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Several Princeton faculty members and students are helping to assess structural damage in buildings in Lower Manhattan following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

photo: Denise Applewhite

Princeton contingent helps assess WTC damage
There was no preparing for the devastation of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, but a handful of Princeton faculty and students quickly mobilized to help structural engineers assess damage at the site and in neighboring areas.
    Just two days after the attack, the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY) organized its members to work 24-hour shifts advising search and rescue teams and helping contractors with demolition and site safety. The association was co-founded eight years ago by structural engineer and Princeton Associate Professor of Architecture Guy Nordenson, who has a firm in New York City. The enormity of the damage may keep the teams busy for months.
   

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"This effort continues with four SEAoNY teams of three structural engineers, each team from a firm, on 12-hour shifts," said Nordenson. "We alternate days so that makes for 16 teams, which are mostly from New York but also from Boston and Chicago. This will continue for weeks."
    Nordenson is leading the building evaluation work and coordinating those efforts with an engineering firm co-owned by Charles Thornton, visiting lecturer in civil and environmental engineering. The Thornton-Tomasetti Group Inc. has been hired by New York City to spearhead the engineering efforts at the World Trade Center site (see related story).
    Finding the most effective response to the urgent and drastic situation on Sept. 11 was the biggest hurdle facing the structural engineers and architects, as it was for everyone dealing with the emergency. "The greatest challenge was making judgments based on limited information with little or no documents in the first week," said Nordenson.
    This difficulty was compounded by the fact that the office of Guy Nordenson and Associates was just a block from ground zero. ...

• Read the full story in the Princeton Weekly Bulletin (10/8/01)
• In the same issue, read about the installation of the University's 19th president: Shirley M. Tilghman