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Are Millions of Business People At Risk of Dying In Collapsing Buildings?
This is one in a series of safety-related public service announcements.
Death Traps?
Millions of people work in or visit high-rise buildings … assuming the buildings were more or less safe.
But it turns out that there is a severe, lethal risk of sudden collapse in even the best-made skyscrapers in America, Britain, Germany, Japan and other nations worldwide.
A New Understanding
Before 9/11, no modern steel-frame high-rise building had ever collapsed due to fire.
9/11 radically changed our understanding of architecture and engineering …
Specifically, 3 steel-frame buildings collapsed on that day. That includes one that was never hit by a plane, and had only small, isolated office fires prior to its collapse.
This was unexpected, as much hotter, longer-lasting fires have never before brought down a modern steel-frame office building. For example, the 2005 Madrid skyscraper fire “reached 800 degrees Celsius (1,472 F), said Javier Sanz, head of Madrid firefighter” and lasted some 20 hours without collapsing.
In other words, officials who write building codes, architects and structural engineers had never before worried about small office fires causing office buildings from collapsing.
Appendix A of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s World Trade Center Building Performance Study notes:
In the case of the fire at One Meridian Plaza, the fire burned uncontrolled for the first 11 hours and lasted 19 hours. Contents from nine floors were completely consumed in the fire. In addition to these experiences in fire incidents, as a result of the Broadgate fire, British Steel and the Building Research Establishment performed a series of six experiments at Cordington in the mid-1990s to investigate the behavior of steel frame buildings. These experiments were conducted in a simulated, eight-story building. Secondary steel beams were not protected. Despite the temperature of the steel beam reaching 800-900 °C (1,500-1,700 °F) in three tests (well above the traditionally assumed critical temperature of 600 °C [1,100 °F]), no collapse was observed in any of the six experiments.
Underwriters Laboratories tested the steel components at the Twin Towers and found they could withstand fires for hours without failure:
“NIST [the government agency - National Institute of Standards and Technology, a branch of the Department of Commerce - responsible for investigating the collapse of the 3 buildings on 9/11] contracted with Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. to conduct tests to obtain information on the fire endurance of trusses like those in the WTC towers…. All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing… The Investigation Team was cautious about using these results directly in the formulation of collapse hypotheses. In addition to the scaling issues raised by the test results, the fires in the towers on September 11, and the resulting exposure of the floor systems, were substantially different from the conditions in the test furnaces. Nonetheless, the [empirical test] results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.” (NIST, 2005, p. 140).
Other fire tests have also failed to cause failures at high temperatures.
So the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11 (not hit by a plane) was a surprise … and should be a huge concern to the millions of people who work in office buildings worldwide.
To get to the bottom of this issue, Washington’s Blog reached out to a former manager at Underwriters Laboratories – Kevin Ryan – to seek reassurance that the danger was small for the millions of financial services industry workers, business men, lawyers, web executives, and others who work in office buildings:
[Question] Wasn’t the steel used in the Twin Towers and Building 7 of inferior quality? So as long as builders use better-quality steel, can’t we be assured of safety?
[Kevin Ryan] The steel used to build WTC Building 7 was the standard grade for high-rise construction–still used to this day–called ASTM A36 grade steel. It was not inferior in any way from the steel used to make many of the other high-rise buildings in America.
For the Twin Towers, fourteen different grades of steel were used in the construction, including A36, which has a nominal strength of 36 ksi. The other grades used were higher strength steels like 100 ksi WEL-TEN steel which was manufactured in Japan and shipped to the States. The steel used in the Towers was actually far superior to typical structural steel.
The official government reports on the destruction of the WTC buildings did not find any problem with the quality of the materials or construction methods used. And although those reports did make some recommendations for changes to building codes, those changes have not been incorporated in municipal codes or adopted by the building construction community.
[Question] You write in Foreign Policy Journal:
“And if people actually understood and believed the official account of what happened at the WTC they would not enter tall buildings because in doing so they would be putting their lives at risk.”
What do you mean?
