Who were the men in hard hats leaving WTC7 as it fell?

I posted this in another thread but thought it really deserved its own:





The most obvious observations from this video are:

• There are explosive sounds in the background.
  
• The guys shown say, "Do you hear that?", and "Keep your eye on that building, it'll be coming down soon."

But there are less obvious but very unnerving observations:

• These men are not police, firefighters, EMT, or official rescue personnel.
  
• They appear as construction workers or people involed in some related trade.
  
• They're wearing hard-hats and dusk-masks, before anyone knew the dust was toxic (the EPA told New Yorkers it was perfectly safe to breathe).
  
• One man is carrying a bolt cutter, and the others have additional equipment.
  
• They're just walking away from Building 7, just before it collapses.

Who are these men and what were they doing leaving WTC7 just before it fell?

It was evacuated, and everyone "pulled" hours ago, supposedly.

[edit on 27-4-2007 by bsbray11]

Who are these men and what were they doing around WTC7?

They are utility workers shutting down power to damaged buildings in an attempt to keep fire from spreading.

A pretty common site at a major disaster, I would guess.

You don't need bolt cutters to shut down power.

You use bolt cutters to cut bolts.

It looked like one of the guys was a fireman, I don't know about the other guys in blue protective helmets.

Edit: Sort of looks like a fireman's helmet, but not.

[edit on 4/27/2007 by Masisoar]

And dusk masks.


Not even the firefighters were told to wear dusk masks. No one knew that the dust was toxic right away, and people working at Ground Zero developed horrible illnesses from breathing in all the dust as a result.

Somebody tipped these guys off that they didn't want to be breathing in this stuff, that the firefighters and police and EMTs were all running around in without knowing any better for weeks or months.

My company had men working down there that morning...

Elevator Industry and they are required to wear hard hats. I know that sometimes elevators have oil and other contaminate leaks and they do have masks in thier trucks.

just my 2cents, thank you please come again...

Originally posted by bsbray11
You don't need bolt cutters to shut down power.

You might if a transformer is housed in a padlocked cage.

(I'm not an electrician so please don't call me out on my jargon...you know what I'm talking about...those things that have the electrical things inside and have a lock on them.)

You use bolt cutters to cut bolts.

Okay.

Well...don't keep us guessing! What do YOU think these men were using the bolt cutters for?

I would not need anybody to tell me to wear a dust mask. Just look around. ONLY A FOOL WOULD NOT WEAR A DUST MASK, IF AVAILABLE. Dust does not have to be TOXIC to cause lung disease.

[edit on 4-27-2007 by groingrinder]

Originally posted by groingrinder
ONLY A FOOL WOULD NOT WEAR A DUST MASK, IF AVAILABLE.

Well, people worked to rescue people and clean up the mess for months, and never used dusk masks, so are you telling me that the guys down working at Ground Zero were all fools, or that dusk masks are just a precious commodity and in short supply?

The EPA told them all that it was fine to breathe. They shouldn't have listened to a federal agency. That's the bottom line, because they were lied to. That dust was filled with asbestos and all sorts of microscopic shards of steel and all kinds of very unhealthy particles, people were coughing up blood, and no one bothered to even tell them about the dust, let alone bring in dusk masks, which are not at all expensive or hard to come by. Do you think that was acceptable? Do you think it's acceptable that the EPA hasn't even apologized, let alone be investigated or anyone fired?

[edit on 27-4-2007 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by elevatedone
My company had men working down there that morning...

Would you mind if I asked what kind of elevator work had to be done on the buildings that morning? I don't understand why anyone would think the elevators would be a priority. It's not like they ever got them running again, because the only people that survived in the elevators were the ones that were pulled out by firefighters or etc., or got themselves out.

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by groingrinder
ONLY A FOOL WOULD NOT WEAR A DUST MASK, IF AVAILABLE.

Well, people worked to rescue people and clean up the mess for months, and never used dusk masks, so are you telling me that the guys down working at Ground Zero were all fools, or that dusk masks are just a precious commodity and in short supply?

