CN Tower falls in Toronto

[edvader]

I wnet to Toronto for the World SF convention last Labor(Labour)Day. Enjoyed myself and saw Niagra Falls, the CNE and Casa Loma. Went up the CN tower. I read or hear during my time there that it is well protected against airplane crashes. WI planes or bombs damaged it enough to cause it to fall? Would it land on the rr tracks or the SKYDOME. Don't get me wrong. I love Toronto and the tower. This is a doomsday scenario.

[Suit_N_Tie]

I think it could also damage the VIA Rail Train station, which is nearby. That could cause a serious amount of lives lost if it did fall on top of it...

[Doctor What]

Depends which direction it fell.

Map shows a chunk of Toronto roughly 2000 x 2000 feet in size. CN Tower is just over 1800 feet high (counting the spire). Union station is on the corner of Front and York (nearly due east). Skydome is nearly due south. Convention Centre and Roy Thompson Hall is nearly due north. The tower itself is pretty much in the heart of downtown.

[Mark]

Skyscrappers are generally (I won't speak for all of them) designed to collapse vertically if they fail. If you watch the WTC towers falling, this is what they basically did (one better than the other) So projecting that the CN Tower would fall flat out is extreme.

On a related note, one time when we visited the CN Tower, one of the plastic balls for the lights fell and almost hit my wife. No planes or bombs around.

[Archangel Michael]

Question. What dose "CN" stand for?

[Doctor What]

Canadian National. It's the main railway/shipping company here.

Oh by the way--I screwed up on the map--it SHOULD read as 4000 x 4000 ft, instead of 2000. I was thinking diameter when it was radius. Mea culpa.

Mark: yes--I agree with you--if the CN Tower did collapse, it would fall (more or less) straight down but we're going with the ultimate doomsday scenario here. Mind you--unlike the WTC, getting it to collapse will be exceededly difficult (if not impossible) as the CN Tower is not actually a building with lots of empty spaces or offices but rather essentially a (more or less) solid tower of concrete. There's the restaurant near the top and a few observation decks (the Glass Floor Deck is way cool--it's an observation deck at the 1100 ft mark that has--yup--a glass floor to better see the ground beneath you. Do NOT go there if you're terrified of heights) but not much else in it. The Tower was, in fact, built for primarily pragmatic reasons--it's studded with microwave receptors for communication purposes. Bringing it down with a plane will be nearly impossible. But wiping out the decks and killing a couple of thousand tourists, on the other hand....

[edvader]

Mark: where were the balls? Dr What I went up the tower. DID NOT go to the POD but saw the rest. Looking DOWN at Toronto is dizzy. Good view of the lake.