[Ryan] What I mean is that high-rise buildings are designed and constructed to withstand fires that are much worse than what we know existed in WTC Building 7. My former company, Underwriters Laboratories (UL), plays a big part in that process. We know that UL did the fire resistance testing that was behind the selection of the steel components for WTC7 because that fact is in the NIST WTC7 report. Therefore the steel columns and floor assemblies should have withstood 2 to 3 hours of intense fire in a testing furnace, as required by the NYC code. But on 9/11, the fire lasted only 20 minutes in any given area, a fact that NIST admits, and the entire structure was destroyed due to an inexplicable failure to resist fire.
Moreover, NIST abandoned its previous hypotheses that suggested the destruction of WTC7 might have resulted from diesel fuel fires, or damage from falling debris, or the design of the building. In the end, NIST said that it was only the effects of the fire fed by office furnishings, on fully-fireproofed steel components, that caused the total destruction of this 47-story building. And since no actions have been taken to retrofit any existing high-rise buildings, we must assume that what happened to WTC7, according to the official account, could happen to any tall building that experiences a typical office fire.
No Change (?!)
Given that 9/11 totally changed our understanding of how dangerous small office fires could be, we couldn’t believe Ryan’s claim that “changes have not been incorporated in municipal codes or adopted by the building construction community.”
So Washington’s Blog contacted Richard Gage, a practicing architect for more than two decades, who has worked on most types of building construction, including one project which used around 1,200 tons of steel framing:
[Question] Have high-rise architects and engineers changed how they build skyscrapers, to prevent collapses after 9/11?
And have they changed how they build skyscrapers to prevent office fires from knocking down steel buildings?
[Richard Gage] No – they haven’t made any structural changes.
No structural changes?!
Either building code writers, architects and engineers are cavalierly ignoring this catastrophic new understanding of the extreme danger of small office fires, or the investigation into the collapse of World Trade Center building 7 on 9/11 was flawed.
No wonder New York residents have launched a High Rise Safety Initiative to try to protect the safety of those who work or visit office buildings.
Postscript: Until this issue is resolved through a complete revision of building codes and architectural and engineering practices, we recommend that everyone stay out of office buildings. Because if even small office fires can cause the whole building to collapse, it’s just not worth the risk to go inside.
- advertisements -


Did NIST Fraudulently Omit A Key Component Related to Collapse Theory From WTC Building 7 Report?
http://wtfrly.com/2013/11/11/did-nist-fraudulently-omit-key-component-from-wtc-building-7-report/
Media Boos 9/11 Superbowl Messag...e, Ignores #WTC7 Complaint Referred To NIST By Inspector General
http://wtfrly.com/2014/02/05/media-boos-911-superbowl-message-ignores-inspector-general-wtc7-nist-complaint/
National Institute of Standards and Technology Confirms Receipt of Inspector General Referral on WTC7 Report Fraud After Previously Lying
http://wtfrly.com/2014/02/08/nist-confirms-receipt-of-inspector-general-referral-on-wtc7-report-fraud-after-previously-lying/
http://wtfrly.com/911truth
It's not just business people in high rises though. If you maintain proximity to people/information that are/is potentially harmful/embarrasing to empire, you are at risk.
I like this approach though. Reminds me of Corbett's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98
It's the best compilation.
"Because ignorance is strength."
Enquiring minds may want to know, but there aren't too many of them left...
Inquiring minds should be calling for the ABOLITION of the NIST.
Seriously there were MOAR samples taken and MOAR tests run when they were putting the 2 towers up and everything was "normal", and then when TSHTF and they fall down and something is obviously "not normal"- they take orders of magnitude FEWER samples and run orders of magnitude FEWER tests, even though they have an almost infinitely larger supply of freely available materials to test.
"even though they have an almost infinitely larger supply of freely available materials to test."
Sure about that? Didn't that stuff get locked down so that it would be shuttled off to China as quickly as posisble (and made to be spoon-fed back to us in trinkets)?
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-01-27/news/0201270268_1_metal-ma...
Do the math, folks. A transaction was already in place and the materials in shipment a MERE TWO MONTHS after the greatest building collapses in recorded history.
No, nothing fishy going on, nothing to see here, move along...
"Because if even small office fires can cause the whole building to collapse"
and lets not forget that when it does collapse it turns everything into dust...you wont find a desk, you wont find a chair about all you'll find is a partial phone keypad.....oh and maybe a passport in pristine condition.....
