This part is reasonable:
"He said the reasons given were that "the collapse of WTC 1 & 2 showed that certain high-rise structures subjected to damage from impact and from fire will collapse"

This is bullshit:
"WTC 7, we knew, was built on a small number of large columns providing an open Atrium on the lower levels"

WTC 7 had 81 columns. Only columns 76, 77 and 78 had their weight transferred to other columns to leave the atrium free of columns. None of these columns were near the debris damage from WTC 1.

Larry said he was talking to a fire chief as I remember. The "pull it" remark may have been a Freudian slip but neither man had the authority to make that decision. It takes weeks to rig a building for CD so the decision to demolish it had been made at least that long before 9/11.

Barry Jennings said the explosions in WTC 7 happened before the towers fell at 9:59 [south tower] and 10:28 [north tower].
However, there are several ridiculous things he said in his interview with Dylan which make his whole story questionable. Furthermore, the only thing he said that is confirmed by another source, Michael Hess, is that there was an explosion and they were trapped on the 8th floor. This is also highly questionable because there were 2 stairways and they were in sight of each other. Floor 8 was cubicles so it was sunlit.

I highly recommend we not quote Larry or Barry. They are both red herrings IMO.

"This is also highly questionable because there were 2 stairways and they were in sight of each other. Floor 8 was cubicles so it was sunlit."

Could you show some documentation? Maybe you could provide us with a floor plan diagram of the 8th floor of WTC 7. Maybe you could show us a picture of the sunlit cubicles. Could you show us the documentation of the fireproof stairwells having windows?

"However, there are several ridiculous things he said in his interview with Dylan which make his whole story questionable."

This is a powerful allegation.

Please elaborate on what Barry Jennings said as an eyewitness that you, as a non eyewitness, consider ridiculous. Maybe you could use a different tone of language. I don't think Barry Jennings had a malicious motive. My assessment of his testimony is that he was telling what he remembered from that day. He seemed to be a reasonable man in control of his faculties. He kept his job for over 30 years. I detect some disdain from your choice of the word ridiculous and from your blanket discounting of Barry Jennings' eyewitness account.

You sound pretty cocksure. Please back it up with some documentation.

9/11/01 Michael Hess: I was part of the emergency management crew on the 23rd floor and when all the power went out on the building, another gentleman and i walked down to the 8th floor where there was an explosion! and we were trapped on the 8th floor. Smoke, thick smoke wrapped(?) around us for about an hour and a half"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4428218863301790151
9/11/01 Barry Jenkins "Me and Mr. Hess ..... We made it to the 8th floor. Big explosion!
Blew us back into the 8th floor."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxAuN5lKLio [@ 0:15]
The only thing that can be said with any certainty is that both men said there was an explosion and they were trapped on the 8th floor.

Barry's interview with Dylan and Jason contains absurd statements like:
http://www.911blogger.com/node/16573

"The firefighter that took us down kept saying "Don't look down." and I kept saying why."
"You know you can feel when you're stepping over people."
Do you really believe that he stepped over bodies and never looked down? Have someone lay on the floor 6 feet in front of you, look straight ahead, you can still see them.

Officer: "You'll have to run."
Barry: "I can't run, my knees are swollen."
Officer: "Then you'll have to get on your knees and crawl then." [a police officer would not say that]
Barry: ". . . and that's when I started crawling."
[If your knees are swollen and you have to move as fast as possible, do you walk, or crawl on your swollen knees?]

"When I got to that lobby, the lobby was totally destroyed.
It was so destroyed they had to take me out through a hole in the wall”
http://www.prisonplanet.com/audio/190607clips2.mp3
The south and west sides were blocked by debris but the north and east sides had exits.
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/8717/doorineastsidesmlo7.png
Dr. Michael Guttenberg, NYC Office of Medical Affairs:
"We found our way out one of the back doors of No. 7 and came outside."
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/...

