Letter from 114 Liberty owners regarding WTC damage, Feb 2003

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

February 1,2003

Mr. David Hart Federal Emergency Management Agency 80 Center St. 3'“ Floor Human Services Disaster 1391 New York, NY 10013

Dear Mr. Hart:

I am writing this letter on behalf of 114 Liberty Street, a residential condominium located approximately 100 feet from the former site of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. As a result of our work with Susan Jhun ofNew York 1 News and other media and through various congressional offices we are in close contact with, we have discovered that FEMA does not really have the facts correct in our particular and highly unique situation.

On September 11,2001, our building experienced an enormous collision with debris from the WTC towers. A huge gash was created in the 5* and 6* floors, literally bending the steel girders in the floor. The building was engulfed in the gigantic dust cloud created by the towers collapse. Mountains of toxic chemicals poured into the building as every window (over 90) was blown out on the Liberty Street side. The toxic dust was piled at least 8-10 feet high in the Liberty Street side of our homes; it got into the stairwells, the elevators, the water tower, the roofs and sidewalls. Even worse, because our building has an HVAC central air-conditioning units, all of which were running that day, mountains of toxic dust spread through all the units, into every room of every home, into appliances, covering toxic dust on thousands of personal items, including children’s toys, clothing, bathroom items, kitchen items, food, etc, etc.

Immediately following 9/11, our building was immersed with city, state, and federal agencies. The New York City Fire Department utilized our building as a lookout on the pile watching for collapse and fire breakouts. Furthermore, our homes were used as locations for city emergency workers—you should know that our homes were looted, and, despite no running water, our bathroom toilets were used. (I had to clean my toilets using bottled water carried into the building.)

We were denied access for months all the while our building was used by law enforcement and construction personnel. We were glad to help in the effort, but our homes were taken over. We W no say in the matter.

In order to rehabilitate the building, we needed access for insurance and engineering personnel, which in the early days post-9/11 was extraordinarily difficult Because of these difficulties, we had an inordinate delay in obtaining contractor estimates and dealing with our insurance policy.

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