World Trade Center environmental data report, 2001-2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

All of the agencies that sprang into action acknowledged that they were unprepared for it. Such federal agencies as the EPA and CDC were at pains to respond to the disaster, as were the city agencies of health and environmental protection.

The attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) on September 11,2001 and the subsequent magnitude of the destruction and loss of life at the World Trade Center Complex created “an emergency response, rescue, and recovery effort of enormous proportions,” wrote the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). “The terrorist attack also created one of the largest waste sites our country has ever seen. New York City (NYC), state, and many federal disaster response organizations in addition to thousands of volunteers and other support organizations quickly responded.”(l)

But workers who toiled in the rubble of the World Trade Center were injured at “unacceptable” levels because they weren’t adequately protected while there, according to Joseph “Chip” Hughes, director of the Worker Education and Training Program at NIEHS.(2) The “pile” at the WTC was openly described as a horrific and dangerous place by those who visited and worked there. “The World Trade Center site is potentially the most dangerous workplace in the United States,” said John Henshaw, Assistant Secretary of OSHA in a press release. (3)

In late November, as fires still burned. Vice Chairman John Cavanagh of AMEC, one of the four contractors at Ground Zero, described the worksite as “longest commercial fire that has ever occurred at a site.” What kept the fire burning, he said, was a huge volume of “plastic, carpet and furniture below the rubble,” which the New York Fire Department was “constantly wetting down.”

The smoldering fire at Ground Zero represented the longest running commercial fire at a worksite in history. The attack on Washington, D.C. attack differed in size, scale and response needs. And there were some inherent advantages for responders at the Pentagon, where the health impact was far smaller, and more diffuse, because what smoke and dust came off the impact area—far smaller in volume—had a much larger area in which to disperse. Set apart from residential areas, while sitting close to federal military and environmental agencies, the environmental health challenges could be far more easily addressed. Situated at the center of a spaghetti of highways, the disaster at the Pentagon posed a bigger transportation gridlock challenge, however.

The response to the Pentagon was more coordinated and quickly shored up—and they even had an “after-action” report done within several months of the tragedy.

By contrast, the impacts of the terror attacks at the World Trade Center were far bigger in scale than the Pentagon, and presented unique challenges for environmental health officials. The attack at ‘Ground Zero’ hit in the heart of the city, a very densely populated area, with difficult transportation access.

While there are many differences, both events shared certain challenges that made them different from other health emergencies or disasters.

Both events were much larger in scale than any experienced before, as well as more devastating in impact, with mass casualties, short term and long term health effects, and a greater range of

10

NYC-WTC_000144928