Firemen don't knock holes in walls if they don't have to.

* * * * *
Layout of 8th floor:
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/1125/fl8layout.png

Photo of 8th floor. Note clearly marked EXIT sign. Both stairways opened onto the same corridor and the EXIT signs were in sight of each other.
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/998/fl8interioric3.png

Michael and Barry were NOT trapped on the 8th floor.

Your implication is that Barry Jennings lied when he said he was told not to look down.

Your implication is that he and Hess both lied when they said that they were trapped on the 8th floor.

So they decided to stay there for what reason?

Your floor plan photo is too small and does not clearly illustrate the two stairways that you claim were visible from each other. The best proof of this would be a photograph taken from one stairway to the other and vice versa. Nothing in the way between them? No walls, no plants no cubicles. No doors. No charts. No Artwork.

You said:

"This is also highly questionable because there were 2 stairways and they were in sight of each other."

Now you say the EXIT signs were visible from each other.

Your cubicle photograph appears to be lighted by fluorescent lighting. Is it the 8th floor? How do we know this is the 8th floor of WTC 7?

Granting that this is a picture of the 8th floor of WTC 7 still doesn't prove your point.

How much sunlight would penetrate a room filled with smoke? Would smoke affect a person's vision?

The Guttenberg testimony is a Red Herring. His ability to find a door is not mutually exclusive to Jennings and Hess not having access to a door and exiting through a hole in a wall. Guttenberg's relevant experience was only in part of the first floor, according to the transcript of his testimony.

What was the lighting like on the first floor when Jennings was escorted out by the firemen?

You are implying that Barry Jennings was lying about his conversation with the "officer" urging him to run.

Are you qualified to say anything about which would hurt more, crawling or running, if a person had knee problems? Are you a doctor? What was Barry's knee problem? Was it arthritis? Was it bursitis? Was it a torn ACL?

You may have some valid questions, but your Godlike assertions are extremely repugnant to me.

I wish Barry Jennings was here to defend himself. I am sure he could do a better job of it than I am.

Thank you for your comments. In an effort to prove my point I discovered that I was wrong about the stairways being visible from each other. I was also wrong about the interior photo. It shows cubicles in one of the towers but still makes the point that floors with cubicles have plenty of sunlight.
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/8066/figure18schematicoffloo.jpg

There were some partition walls but plenty of unblocked windows to provide light to both stairway exits.
There was no smoke on the 8th floor when they were rescued according to the firefighters who rescued them.
If the landing on floor 6 had collapsed, they would have to go down the other stairway. If they could find the other stairway they could have just used it and they would not need to be rescued.

NCSTAR 1-9 Vol.1 pg 296-297 [PDF pg 340-341]
At approximately 10:00 a.m., a WTC 7 security manager was concerned that he might still have personnel on the 44th floor and started up the “A” (west) stairway to get his people out of the building. At 10:28 a.m., when WTC 1 collapsed, he had reached the 30th floor, and then continued up the stairway. There was rubble just before the 44th floor landing, and the stairway swayed or vibrated. Smoke or dust was swirling around. During this climb, he opened doors on the 23rd floor to check for OEM staff, and the floor was full of smoke or dust. He also opened a door on the 26th floor to check for occupants and found none. NIST was unable to find any evidence that, by approximately 10:30 a.m., any of the original occupants who intended to leave WTC 7 had not already done so (Chapter 7).

"Your implication is that Barry Jennings lied when he said he was told not to look down."
No, I implied that he was lying when he said he did not look down or see the bodies.
I also implied he was lying when he said firefighters took him out thru a hole they had made in a wall. There was no hole because there was no need to knock a hole in a wall. There were exits and the firefighters knew where they were.

"You are implying that Barry Jennings was lying about his conversation with the "officer" urging him to run."
Yes, and I gave my reasons. You can believe him if you want.