Turned the gold stored there to dust also. All the documents in bldg. 7 also.
Gold was trading near $260 or $270 at the time of the attack. I figured that the Gold was buried underneath the Rubble and expected the price to double.
When Alan Gresenpan announced that the GOLD FROM THE WTC HAD BEEN MOVED PREVIOUS TO THE ATTACK TO AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, before the Markets reopened, it was at that point that I knew that there was PRIOR KNOWLEDGE BY GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS about the attack.
It took weeks for them to move all of the Metric Tonnes of Gold stored in the Basement Vaults of the WTC to the Vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Fucking weeks. Well the price of Gold did not spike. Greenspan did his job to contain the increase in Gold Prices. Of course he inadvertently revealed that there was PRIOR KNOWLEDGE.
That is the largest of the "Smoking Guns". It cannot be disputed as the Gold Prices are the EVIDENCE.
There was only one truck, the last truck, hauling Gold out that was buried in the Tunnels. They got to it in Novenmber and the Gold belonged to Scotia Mocatta.
Yes I remember it well.
A useless gesture, but here goes...
Conveniently left out is the fact that the Towers of the WTC were not like other steel skyscrapers. Instead of a grided column and beam construction, the Towers had central gridded cores enclosing the elevator stacks and a large amount of columns on the outer walls - essentially a shell structure. This outer shell and central core were joined by the floor structural members which were not beams, but trusses. And this was the Achilles Heal of the design. "Never trust a truss" is what the firemen say. The trusses have very little mass to them (relative to a beam) and are much more susceptible to fire. Also, remember, you don't have to get steel to its melting point for it to lose its strength, steel loses about 1/2 its strength several hundred degrees before melting.
And as far as WTC 7 is concerned. No airplane had to hit it. The Towers themselves HIT WTC 7 when they fell and simply undermined the foundation. The building was tipping severely before it fell...that was obvious to any observer. You can't drop 1000s of tons of steel on to the ground around a building and not expect to see lots of damage.
Look folks, everyone is more than willing to leave out important details to make their claims more believable...even some ZHers! I'm just here to offer a little engineering facts into the mix. What you choose to believe is always up to you.
I believe someone conspired to bring down the Towers, but WTC 7 IMHO was just a structural innocent bystander who got in the way.
"And as far as WTC 7 is concerned. No airplane had to hit it. The Towers themselves HIT WTC 7 when they fell and simply undermined the foundation."
"Simply undermined the foundation"?
As an engineer please explain, in SIMPLE TERMS, how this could be so "simple." REMEMBER: WTC7 came down in its own footprint, meaning that the forces had to have been fairly uniform (could the debris ejected from the WTC1/WTC2 towers have surrounded WTC7?).
"A useless gesture"
Watch the videos of the building coming down and you'll understand the truth of your introductory note.
Just put your thinking cap on. Imagine you built a 30 foot replica of WTC7 complete with proportionally large girders and concrete supports. Now picture yourself standing in front of it with a baseball bat or a golf club. Think you could recreate the trauma the poor building suffered due to proximity?
The sad truth is that some people will always swallow the govt. lie becase the alternative is just too scary.
If it were a "natural" collapse of WTC 1 & 2,
the much stronger inner core steel columns would have remained standing much longer than the weaker outer
shell steel columns, but the strongest columns collapsed at the same rate as the weakest columns.
The floor truss beams would have torn away from the much stronger central core column,
leaving the central core column standing.
But since it all fell together at the same rate, controlled explosive demolition of the entire structure
is the only rational explanation.
"If it were a "natural" collapse of WTC 1 & 2,
the much stronger inner core steel columns would have remained standing much longer than the weaker outer
shell steel columns, but the strongest columns collapsed at the same rate as the weakest columns."
It was a natural collapse. There were still some core steel columns that were still standing after the Tower had collapsed and subsequently collapsed moments later.
"The floor truss beams would have torn away from the much stronger central core column,
leaving the central core column standing."
Debris was falling down on core beams and columns, as well as the floor trusses.
"Debris was falling down on core beams and columns, as well as the floor trusses."
Pancaking?
NIST rejected pancaking. Interestingly, however, they state that the cores pulled down, which, doesn't seem to comport with the rapidity with which it all came down.
