Newly discovered documents may reveal that City Hall had additional details about the dangerous toxic maelstrom that swirled around Ground Zero in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which has led to the deaths of thousands of first responders.
Members of the FDNY and the firefighters union are demanding answers after 68 boxes of information were discovered that could provide more insight into the dust which survivors and first responders were exposed to in the days, weeks and months following the attacks at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan.
For many, it’s personal.
“My father passed away two and a half years ago from World Trade Center-related illnesses. My family needs to know,” said Andrew Ansbro, the head of the Uniformed Firefighters Association.
Ansbro’s union lost 343 firefighters on 9/11.
“New York City firefighters demand to know who in NYC government hid those documents,” he said.
The dust that first responders were breathing in for hours, day after day, has already been blamed for 9,000 lives lost in the years since the attacks.
“It’s heartbreaking for me as a member of the 9/11 community to realize how much sooner people might have gotten treatment,” said Michael Barasch, an attorney for World Trade Center Exposure Cases.
The heartbreak was caused by what investigators found earlier in November inside a city office building in Queens.
“I don’t know where these boxes have been. We saw 20 boxes,” said NYC Councilwoman Gale Brewer, who noted that she saw the boxes “with my own eyes.”
Brewer previously demanded city agencies reveal what documents they had that could shed new light on air quality at the time. That’s what led to the disclosure of 68 boxes of files that had never been shown to victims’ families before.
“I don’t know where they came from. I don’t know where they’ve been for the last 20 years,” Brewer said.
What is in the documents? That has not been disclosed that yet.
“While we cannot comment on the specifics of pending litigation, the city has begun turning over documents to plaintiff’s counsel, and both parties are working out a schedule to continue this process,” said the office for New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
It was former NYPD officer James Zadrogas death from respiratory illness that led to the creation of the World Trade Center Health Fund.
“We know the dust was toxic. We know this from my client Jimmy Zadroga’s autopsy,” said Barasch. “Which showed ground glass and benzene and carcinogens in his lung tissue.”
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