On that cool blue morning 10 years ago when everything changed, Les Robertson was half a world away, hosting a dinner at a Hong Kong restaurant. The rattling of cell phones left on the table--“a detestable habit”--was the first indication that something had struck one of the Twin Towers. Robertson, the revered engineer responsible for their structural design, was at first unconcerned.

“I just assumed that a helicopter had run into the Trade Center,” he said recently, speaking from his 47th-floor office, which looks out over Ground Zero. Such an event, unfortunate as it might have been, was well within the tolerances for which the towers were designed. A few minutes later, however, when those cell phones started buzzing once more with news of a second crash, he realized it was “quite another thing again” and excused himself to watch the unfolding events from a hotel room.

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Source: Castles in the Air (preview)


David Cottle

UBB Owner & Administrator