World Trade Center environmental data report, 2001-2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

hospital staffers. Within 48 hours a new space was secured (first at the policy academy, then at Pier 92, a passenger ship terminal on the Hudson).

**The only other time the city had every had to deal with FEMA was an ice storm up state in which farmers had to be reimbursed for their cows.” With a unified command, says Burger, “Everyone fell under Kelly and his staff” But Burger’s help, says McKinney, was invaluable in terms of trying to navigate the array of biu-eaucracies and the protocol.

New York had much to leam, says Burger: “New York is typical of big cities, and think of themselves as equal to a state, so sometimes we needed to remind this city that it needed to get assistance from the state.”

A corollary to this: Localities have to make a request of the federal government before it can respond.

“This was a learning experience for New York City,” says Steve Touw, who was brought in as one of EPA Region H’s On Scene Coordinators (OSCs), to help with a full array of environmental-related expertise on everything fi-om respiratory protection to hazard analysis to waste removal.

This was the first time that New York City had ever been through a national disaster, in which the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would be called in. “The only other time the city had every had to deal with FEMA was an ice storm up state in which farmers had to be reimbursed for their cows,” says Touw.

The state had set up an Emergency Management Office charged with responding to disasters like this, such as a drought in the apple-growing district in the center of the state and hurricanes in the Hudson Valley, but before now the only emergencies had dealt with weather. The only exception was that the office broadened its purview to include “Y2K,” the much-worried-about computer fiasco that never happened. Even though the World Trade Center had already been target and seriously damaged with a bomb in 1993, the office was totally unprepared for the scope of the attack in 2001.

Nevertheless the State Emergency Management Office (SEMO) did rise to the occasion with a coordinated response, calling upon 31 emergency experts fi-om 18 states to form the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC)—an agreement that was originally organized to help with natural disasters such as hurricanes, toxic-waste spills and also acts of terrorism. Although not formally part of EMAC, New York State quickly joined after the fact a few days after September 11.

Through SEMO, the city got help with 5,000 National Guard troops, 500 state troopers and K-9 units, 100 Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation personnel and 2,500 crisis counselors. The State Department of Health also help bring in some 400 workers to help in issuing death certificates for families of victims, monitoring for air quality, and coordinating volunteers.

48

NYC-WTC_000144966