Just pretend flt. 93 hit building 7 and that's why it went down.
Very useless... over 2,000 Architects and Engineers, including myself, think you are wrong. For a building to collapse into its own footprint in near freefall, all supporting columns must be cut SIMULTANEOUSLY, or the building will fall asymetrically to one side. Sounds like you need to go re-take statics...
www.ae911truth.org
"Very useless... over 2,000 Architects and Engineers, including myself, think you are wrong. For a building to collapse into its own footprint in near freefall, all supporting columns must be cut SIMULTANEOUSLY, or the building will fall asymetrically to one side. Sounds like you need to go re-take statics..."
Except there were no supporting columns cut simultaneously, which would have been evident in the debris, if it had happened.
But did WTC 1 and 2 actually "collapse"? Just found out about Judy wood. And after watching the videos again, they due appear to be vaporized ( dustification) to use her terminology. There wasn't a lot of debris considering the size of the buildings. Anyone have constructive thought about her theory?
"But did WTC 1 and 2 actually "collapse"? Just found out about Judy wood. And after watching the videos again, they due appear to be vaporized ( dustification) to use her terminology. There wasn't a lot of debris considering the size of the buildings. Anyone have constructive thought about her theory?"
Yes, they did actually collapse. Dustification had nothing to do with the manner in which the collapse initiated.
A demolition would not have blown the desks, phones and concrete lined floors to smitherenes on each floor. A natural collapse due to fire would have had the same effect as a demolition. The kinetic action of the collapse dustified contents subject to such action.
Total Bullshit!
Hey DP, you suck at blogging.
Just to let you know.
'Let your soul blow!'
8 weeks 4 days...
Who gives a fuck what you THINK.
Why hasn't one paper about the various theories of collapse (pile-driver versus cascade) appeared in a properly refereed journal?
Let me answer - because the ae911 crowd's scholarship is not up to snuff for it. Sorry, but the truth hurts. The papers on structural dynamics are pablam and the ones on chemical analysis of the soil (presence of thermite) are full of unprovable assumptions.
Spoiler - The south tower toppled eastward toward Broadway - it fell way outside it's own footprint.
Told you this was a useless gesture. 12 years later and still none of the claims about WTC 7 have been proven.
You people would make much better use of your time working out the conspiracy theories surrounding naked shorts on the COMEX. We can all get rich from that.
In fact, many have... http://www.benthamscience.com/open/tocpj/articles/V002/7TOCPJ.htm
"Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe." Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley and Bradley R. Larsen, The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2 (2009) 7 – 31
. http://www.benthamscience.com/open/tociej/articles/V002/35TOCIEJ.pdf
2006 | “What Accounts for the Molten Metal Observed on 9/11/2001?”
Journal: Journal of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, 83:252, 2006.
August 2008 | Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials
Journal: The Environmentalist (2009) 29: 56-63
Authors: Kevin Ryan et al
June 2013 | Some Misunderstanding Related to WTC Collapse Analysis
Journal: International Journal of Protective Structures (Vol. 4, No. 2 / June 2013)
Authors: Dr. Gregory Szuladzinski (PhD, Structural Mechanics), Tony Szamboti (ME), and Richard Johns.
http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/D25%20WTC%20...
There are many more, but this should give you an idea. What you will not find is any peer-review of NIST´s studies of computer models
"You people would make much better use of your time working out the conspiracy theories surrounding naked shorts on the COMEX."
Thankyou thankyou
Congratulations, you reached your goal!
"12 years later and still none of the claims about WTC 7 have been proven."
or disproven for that matter.
The NIST report on WTC 7 was not published until NOV 2008, and kept data from the model secert because...Disclosure of WTC7 data "might jeopardize public safety"
Might jeopardize public safety of the US Government 9-11 Inside Job conspirators.
+1
Plus even worse than trusses in general are deck trusses - in a fire the biggest heat (rising) concentrates around the load carrying parts.
But GW, DavidMadPierre and others: don't let facts get in your way!
Magically weak trusses in THREE buildings, two completely different designs. Sure, OK, if someone can point out how they used the same trusses from the same manufacturers then this might start creating a trail to this being a about truss failure. Still doesn't explain the speed of collapse... (again, I could accept a lot of the "official" story if not for this really key point).
