World Trade Center environmental data report, 2001-2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

job changed from helping with the medical management of survivors to what was called the toxicology of building collapse." (5)

But some feel the “rescue” phase may have been too long, as rescuers pushed their hopes of finding people lost in the rubble, and moving to the recovery phase may not have been quick enough.

So while mayor Rudy Giuliani was praised for taking the helm, displaying leadership and galvanizing the public safety services, as well as wisdom in allowing the rescuers the time to mourn, there was a big cost to the fire department being too slow in winding down its fire-rescue medical response.

The occupational health side of this suffered as a result, wrote Donald Elisburg and John Moran of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “It became very apparent early in the WTC site visit that the WTC site was operating in a search and rescue mode being undertaken by the NYC Fire and Police personnel and Federal personnel such as the FEMA urban search and rescue teams in accordance with the federal response Plan.” There should have been an earlier end to the rescue effort, they wrote, but there wasn’t “owing, no doubt, to several factors, such as the NYC Fire Department bearing responsibility for collapsed buildings and the fact that the fires continued to bum in the site debris pile.”

”Our job changed from helping with the medical management of survivors to what was called the toxicology of building collapse.”

At the Pentagon, by contrast, the fires were put out much more quickly. Within days, Army occupational health specialists found no potential health risks for Department of Defense employees returning to the Pentagon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. (6)

Who was in charge? After several days, rescue turned to recovery.

The government’s responsibility for recovering from a disaster is spelled out under the Federal Response Plan (FRP). Under this, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is designated as the lead agency for “consequence management,” meaning measures taken to protect public health and safety. This protocol focuses on physical recovery and rescue, providing environmental health services in a time of disaster—^i.e. in assessing risks, providing protection in the event of chemical threats, etc.

Under the plan, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began removing asbestos- contaminated dust from streets and buildings around the New York site, as well as cleaning debris from more than 300 cars, about a week after the incident. FEMA reported that EPA was continuing its air monitoring and establishing more air monitoring stations around the impact site and in New Jersey. At the Pentagon, it reported, water sampling and air quality monitoring stations revealed no elevated levels of asbestos or contamination.

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