Mr. Homan said Tuesday night that Ms. Granger had faxed a letter to President Clinton asking that his administration provide disaster assistance for the area hit by the storm. The House is in session, Mr. Homan said, but Ms. Granger, a former Fort Worth mayor, will travel to Fort Worth on the first available flight Wednesday. Despite the devastation, most of the high-rise buildings damaged in downtown Fort Worth should weather the storm. Architects and construction experts who've seen early pictures of the storm's aftermath say most of the damage looks superficial. The tall buildings in downtown Fort Worth should be all right.
Engineers design the towers to handle storm force winds.
And glass exterior walls break away without causing significant structural damage, Mr. Croft said. And those buildings are designed to stay put. Most of the glass that was destroyed probably failed because of suction caused by the negative pressure from the storm. The glass in modern buildings is engineered to take the direct pressure of wind blowing against it but is more vulnerable to negative wind forces, architects and builders say. You can't prevent glass from blowing out in some weather no matter what.