Closure: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Recovery Mission
256
Closure: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Recovery Mission
256Paperback(Reprint)
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Overview
On the morning of 9/11, the Port Authority Police Department was the first uniformed service to respond to the attack on the World Trade Center. When the towers collapsed, thirty-seven of its officers were killed—the largest loss of law enforcement officers in U.S. history.
That afternoon, Lieutenant William Keegan began the work of recovery. The FDNY and NYPD had the territory, but Keegan had the map. PAPD cops could stand on top of six stories of debris and point to where a stairwell had been; they used PATH tunnels to enter "the pile" from underneath. Closure shares many never-before-told stories, including how Keegan and his officers recovered one-thousand tons of gold and silver from a secret vault to keep the Commodities Exchange from crashing; discovered what appeared to be one of the plane's black boxes; and helped raise the inspirational steel beam cross that has become the site's icon.
For nine brutal months, the men at Ground Zero wrestled with 1.8 million tons of shattered concrete, twisted steel, body parts, political pressure, and their own grief. Closure tells the unforgettable story of their sacrifice and valor, and how Keegan led the smallest of all the uniformed services at the site to become the most valuable.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780743296595 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Touchstone |
| Publication date: | 06/05/2007 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Bart Davis has written four nonfiction books, The Woman Who Can’t Forget, Closure, Shooting Stars, and Holy War on the Home Front. He is a graduate of the Bronx High School of Science and Stony Brook University and holds a BA in English and an MA in social work.
Read an Excerpt
Closure
The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Recovery MissionAfterword
The legacy of the attack on the World Trade Center is far from over, and will never be complete until we recover the final remains we left behind. Neither will it be finished if we continue to let our workers and volunteers suffer and die. There can be no closure without real answers; there can be no real answers without the truth. The tragedy is that America knew it then, and is ignoring it now.
After the official closing ceremony, I was reassigned to another command on June 3, 2002. I refused to sign-off on the completion of the mission when asked to do so by the New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC), the agency that managed the clean-up of the WTC site. Like many of the Ground Zero commanders, I maintained there were locations that might contain additional remains of the fallen that had not been properly searched. The holes in West Street caused by falling steel, and later just paved over, are just one example. It is clear that the DDC also knew that, but chose to end the mission for the sake of political expediency.
This serious charge is backed up by a May 24, 2002 memorandum from the Assistant Director of the DDC Environmental Health and Safety Service (EHSS) regarding the start of theEHSS team walkthroughs at Ground Zero. The memo states, in part:
Previous to our Wednesday 05/22/02 meeting, DDC-EHSS requested FDNY to submit those areas where recovery operations were completed.... Lt. John Ryan of the PAPD raised issues concerning the PAPD sign-off of the recovery areas of the EHSS Transition meeting.... These new sign-off arrangements would hamper the work of the EHSS Transition team, potentially delaying the sign-off by two weeks.
As you are aware, DDC and FDNY are the co-incident Commanders for the WTC Emergency Project. FDNY has the sole authority over issues concerning recovery.... [A]t this time I am instructing the transition team to immediately begin the walkthrough assessment so that we can avoid any further delay.
There are several problems with this memo. First, it is untrue that, as the memo states, "FDNY ha(d) the sole authority over issues concerning recovery." Although the FDNY was given command of Ground Zero on 9-11 because of its control over all "collapsed buildings" within New York City, shortly thereafter, the Unified Command structure that was ultimately put into place at the site gave equal authority over the recovery operation to the Port Authority Police Department, the New York City Police Department (NYPD), and the New York City Fire Department (FDNY).
Second, the "issues concerning the PAPD sign-off" refer to, and are a result of, a specific conversation I had with John Ryan that there were areas at Ground Zero we felt had not yet been thoroughly searched for human remains. Clearly, if these improperly searched areas were to reveal remains, it would take a lot longer than two weeks to complete the mission. The DDC figured that if the public knew there were still remains at Ground Zero, the site would have to be kept open months longer. But not closing the site would have put bonuses and new jobs for construction companies, and promotions for members of the DDC, in jeopardy.
The Memorandum never said the PAPD was wrong -- only that we didn't have authority to delay the intentions of the DDC. Such an obvious ploy by the DDC can only erode the victim family's confidence in the very people they depend upon for their answers. The families weren't given the truth about the extent of human remains still at the site. The New York Times reports (Associated Press, December 7, 2006) over a thousand bones have been recovered during the past year, and the continued search for more remains will take at least another year. There are too many people who will never be able to move on as individuals or as a community because of it. Leonard Wong of the U.S. Army War College wrote, "While taking risks to recover the body of a fallen soldier may make no rational sense, it impacts significantly on the unit, the military profession, and US society." The creed is Leave No Man Behind. The victims of the World Trade Center attack deserve no less.
Those in charge of Ground Zero refused to do it the right way six years ago and still refuse to do it the right way today. I have had too many tearful phone calls from my former colleagues at the site say-ing simply, "Loo, how did we miss all this?" I can only tell them that, along with the families, our hearts were broken, too...and that we did our best but were prevented from doing all.
It is the same with the health and safety of the workers and volunteers at Ground Zero. Six years after 9-11, I have had to come to grips with the fact that my future is at best uncertain -- and the terrible irony is that I am one of the lucky ones.
The Ground Zero environment contained debris contaminated by 26 miles of Mercury lighting, 6 million square feet of concrete dust, thousands of tons of plastic and asbestos. Wood, metal, plastic, jet fuel, and many other substances that were present in the debris at the site released toxic fumes as they burned. Mercury vapor is a neurotoxin. Yet workers who showed high levels of mercury in their blood were given only brief respite, and then reassigned to the site. Since November 2001 I have experienced sinus infections, headaches, and eye irritations. In August 2002, I developed a nerve weakness in my neck, back, and shoulder that left my right arm nearly powerless -- and I am not alone.