There are more statements like "I was skipping stairs, practically leaping from one landing to the next" or words to that effect. How could a 70 year old man keep up with him?
Some of his statements are so bizarre it occurred to me that he was coerced into taking part in this charade and put them in to let us know it was bullshit. Just a thought.

I apologize for my "godlike assertions" but I have studied all the reports and statements concerning Michael and Barry. The story does not add up.
Your challenge as led me to more evidence to disprove this story, thank you. I will continue if you are not yet convinced.

ETA: Do you have or can you get a conformation of Greta's statement about the countdown. This would add a great deal of credibility to Kevin McPadden's statement.

I don't think he was coerced into saying anything. He may have been wrong about stepping over bodies, but I think that is what he thought he was doing. Are you sure there were no holes in any of the walls of WTC 7? I would like to see documentation of that? Was Barry Jennings paid for the interview? What did he stand to gain by lying?

This is a strong allegation. I would be extremely surprised to learn that Barry Jennings was coerced.

I agree with you on many points and appreciate your hard work for the cause, but your attack on Barry Jennings' credibility took me aback.

I am not above being wrong, but I am not convinced by your arguments so far. Do you know something about him being coerced that we don't know?

If you do, let's hear it.

Additionally, whether they were trapped or just perceived that they were trapped doesn't impugn their credibility in the least.
Being told that they should leave and leave immediately, I am sure that they perceived that they were trapped. I doubt they would have stuck around just to make a good story.

NCSTAR 1-9 Vol.1 pg 296 [PDF pg 240]
"At 9:30 a.m., the FDNY Emergency Medical Service (EMS) established a Division at WTC 7 for assisting victims. An EMS triage center was established in the lobby of WTC 7 as occupants from WTC 1 and WTC 6 evacuated through WTC 7. In addition, at about 9:30 a.m., the building engineer mentioned above went up to the penthouse of WTC 7 to get supplies for the triage center. He reported that all mechanical and electrical equipment was operating, and that the building’s air dampers were closed to control dust intake. As the evacuation continued, he had other building staff members check the tenant floors to make sure everyone was out of the building."

The elevators and lights were still working at 9:30 a.m., a half hour after Barry said he arrived.
ETA:
NCSTAR 1-9 Vol.1 pg 296 [PDF pg 240]
"At 9:59 a.m., the triage center located in the lobby of WTC 7 was expanded. Operations were being set up on the loading dock of WTC 7 when WTC 2 collapsed."

If there were explosions in WTC 7, they would have immediately evacuated the triage center.

* * * * *

"I got there . . . I had to be inside, on the 23rd floor, when the second plane hit."[9:03 a.m.]*

"When I made it to the 6th floor and there was an explosion, the explosion was beneath me. Keep in mind now it's pitch black in there. All the lights went out."*
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRaKHq2dfCI&feature=player_embedded#

Stairways have battery powered emergency lights that come on automatically when the power goes off.
NCSTAR 1-9 Vol.1 pg 296 [PDF pg 240]
"When WTC 2 collapsed at 9:59 a.m., light debris from the collapse struck the south face of WTC 7 (Section 5.5). This collapse caused the emergency battery-powered lighting to come on inside WTC 7. In addition, the emergency AC power generators began operating.

From your claims about the stairways being visible from each other, which turned out to be dubious, and your cubicle pictures provided that were actually of the towers and not WTC 7, we see that you are not infallible in your arguments. Now you dispute the explosion, which both Barry Jennings and Michael Hess claim to have experienced. Their eyewitness accounts on the day of the event are more credible than a subsequent testimony which may have occurred as long as a year afterward.

Now you say this:

"If there were explosions in WTC 7, they would have immediately evacuated the triage center."

Michael Hess on 9/11/01 corroborating the explosion in WTC 7 and that they were trapped.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e3K9jcPdXc&feature=player_embedded

Barry Jennings on 9/11/01 ABC news interview. Big Explosion!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LO5V2CJpzI

When you say "building engineer" mentioned above, are you referring to the person that you called the "security manager" in your earlier post? This person was going up the stairs, according to your earlier post. If the elevator worked, why was he taking the stairs?

