World Trade Center environmental data report, 2001-2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

United States, CDC was making substantial progress toward defining, developing, and implementing a nationwide public health response network to increase the capacity of public health officials at all levels—federal, state, and local—to prepare for and respond to deliberate attacks on the health of our citizens. The events of September 11 were a defining moment for all of us." (2)

“While not an entirely new issue, 9/11 did bring to the forefront the need to examine how health and safety issues are handled by first responders,” says disaster expert Tricia Wachtendorf. (3)

At the World Trade Center, 450 emergency responders—fiilly one-sixth of the victims of that attack—perished while doing their jobs, while environmental and medical officials, as well as volunteers, stood helpless to save them. Hundreds of others were seriously injured.

In the aftermath of the attacks, undoubtedly firefighters now will take greater precautions in rushing into burning buildings and carry in more sophisticated hand-held radios. What should be done when it comes to environmental and occupational health?

The mission of this document is to present the facts of responding to a terrorist event as they apply to environmental health professionals of all kinds—be they hazardous waste specialists or sanitarians, air quality technicians or public health department managers. Our considerations in this report cover air and water quality, radiological and bioterrorism threats, hazardous substances and wastes, waste removal, carting and disposal and public health interventions of all kinds, including food handling, sanitation and vector control.

NEHA was interested in describing the important role of assuring environmental health and safety — and hearing the stories of those unsung 'heroes' whose stories haven't come out—people at the frontlines who did their regular jobs under rather trying and extraordinary circumstances. These stories emerge—as well as healthy debate on such issues as the community’s right to know about environmental hazards in their neighborhoods and the need of public officials to balance the need to weigh top down control versus community response.

What are some of the major issues in addressing a catastrophic health disaster? What were the critical management lessons from the experience? How do public health and environmental health managers need to be better prepared in the future? What was left out last time? What went right and wrong at crucial decision-making junctures?

This document describes: 1) What enviromnental professionals of all kinds did (and, to some extent, how they might have worked with first responders) and the pressures on them in response from the public and the community; and 2) What they might have done differently—what they learned from the experience.

This report is also written to call forth a variety of new perspectives—like, asking the question: How soon should the government be able to respond to protect public health and what kind of prior coordination is needed among different agencies? What did the public expect of its public interest agencies in such dire circumstances?

Since the events of 9/11, many state and county health departments have started revamping their emergency response and evacuation plans to prepare for potential acts of terrorism, especially chemical and biological terrorism. And many experts see local public health departments as being central to preparedness efforts, rather than peripheral.

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