impact and remained upright, as promised by the dreamers and designers who built it. But the severed steel columns and the loss of fire-suppressing insulation portended a disaster caused by fire. Flight 175 carried more than nine thousand gallons of jet fuel, plus fourteen tons of flammable luggage, mail, seats, food, and electrical equipment. The impact floors contained tons of office furniture, carpets, and other combustibles. Fires from the fuel wouldn’t melt the intact steel beams, but they would burn hot enough to undermine the strength of the overburdened exterior and core columns, the
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