If that is not who you are referring to, then some detail is missing about the "building engineer".

In an earlier post you said:

"There are more statements like "I was skipping stairs, practically leaping from one landing to the next" or words to that effect. How could a 70 year old man keep up with him?

As someone who is about the age of Barry Jennings and even similar in shape, I could come down stairs quite briskly if I believed my life was threatened. It is going up stairs that is difficult. Going down stairs you are helped by gravity.

In a life threatening situation, people can move down stairs pretty quickly. There are many 70 year old men who are still in good physical shape. Some run marathons. Your view of what a 70 year old man can or can't do in an emergency is debatable.

Michael D. Hess graduated from Yale with a BA in 1962. I saw no reference to him serving in the armed services in his bio, so I assume that he did not. If he entered Yale right after high school, and he finished high school at age 18 or possibly 19, that would make him 23 in 1962. That would make him 62 in 2001. I could not find a confirmation of his age so this extrapolation is subject to correction with better information.

Your claim that this quote is questionable....
"When I made it to the 6th floor and there was an explosion, the explosion was beneath me. Keep in mind now it's pitch black in there. All the lights went out."*

Given that there was smoke from the explosion and there may have been a delay before the back up battery systems or generator systems were turned on, assuming that they were 100 percent functional, I could see how it would be pitch black.
He didn't say that it stayed pitch black.

Relevant to you looseness with the language, your earlier statement about Larry Silverstein:

Larry said he was talking to a fire chief as I remember. The "pull it" remark may have been a Freudian slip but neither man had the authority to make that decision.

This in no way resembles a Freudian slip.

A Freudian slip is when something in your unconscious slips out accidentally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freudian_slip

What Silverstein did was, in my opinion, try to provide a plausible coverup story for the destruction of WTC 7. He apparently didn't consider the logistics of setting up a controlled demolition when he concocted the impromptu explanation.
It was not a Freudian slip, however. He knew what he was saying and didn't accidentally slip anything from his unconscious.

I am willing to admit when I am wrong and correct my errors before they become a mistake. This is what a debate is for. Listening to sound logic and evidence, and changing position when proven wrong. This is a strength yet you use it to doubt everything I say. Some of your arguments are sound and I have altered my evidence points accordingly

Rather than going round and round on every element of each point I will just post this summary for your consideration.

Barry said he was in the OEM just before or just after 9am. and everyone was already gone. That means the OEM was abandoned before the second plane hit the south tower. No one knew it was a terrorist attack right away. The initial reports were that a small plane hit the tower. There was no reason to abandon the OEM immediately. It also means that word had gotten to him, he drove to WTC 7, parked his car, walked to the entrance, went up the escalator to the 3rd floor, took an elevator up to the 23rd floor, went back down to the lobby, found someone who had a key/card [not a cop] to let him in, went back up to the 23rd floor and was in the OEM in 15 minutes.
He said there were cops in the lobby but did not mention anyone else being in the lobby. The building had thousands of people in it. They could not have all have left in 15 minutes. Many people in the south tower did not try to leave right away and the same was probably true for WTC 7.
Barry said he made a few calls and then he and Michael left. The elevators had stopped working so they took the stairs. This would have been about 9:10 to 9:15.

Why would the elevators not be working? What about all the other people still leaving the building?

Barry and Michael walked down 17 flights of stairs to the 6th floor. 15 minutes? The explosion supposedly happened about 9:30. The triage center had just been set up and there were people using the Promenade to exit WTC 6 through WTC 7. No one else reported an explosion. That's the biggest problem with Barry's story about multiple explosions and bodies in the lobby. There is NO collaboration.

