World Trade Center environmental data report, 2001-2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

arriving on the scene before others, in Arlington County’s “After Action Report,” completed several months after the attacks. This, report notes, demonstrated “that taking care to the firefighter is as important as taking care ofthe firefighter.”

That day, says Gill, every effort was made to keep it a safe and healthy work environment. “We kept firefighters and rescue workers hydrated with water and made sure they had clean underwear,” says Gill.

Of course, the teamwork didn’t begin or end that day, she stresses, but is an ongoing process based on trust and understanding built over years of work and longevity of relationships. Months later, Gill would join an energetic team of her co-workers—firefighters and other responders—in commemorating the lives of those lost on 9/11 with a days’ long bike-a-thon ride between New York’s Ground Zero and the Pentagon.

Environmental Health Issues at the Pentagon \ Ironically, shortly before Sept. 11, Arlington County had just finishing drafting a new disaster plan, begun the year before because of the much-feared potential ‘Y2K’ computer fiasco. Even though employees had not been

•i JI fully oriented to the recently approved plan, this was immediately activated after the plane hit the Pentagon, and worked well, according to Vai Jefferson, a management ____ specialist with the Arlington County Environmental Health Bureau. Photo: Jocelyn Augustino/FEMA News Photo

That didn’t make it any less of a shock to the county Health Department, says Jefferson. “It was quite a shock when we got the call, and we were far from prepared,” she says, recalling that the Emergency Response protocol at first caught them off guard. Within hours, Arlington County’s sanitarians were out at the Pentagon parking lot making sure that the food fed to the first responders was safe, says Jefferson. However, the responsibility would have normally fallen to some of the senior staff.

‘‘Our greatest fear was that there could be a food-borne outbreak in the middle of the disaster.** “All the senior folks were finished with swimming pools and away on vacation or at conferences,” she recalls. When she tried to run down the list of sanitarians on call, she got a wrong number—an automotive supply garage.

Food donations started pouring in almost immediately, as the Red Cross began working to hand out 2,000 meals a day from supply tents set up in the parking lot. So Jefferson immediately sent out two inspectors to check on all the donated food from the many restaurants and hotels, and started setting up a system to insure proper food handling that would continue for two weeks during the crisis.

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