The EPA told them all that it was fine to breathe. They shouldn't have listened to a federal agency. That's the bottom line, because they were lied to. That dust was filled with asbestos and all sorts of microscopic shards of steel and all kinds of very unhealthy particles, people were coughing up blood, and no one bothered to even tell them about the dust, let alone bring in dusk masks, which are not at all expensive or hard to come by. Do you think that was acceptable? Do you think it's acceptable that the EPA hasn't even apologized, let alone be investigated or anyone fired?

[edit on 27-4-2007 by bsbray11]

IF THEY WERE WORKING IN A DUSTY AREA WITHOUT MASKS, THEN YES THEY ARE FOOLS. Common sense says dust is bad for your lungs and you should wear a dust mask in dusty areas. Even ignorant cowboys knew enough to pull their bandanas over their mouth and nose when on a dusty trail. Dust is bad for your lungs. Everybody in every workplace I have ever set foot upon knows that.

Then how do you feel about the EPA telling everyone it was ok to breathe? They found asbestos in 25% of their samples but reasoned that the majority didn't so therefore it was safe, now something like 25,000 are very ill. Why do you keep focusing the blame on the workers?

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by elevatedone
My company had men working down there that morning...

Would you mind if I asked what kind of elevator work had to be done on the buildings that morning? I don't understand why anyone would think the elevators would be a priority. It's not like they ever got them running again, because the only people that survived in the elevators were the ones that were pulled out by firefighters or etc., or got themselves out.

I'm not sure, but we instal, service and maintain elevators all over the world.

WTC was one of our biggest if not the biggest customer in NY, I beleive we had a resident mechanic on site there too.

It's not unusual to have a team of mechanics at one location, working / troubleshooting a problem etc.

If I recall correctly, we called in several employees of our NY office for the entire night and next few days to "stand by" for assistance with elevators of nearby buildings.

Originally posted by bsbray11
Then how do you feel about the EPA telling everyone it was ok to breathe? They found asbestos in 25% of their samples but reasoned that the majority didn't so therefore it was safe, now something like 25,000 are very ill. Why do you keep focusing the blame on the workers?

Please respect the OP and stay on topic.

(It is horrible that the EPA said it was okay to breathe, and even worse that people believed them. Breathing crushed building materials bad for you? Yeah...I'll file that one under "common sense.")

I'd atleast put a undershirt or acloth over my mouth if I was working the cleanup.

Just common sense. And while the firefightershave an excuse not to wear dust masks (too busy trying to save others) cleanup crews really dont. Even if the EPA said it was okay, I would still wear one. Because, you know, I'm not dumb.

I do not need the government to tell me to use toilet paper when I wipe my butt either.

It is a crime that the EPA mislead Americans working to clean up the debris.

It seems elevatedone may have some inside information. How come his company knew enough to station elevator crews at the WTC that morning?

Originally posted by groingrinder
It seems elevatedone may have some inside information. How come his company knew enough to station elevator crews at the WTC that morning?

no, you guys aren't following me...

we didn't station anyone there that morning, our guys were there for 1 of 2 reasons,

1 - routine maintenance of the elevators. Most of our contracts require monthly maintenance visits, a few large accounts such as WTC, require an onsite man or two.

2- a large job that was sold and they were there working on that.


Once the planes hit and towers fell and there was talk of the damage to other buildings, we had people in the office on the phones etc, just in case elevator personel would be needed.

They probably ran out of dusk masks because the people who had prob used it all and people fail to see that dusk mask was important enough to replace.

Bolt cutters were there in case there were locks that they needed to break to get into the other side of locked areas.

Originally posted by elevatedone
Once the planes hit and towers fell and there was talk of the damage to other buildings, we had people in the office on the phones etc, just in case elevator personel would be needed.

But no one called?

Originally posted by Essedarius
You might if a transformer is housed in a padlocked cage.

I actually went downstairs and checked the area which houses our electrical stuff and ran into the safety manager. It's an OSHA regulation requiring the cage to be padlocked if there's no one inside the cage working on the equipment. If they were racing to cut off the power, they would no doubt have needed a bolt cutter.

The only other explaination I have for any of the other situations are the hard hats and dusk-masks. Hard hats are also an OSHA regulation in all trades working with heavy machinery. Also happens to be an OSHA regulation to wear dust-masks in construction roles where dust and other fumes that may cause respiratory problems in the long run..