There are numerous other problems with Barry's story.
1) On 9/11 both he and Michael said they got to the 8th floor and there was an explosion. Any change in the original story is suspect.
2) Barry did not mention the landing giving way and hanging on for dear life or bodies in the lobby on 9/11. Those would have been the most traumatic parts of his experience.
3) He said he knew he was stepping over people but did not see them. This is absurd. You can see someone on the floor three feet in front of you and you cannot step over them without looking down.
4) He said a [giant] police officer told him to crawl rather than help him out of the building.
5) He said he did start crawling. If your knees were sore, would you walk slowly or crawl?
6) He said the firefighters took him out through a hole in the wall. The south and west sides were blocked by debris. There were exits on the north and east sides and the firefighters knew where they were.
7) The guy Barry introduced as his rescuer on 9/11 lied about the back side of both stairways being blown off.

Barry's story is simply not credible.
Why is everyone adamant about the testimony of this single witness for multiple explosions and bodies in the lobby? Is there reasonable proof that he is right or is it just because he is saying something you want to hear?
Think about it. Be honest with yourself.

who could tell us whether he fits the pathological liar profile that you have assigned to him in your posts.

Your assertions don't leave room for being wrong. You make them as if you have no doubts. This is not a strength when you are dead wrong. Your are making assumptions as if they are facts, and when proven to be wrong, dead wrong, you are not humbled by that fact. It is a matter of presentation. When you show a picture asserting that it is WTC 7 and then it is shown to be one of the towers, doesn't that give you a reason to pause and rethink your approach? Couple that with your cocksure assertion that the stairways were visible from each other. That assertion you then had to back peddle on also.

Do you know that there was no hole in a wall in WTC 7? Just because there were open exits doesn't exclude the possibility that there was a hole in the wall. His witness account about the hole in the wall doesn't indicate how the hole came to be there.

Do you know, for a fact, that Barry Jennings did not talk to a "giant" police officer who told him to run or crawl if he had to?

You also attack the veracity of the statement by the citizen who heard Barry's cries for help and rendered aid as best he could.
You say he lied. You don't say he was mistaken. You say he lied. What would be his motivation to lie? Could it be that we have found some bias within you that is projecting here? Be honest with yourself.

You have problems with the timeline which may be debatable, but these discrepancies could be attributed to honest errors, if they are indeed inaccurate, as opposed to deliberate lies.

If the landing didn't give way, then why didn't they continue down those stairs? Something happened that made the stairway appear impassible. This obstacle was apparently caused by the explosion that both Jennings and Hess reported. Whether he was hanging on for "dear life" or not, is a red herring. It may have been his perception that he was. It may not be that he was hanging from a handrail over some abysmal deep dark hole, but there are many other possible ways to interpret what he said. It could have been that the stairway landing was tilted rather than missing. That would still fit his description, yet not fit what you have apparently visualized.

Your assertions are not that he may have exaggerated in some instances, but that he made things up out of whole cloth.

It isn't that Barry Jennings said what I want to hear. It is that I have not been presented with any reason, at this time, to believe that he was a pathological liar.

I still think Barry Jennings was an honest man and that his account of what happened on 9/11/01 is credible.

Barry said:
"I was inside when the 2nd plane hit. I was already in the WTC7." [9:03 a.m.]

NCSTAR 1-9 Vol.1 pg 296 [PDF pg 240]
"At 9:30 a.m., the FDNY Emergency Medical Service (EMS) established a Division at WTC 7 for assisting victims. An EMS triage center was established in the lobby of WTC 7 as occupants from WTC 1 and WTC 6 evacuated through WTC 7.
At 9:59 a.m., the triage center located in the lobby of WTC 7 was expanded. Operations were being set up on the loading dock of WTC 7 when WTC 2 collapsed

This proves that the whole Michael and Barry story is false.

I have gone back and listened to the interview with Barry Jennings. I still believe what he says is what he experienced. I don't think he fabricated any of it.

