend, who would notice?

* Powering down for cabling upgrades is laughable as a cover story for demolition preparation work. Cabling upgrades for data bandwidth do not require interrupting AC power at all. Even if the AC wiring were being upgraded, the new wiring would have been installed and powered up in parallel with the old wiring. Any interruptions would be minimized to a few minutes. Powering down large portions of a tower, and for 36 hours, would have generated numerous protests from tenants.

Yes, but I could see a story about "cables need replaced" and "we need to remove power to do it correctly" being believed by employees. I do agree with you that running cables or whatever would not normally require shutdown, but then I do not presume to understand the layout of WTC. Is there no reason for a skyscraper to be powered down that would be plausible? I've worked in IT for a while and I've seen how sheep-like most employees are when IT says such-and-such is going to happen (power loss, computer reboot, etc) ...If someone in IT tells an average employee something, obedience is usually the response because the last thing people want is data loss. This much I do know.

* Contrary to the e-mail's assertion, security cameras are designed to use independent uninterruptible power supplies. If power to the security systems were interrupted, many doors would remain unopenable except by key.

This was interesting to me also but again, I don't know much about security cameras. I haven't seen too many of them plugged into wall-power, but then again, I haven't seen any with battery backups in them and also the VCRs or recorders. If the building did lose power, it's plausible that the cameras did also (not that the footage would ever reveal jack, so...). Anyway, the Pentagon-crash security camera confiscation at the gas station across the street indicates this is a minor point anyway.

I'm happy to disbelieve this guy's story, but I think its interesting. I'm not defending a theory here. Just passing on info. Has this been posted already? I got the impression that it was a recent interview. He does mention that there are lots of folks who can corroborate this story. Maybe one of their accounts is also on the web somewhere.

QUOTE : "On the weekend, who would notice?"

that would be EVERYONE , mains powered clocks , VCRs , telephone equipment etc etc

the computer serves in the offices of the financial and banking institutions etc CANNOT be shut down without informing the overseas offices .

where are the " scott forbes " for EVERY company in WTC 2 - why has only he come forward ???

the computer serves in the offices of the financial and banking institutions etc CANNOT be shut down without informing the overseas offices .

You know this how? I've worked with computers and in buildings over 20 stories that had overseas offices and there was no problem when building maintenance shut power down on the weekends. There are reasons for doing it like transformer replacement (actually that's the only reason I've been involved in, but I'm sure there are others).

As far as global servers go, usually servers on each side of the world do not need to remain up together nor do they need to be down together. Is that your experience with servers and networks? Please tell me more.

where are the " scott forbes " for EVERY company in WTC 2 - why has only he come forward ???

Good question. This may be a false story. Perhaps now that one person has mentioned it, maybe there'll be more people confirming it. He does mention that he has co-workers who do not want to talk and some who do. Putting your name out there as a 9/11 official-story enemy causes some folks to pause, I'm sure.

SMALL PEEPS wrote : "You know this how? "

assumption - i have no networlk experience beyond getting my linksys 5 port hub to work properly

however my cousin works for securicor and when a painter managed to knock out thier entire building power - head office was very displeased . and on his mobbile within 20 minuites

so i would have thought that all planned wold be signalled to others on the network in advance


sorry about that

i have no networlk experience beyond getting my linksys 5 port hub to work properly

No problem ignorant_ape... If you know that much then you are not ignorant.

however my cousin works for securicor and when a painter managed to knock out thier entire building power - head office was very displeased . and on his mobbile within 20 minuites

so i would have thought that all planned wold be signalled to others on the network in advance

Oh yes, if a painter knocks out the power then that's not expected and it's a big deal. But if it's a controlled weekend shutdown, the remote servers can probably still work together. With tcp/ip the whole point is that you can have a distributed network.

My position on 9/11 so far is this: It's a murder, not a war crime. It can't be a war crime even if AlQeeda did fly the planes, as it is the US who funded and create their organization to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, so the lines are blurred.

And speaking of that, since 9/11 is the largest mass murder on US soil, and since we are being bombarded by CSI-type shows, it's amazing to me how few people actually see 9/11 as an actual murder. So what I'm trying to see is if somebody had the opportunity to pre-rig the building for the murder which took place that week. Because the one thing a murderer wants to ensure is a lack of clues after the crime.

Certainly if one steps back from 9/11 and sees it as a premeditated murder, one can see that if the buildings had not fallen, then there is a big problem remaining for the murderers. They might even go so far as to ensure that this doesn't happen. It seems to me that the buildings had to fall down to cover the evidence --assuming conspiracy and all that.

I'm just tossing this info out there for folks to discuss. I appreciate your input.


[edit on 30-11-2005 by smallpeeps]