Joelle of France wrote:
Mr Brandon Christensen, your reference to the controlled demolition of the J.L Hudson department store in Detroit attracted my attention as I am still trying to sort out arguments in this debate. While clicking on the link you gave, I immediately realized that you forgot to quote a major part of the article: the Hudson department store was one of the greatest dynamic structural control challenges the demolition company had ever faced. If you look at the picture of the building, you easily understand why. The structure of the building is nothing like a simple shape like the one of the WTC 1, 2 and 3. The authors of the article even mention that: "No structural drawings of the facility were available, making structural analysis and implosion design a considerable task for CDI. The interdependency of the 12 different construction stages, with differing construction and variable column flange directions and bay widths created what CDI calls differential natural failure modes in each section of the structure which CDI's demolition program had to cope with."

I am also not an expert but I am surprised that while suggesting that the planning of the WTC demolition would take at least as long as the one of the Hudson building, you forget to mention these important elements. It seems from the shape of the WTC building that planning their controlled demolition would have been a pretty easy task. In addition I doubt no structural drawings were available for the WTC buildings, which means that the engineers could easily plan the demolition from their offices without needing to spend 24 days on the site. And in case WTC 1, 2 and 3 hadn't fallen really straight and caused some collateral damage, I don't think that the planners would have really cared anyway. After all, everyone would have understood that a building which is hit by a plane doesn't fall perfectly. So I guess they could easily take the risk to do it fast so as not to attract public attention.