![]() They found that many of the first responders had developed severe respiratory problems and had persistent symptoms of post-traumatic stress. In 2002, the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Environmental Health sponsored a comprehensive study of the health of the rescue and recovery workers at Ground Zero and 9/11-related illnesses. Soon the official workers at Ground Zero received masks and other protective gear, but volunteers and other workers–like the day laborers and undocumented workers who were hired to clean the dust from nearby office buildings–simply covered their faces with bandannas and hoped for the best. On September 11 alone more than 300 workers sought treatment for eye and respiratory problems caused by the pollutants in the air. Especially in the days immediately after the towers fell, when investigators estimated that only 20 percent of the workers at the site had masks that would protect their lungs, the air was filled with diesel exhaust, pulverized cement, glass fibers, asbestos, silica, benzene from the jet fuel and lead. In fact, the site was awash in harmful fumes and toxic dust. Ground Zero: Environmental and Health Concerns READ MORE: How 9/11 Became the Deadliest Day in History for U.S. Downtown Manhattan reeked of smoke and burning rubber, plastic and steel. Every time a crane moved a large chunk of debris, the sudden rush of oxygen intensified the flames. Underground fires continued to burn for months. (By May 2002, when the cleanup officially ended, workers had moved more than 108,000 truckloads–1.8 million tons–of rubble to a Staten Island landfill.) But the site was still dangerous. Crews built roads across the site to make it easier to haul away the debris. Ironworkers hung from tall cranes and cut the buildings down, one reporter said, “like trees.” Structural engineers worked to reinforce the giant concrete “bathtub” that formed the two-by-four-block foundation of the buildings and protected it from flooding by the Hudson River. The work was so dangerous that many firefighters and police officers wrote their names and phone numbers on their forearms in case they fell into the hole or were crushed.ĭid you know? Fires continued to burn in lower Manhattan for 99 days after the attack.Įventually, the pile stabilized enough that construction crews could start using excavators and other heavy equipment. Jagged, sharp pieces of iron and steel were everywhere. Meanwhile, huge fires continued to burn at the center of the pile. ![]() The fallen buildings were unstable, and engineers worried that the weight of trucks and cranes would cause the wreckage to shift and collapse again, so the workers had to keep using the bucket brigades. After that, the Ground Zero workers had a new and more heartbreaking mission: to sift carefully through the debris in search of human remains. By September 12, workers had rescued all of the people who were trapped at the site. Unfortunately, there were not many survivors to find: Two firemen were pulled from their truck in a cavity beneath some wreckage, and a few people were pinned at the edges of the pile. ![]() An aerial view of Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. ![]()
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