World Trade Center environmental data report, 2001-2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

York City closed to all traffic.” That day, too, roads were closed in Washington, D.C., and the mayor gave the order to evacuate the city of Washington, D.C. ten minutes before the American Airlines flight 77, a Boeing 757 out of Newark, N.J., striking the Pentagon. (19)

Email messages from that day, preserved on the Internet, described a city in a state of crisis. Sidewalks were crowded with people covered in cinders and dust from head to foot. Streets were lined with cars driving with inches of dust on their hoods. “Trucks with spools of cable wiring are coming, and ambulances going. Sirens everywhere,” wrote one person. (20)

With banks and stores closed, and even small delicatessens nmning out of food, people retreated to their apartments and homes. Most restaurants shut their doors with notes posted saying they’d closed in light of the tragedy. Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other city leaders urged people to stay home and stay calm.

Many are aware of the heroism of the fire fighters and other first responders but few know about the challenges placed on environmental health people that day and in months to come.

Responding to such an event would require an unprecedented level of coordination and cooperation among agencies and departments not accustomed to working together. (And some say that in the future public health professionals need to better understand, communicate with and work within the broader context of emergency management.)

Many are aware of the heroism of the fire fighters and other first responders that day but few know about the challenges placed on environmental health professionals—decisions they had to make that day and in the days and weeks to follow.

Springing into action Kelly McKinney, Associate Commissioner for Regulatory and Environmental Health Services for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, had just gotten off the subway, just after the first plane had hit the South Tower. He was heading to his office at 125 Worth Street, four blocks away from the stricken building when he saw the gash left by the plane, then stood looking up at the towers when the second plane hit.

“I saw the scar—that black hole on the gleaming building—and I was in complete shock, thinking it was a bomb,” says McKinney. “Do I run down and help? But then I thought, ‘we’re not first responders.” Like thousands of other people, McKinney reached for his cell phone. And like others, he found it didn’t work.

That would be his first ‘lesson learned’: “The technology you rely on most will fail first!” says McKinney, who got to work to find the building being evacuated.

An emergency response meeting was convening at his office, which would bring together every division of the department. Although their offices would soon close officially, as federal workers fled their offices to join loved ones, staff heads would brace for weeks of 18-hour days.

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