BTW - Fires would have had to occur BELOW rather than above those failing trusses. Yes, enough mass from the upper failing floors would overload those below, but that resultant collapse would be pancaking, and NIST ruled this out (for WTC1 & WTC2- I don't know what they really had to say about WTC7, but WTC7's collapse was too rapid to have been the result of just pancaking).
If you know the difference between jet turbine exhaust temp -vs- jp4 just lying about burning off, you are a troll. If you don't, you're just ignorant.
Seems like you're splitting irrelevant hairs. Never mind the trusses, what about the risers? Are those the "load carrying parts" you're referring to?
F = MA
If A = 0 then F = 0
If your floor truss fails, A no longer necessarily equals 0, and the force exerted is a live load, not a static one.
You know when demolition teams blowup tall buildings they don't usually put explosives on every floor, because they don't need to in order to generate a free fall collapse...
The riser load went to zero the instant the truss(es) failed. If the prevailing truth is actually true, all risers above the impact floor would have remained standing. They didn't.
Only the load transferred at the rivets of the failing trusses goes to zero (the mass of the upper floors and structure remains).
However, I would hardly call the prevailing "truth" anything close to "truth". The crux of the math problem is synchronization, since it's more than "unlikely" that the impact force of an airplane could have caused uniform damage to the core columns, or that a cascade of core column failures would not have shifted the collapse more than it apparently did, so how exactly the floor trusses failed is important, but through either criminal negligence or criminal conspiracy it has never been properly established.
EDIT: since the Chinese have apparently reintroduced chloride additives to concrete we should have some interesting high rise collapse comps in about 20-30 years (but given their other shortcuts it may a lot sooner than solid state chemistry taking its natural course)
FFS, what is all this crap about rivets?
TC and hex bolts were used for mechanical connections, not rivets.
Sorry I'm not that old - to me rivet is just shorthand for a tension control bolt assembly (and TC as an acronym has been recycled way to much, even just within engineering, much less the other disciplines I practice).
No problems. I've done my share of jobs in which rivets were replaced by bolts, particularly on bridge rehabs. It's my knee-jerk reaction to the term "rivet" being used synonymously with "bolt."
That's not how they fell though, is it? You can feel free to bust my balls at any time, but WTC1 and 2 were of a cantilever design, no? So yes, for the pancake theory to be true, and it could be, the weight of the floors above *could* have sheared the floors below them in a pyroclastic flow, but that's probably the least likely outcome. Even if it was the most likely outcome, which it isn't, the core columns would have remained, but they didn't.
Wouldn't you think that at the very least, some remnants of the uppermost parts of the buildings would have remained intact? But, they didn't.
No, only the passport of Mohammed Atta escaped the carnage. What a coincidence!
It's the "could" that's the problem- and why it was a criminal offense regardless of negligence or conspiracy. They should have been able to recover every piece of structural steel from the floors in the vicinity of the impact, even if they couldn't find each pieces id number, it's not like the 90th floor would have found its way to the bottom of the pile and gotten washed away in the magic molten river.
Mohammed Atta's passport is truly amazing though, because mine is nearly falling apart just from having accidentally been used it as coaster in airport bars a couple times- it's never crashed, burned, or drunk from the fire hose and yet it looks like shit, but I'd really hesitant to ask for the improved model when I go for renewal, lest my passport be found under similar circumstances.
Dup. Is it nerves? I think not. I've had a half-dozen Coronas and a shot or two of Cuervo. I ain't the least bit nervous.
If I didn't know better, I'd place you as one of my "betters". The ease with which you switch from adversary to ally is the tell.
Just so you know, it's not working.
It's not switching sides, and I like the debate, but since it's 7am I need about an hour sleep before going back to work.
Through all the endless 9/11 posts my position is relatively (in regards to engineering) consistent 1) there was no proper investigation and there should been and still needs to be 2) the official fairytale is BS and 3) there isn't enough evidence with respect to towers 1 and 2 to prove that they were not brought down as the result of an aircraft strike and there isn't enough evidence to prove that an aircraft strike was principal or only cause of collapse
And then there also some healthy doses name calling when I come across stuff like "it would be physically that an aluminum aircraft traveling at a high velocity could penetrate building skeleton of a steel glass skyscraper."