As to the timeline, I suspect that all of the stated times could be off, including the ones that you cite. When setting up a division for assisting victims, and an EMS triage center, I would imagine that they were more concerned with other tasks than to make exact notations of the time. I could be wrong, but that is what I think. I know that when I was in the radio business, we were supposed to make meter readings every 3 hours. Sometimes we would forget to do so because we were busy doing other tasks. We would then go back, after the fact, and fill in the readings and the times as if we met the requirements. Fudging times to fill out paperwork is something that I have done. I suspect that radio is not the only place where this is a possibility.

If they were to recall the times from memory, weeks, months or even a year after the fact, I think there would be a high probability that they would miss the exact times.

This will be my last entry on this subject for now. Thanks for the discussion.

Mover to wider post below

The times were reasonably correct. Here is further conformation.

The stairways were being used by people leaving the building during the time Michael and Barry said there was an explosion and they were trapped.

NCSTAR 1-A pg 49 [PDF 91]
There were no serious injuries or fatalities because the estimated 4,000 occupants of WTC 7 reacted to the airplane impacts on the two WTC towers and began evacuating before there was significant damage to WTC 7. Evacuation of the building took just over an hour. [8:46 to 9:46+]

The occupants were able to use both the elevators and the stairs, which were as yet not damaged, obstructed, or smoke-filled.

Even if you don't believe NIST, and I don't, the facts are self evident. It would take more than 30 min to evacuate WTC 7. People were coming across the Promenade from WTC 1 & 6 and exiting thru WTC 7. The lobby would have been full of people trying to get out of the building. During this time people were being treated for injuries in the lobby. There was no reason for the power to be off and the elevators inoperative.

Barry said he arrived at World Trade Center building 7 shortly after the first plane hit the north tower at 8:46 a.m. He took an elevator up to the 23rd floor and he was in the Office of Emergency Management when the second plane hit the south tower at 9:03 a.m.

Many people started leaving building 7 when the first plane hit the north tower but he order to evacuate was not made until after the second plane hit the south tower. There were still thousands of people in WTC 7 when Michael and Barry supposedly tried to leave at around 9:10 a.m. If the elevators were not working there would have been a lot of people using the stairways.

Chris, is this photo:

Really WTC 7? Look at the windows and the window spacing, this looks like a photo from WTC 1 or 2 instead.

Compare with the interior of the North Tower:

The windows of WTC 7 look different from the outside, at least:

ETA:The Guardian is filtering the image below with some kind of bandwidth limiter I suspect. Either that or some HTML error I made that I cannot find. The picture seems to show intermittently only. I changed this post to include the link instead of an <img> tag.
link: http://guardian.150m.com/wtc/wtc7-fires-close.jpg

I thought it would be worthwhile to at least raise this concern.

This is a key piece of info. Thank you Loose Nuke!

In an Oct 15, 2008 interview with Allan Rees (following the release of the NIST WTC 7 report), Dr. Shyam Sunder (lead investigator) responded to a question about the evidence of foreknowledge of the collapse of WTC 7 by saying that they were “aware that an engineer or a technical expert or a technical advisor was providing advice to the city agencies with regard to the condition of building 7”, and that they had been hearing creaking noises and the area was cleared about 2:30 pm. He refused to name this person, and then implied it may have been more than one “advisor”.
http://www.ae911truth.org/info/39

The determination that WTC 7 was going to "collapse" was made by technical experts as would be expected. Chief Nigro had just seen two collapses that killed hundreds of his brothers. He did not question the decision to pull everyone back.

WTC 7 did not sustain a great deal of debris damage. That's why Shyam Sunder and NIST lied about a 10 story gouge that supposedly scooped out a large portion of the south side.

The only visible fires at 2:30 were on floors 11 and 12 at the east end of the building.

There was no reason to think WTC 7 would collapse from the debris damage and fires. They knew it was coming down as soon as they fixed whatever went wrong at 10:45 am when it was supposed to come down.