According to the September 6, 2006, New York Times report on the results of the health study released by doctors at Mount Sinai Medical Center, the largest study yet of the thousands of workers who labored at ground zero (Illness Persisting in 9/11 Workers, Big Study Finds, by Anthony DePalma): "the impact of the rescue and recovery effort on their health has been more widespread and persistent than previously thought, and is likely to linger far into the future.... Roughly 70 percent of nearly 10,000 workers tested at Mount Sinai from 2002 to 2004 reported that they had new or substantially worsened respiratory problems while or after working at Ground Zero.
"The study is among the first to show that many of the respiratory ailments -- like sinusitis and asthma, and gastrointestinal problems related to them -- initially reported by Ground Zero workers persisted or grew worse in the years after 9/11.
"The New York Times reported that most of the Ground Zero workers in the study who reported trouble breathing while working there are still having those problems up to two and a half years later, an indication that the illnesses are becoming chronic and are not likely to improve over time." Some of the workers worked without face masks, or with bandannas, when what we needed were full-face sealed respirators, or the Bio-Hazmat suits which workers are using now.
"There should no longer be any doubt about the health effects of the World Trade Center disaster," said Dr. Robin Herbert, codirector of Mount Sinai's World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program. "Our patients are sick, and they will need ongoing care for the rest of their lives."
Beyond their physical ailments, many of the rescue workers and volunteers who were at Ground Zero remain isolated and disconnected from their families, alienated from former friends, and unable to reestablish their place in society. In short, countless thousands of men and women who gave "above and beyond" are suffering. Dr. Charles L. Robbins of the Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare states "former WTC workers are experiencing significant health problems manifesting in all body systems and organs, including stress disorders and emotional disturbances, caused by their exposure at Ground Zero." For some, the pain is unbearable because the immensity of their effort has been met by a public denial of their pain, creating an isolation which is the root cause of a rising rate of suicide. During the event, no sacrifice was too great. Now that ethic has set the scene for another disaster, unfolding today.
Dr. Spencer Eth, vice chairman of psychiatry at St. Vincent's Hospital and professor of psychiatry, New York Medical College reports:
The St. Vincent's World Trade Center Healing Services have seen over 50,000 people who were psychologically affected by 9-11. Many victims have needed to remain in treatment for years. Our efforts continue because the suffering continues; and although fewer people are seeking help for the first time, those that are tend to be especially distressed and disabled, including uniformed service personnel, including firefighters and police officers. Tragically, almost all of the funding for these special programs has been terminated. That should not be allowed to happen -- effective psychiatric treatment must be provided -- or we may be forced to witness additional suicides and misfortune borne by the true heroes of the World Trade Center disaster.
On a daily basis I talk to my men who worked at the site and I bear witness to the number who are close to suicide, or who are simply going through the motions of life as shadows of the men they once were. Last week we buried a fine man, a husband and father, a former Marine, and a decorated veteran Port Authority police officer who jumped off the George Washington Bridge because the pressure building since the mission at Ground Zero finally proved too much to bear. There have been more than half a dozen PAPD suicides since the rescue and recovery mission at Ground Zero -- and 25-year PAPD veterans can't remember a single suicide prior to it.
The recovery mission changed us; ending it changed us again. Life after has never been the same. Many still search for the certainty of purpose and place we found here. That emptiness was never properly addressed. When we left the site many of us were brought to an upstate hotel for a "debriefing." The intention was admirable but the result was woefully inadequate. I completed over 220 tours of duty at Ground Zero and I was interviewed by a volunteer for a private organization with less than 16 hours of "training" who had never even been to the site.
It doesn't matter who is to blame for the past. What matters is who is accountable for the present. We who worked at Ground Zero are still denied even the acknowledgement of our conditions. I am sick of hearing how complex the solution to our problems has to be; it isn't -- not if we educate the public about the plight of those who served at Ground Zero concerning the isolation and denial which are the root causes of the stress disorders and suicides that have followed.
We must provide free medical screening and care for all those who worked at Ground Zero and their families. We must create a mechanism within a federal agency that immediately establishes a baseline medical data bank for all workers in mega-disaster situations, with blood and tissue samples taken on a regular basis. A coalition of federal and state officials must establish an independent commission for responders and recovery workers similar to the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. A no-fault alternative to lengthy tort litigation, the 9/11 Victim's Compensation Fund was initially received with skepticism but proved successful in allowing families to move on with their lives. If we do not allocate the time and resources needed, the ghosts of those who have died, and will die, because of it will haunt the building built on what became their graveyard.
The men and women who worked at Ground Zero rose to the greatest challenge of our lives. We fought the first part of the battle without a single fatality or serious injury to a worker and the startling fact is we have lost more workers after the rescue and recovery than during. The dust we cleaned up is still choking us. If we can sit back and watch that happening without taking action we are not the America we say we are. That America would not leave those who have sacrificed for their country in harm's way; would not leave them to fend for themselves; would not ignore compassion and look away pretending everything is okay. That America would not use accounting principles instead of medicine, for when the call comes again -- and it surely will -- who will respond if we teach our children that America turned its back on those who did what was asked of them?
Copyright © 2006 by Keegan Corp.
Continues...
Excerpted from Closure by William Keegan Copyright © 2007 by William Keegan. Excerpted by permission.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Author's Note
Acknowledgments