Sorry about keeping you up so late.
And then there also some healthy doses name calling when I come across stuff like "it would be physically that an aluminum aircraft traveling at a high velocity could penetrate building skeleton of a steel glass skyscraper."
Ya' you needed some sleep, but I think I know what you meant. It actually appeared to me as if the planes dissolved into the towers. That is quite different from cutting their way in.
I'll sleep when I'm dead thanks (the habit of procrastinating at work, which only requires intermittent higher functioning of brain cells is more problematic for me).
The whole Building 1&2 thing (building, impact, fire, collapse, aftermath) is so damn complex at the individual discipline level... and since the government isn't interested in assisting anyone to get to truth, everyone on the outside will have to work together (which is a tall order) - if "we the people" are ever going to figure out what actually happened, absent someone steeping fourth with a smoking gun.
Water at high velocity cuts Steel. You and I know that. Aluminum at a lower velocity will cut Steel.
Hell a One Pound Piece of Foam busted through the Carbon Fiber Panel Leading Edge of Space Shuttle Columbia's Port Wing.
That did not turn out well.
Fucking Foam.
Some do not understand that Ek = (1/2)mv2.
It has little to do with Hardness or Brittleness.
*Water at high velocity cuts Steel. You and I know that. Aluminum at a lower velocity will cut Steel.*
Details ain't your strong suit, are they Tom? Lemme guess; You saw an episode of How It's Made featuring abrasive waterjets. The key word there is abrasive. Abrasive (usually garnet) is added to the stream to make it cut steel. Plain water won't cut it.
Then, you go right on making an ass of yourself stating that the leading edge of the orbiters' wings are made of carbon fiber. No sir, that material is a highly specialized and quite fragile (and heat resistant) refractory material. They were called tiles- remember?
Boy, you gotta purrrdy mouth - you really should lay off (or cut back) on the Coronas at night, someone might get an idea to take advantage of the situation.
Seriously, if you already a have waterjet, you can skip the trip to Home Despot for 5kpsi pressure washer and red tip applied directly to the surface to be cleansed (which would allow the home gamers in the peanut gallery to go on a wildly destructive cleaning spree and cut asphalt, concrete, the quarter panel on their car (but it's probably plastic these days), and then perhaps parts of the unibody frame underneath, or literally cut their entire house in half if they're in the midst of War of the Roses like divorce...
But since you already have waterjet and know how to use... you could run some tests (using edge cuts, not plunge cuts) to see how much faster and with less water waste (we're all ecofreaks over here in Europe) you could cut a given thickness of material with raw water vs. with different readily available abrasive additives.
Or you could lobby your local Curroptocrat for a new cash-for-clunkers credit scheme and upgrade your existing equipment to something like a 90kpsi KST pump with a good intensifier and nozzle-- which will make short work of A36 structural steel (60-80kpsi tensile strength) but it will certainly still require abrasives for precision cutting of hardened titanium alloys and such freakishly strong materials.
Brother, it's called A36 because it has 36kpsi yield strength.
UTS may be what you claim, i dunno. A36 is crap steel to me. I don't build backyard trailers or skyscrapers. A36 is the bottom of the barrel, as far as steel grades go.
But you can try and bullshit me if you want. There are many things I don't know, but I do know waterjet. It's like laser, sorta. It won't pressure wash your driveway or cut your house in half, but it can cut steel, and titanium, and plastic, if properly applied.
That's where you and the tall one fall flat on your ass. You read technical specs and think you know something. You don't.
Yeah, the "heavy water" is kinda cool for you eco-freaks, but the guy using garnet (not just any "abrasive"- notice how I am specific?) will kick your ass all day, every day in the marketplace.
So, I reckon you'll continue to believe what you believe. It's cool. I actually hope you one day invest your own money in these things you believe. Do it!
In this midst of both of us being smart asses, perhaps you missed the "(using edge cuts, not plunge cuts)"
A water saw (as opposed to the various wet saws) in my shop would be cool but about as useful and extravagant as one those 350k watches.
Over 99% of the steal of I deal with is basic building materials (even in blast resistant control rooms for oil refineries) so there are more appropriate tools for I do (and I need to be able to load it into an ISO container and set it up in country easily).