With several diaries appearing today concerning Whitehouse manipulation of a USEPA report on the hazards relative to the WTC collapse, I thought it would be helpful to inject a bit of insight on how Emergency Responses work and who knows what about possible toxic exposures.
Reading the diaries and comments suggest that many people believe the EPA was in charge of risk assessment relative to the collapse of the WTC. This would be wrong.
I should say that I was not involved in the response, and do not have intimate knowledge of the details. But I do know how EPA and local responders plan for the coordination of forces, and how they bring the necessary resources to bear.
This diary will help interested parties to understand what happens behind-the-scene at an Emergency Response, how public health is safeguarded, and who the players are. More below:
Municipalities of any size have a designated Emergency Response (ER) plan that details available resources and establishes a chain of command for implementing a proper response in case of a disaster. New York City most assuredly has a robust ER. It includes Hazardous Materials experts with training on health risks and exposure control.
When catastrophic events occur and responders are called to the scene they rely on their training and command structure to implement action with little deliberation. The hundreds of hours of training and drill serve to protect them and make certain that they are effective. We saw that with the huge roll-out and immediate response that the Towers received. Much force was brought to bear and many people were rescued. Mistakes were made in that initial response and flaws were evident, but that is not the subject here. I'm interested in the follow up - the exposures to nearby residents and site workers.
I'm certain that the ER plan for the WTC included everything up to the point where the buildings collapsed. That's when the situation moved beyond the plan. That is when training and discipline would have to serve them. They would have known about structural stability and fire fighting procedure. Those are elements of their daily routine.
What they were thin on was hazardous materials management and respiratory protection, especially on the surreal scale of this incident. They would have had training on use of supplied-air apparatus for a fire and initial response. They were not there to mount a hazardous materials cleanup - even though the elements of HAZMAT would have been touched on in their training. They would have been told to subdue the calamity and back off for specially trained hazardous materials crews to assume the response.
At this scale of disaster it is important to note that hundreds of responders were trapped and killed. A certain "fog" would have enveloped the incident-testing the ability of everyone involved to maintain focus and assure safety procedures were followed. The sight of Firefighters clawing at the debris pile trying to reach victims was the first indication that the response was spiralling out of control. I understand why it happened, but it was an indication that the command structure was fractured.
So here is where we get to who is responsible for the reported hazardous exposures. Again, I was not there, but I can assure you that the following activities would have occured:
In the immediate aftermath of the building collapse, New York City officials with responsibilty for hazardous materials would have known that they had a big potential exposure. They would have quickly constructed a hazard matrix based on the building materials, the extent of the debris, and the likely exposures to citizens and responders. They would have been overwhelmed, but they would have had resources.
The City Emergency Operations Center(EOC)would have contacted the National Response Center (NRC)and requested assistance. This is responders version of dialling 9-1-1. The NRC is Federal agency responsible for getting proper and adequate extra assistance to the site.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) undoubtedly was alerted and they would have shown up with their tool - the Emergency and Rapid Response Services (ERRS) Contractor. These are private sector folks that have the ability to identify hazards and mitigate them. They are selected based on their proven qualifications. They assist local responders.
With outside involvement by the Federal government(USEPA)a new command structure would have been established. Typically this is called the Unified Command (UC) and it would include all responsible agencies - Fed/State/City. The EPA would assign an On Scene Coordinator (OSC) who would have authority to bring considerable technical assistance from a program in USEPA called Emergency Response Team (ERT).
This brain-trust of trained professionals would put together a plan to assess the situation, protect health, provide for a safe response activity. This is where the EPA got involved with air sampling. The OSC and his technical contractors would have begun air monitoring based on their training and ability to assess hazards. The results would inform the OSC's decisions about how to guide the response.
The EPA Emergency Response Team COULD have Federalized the response and taken control of the WTC site. Apparently they did not. That is the OSC's perogative, in consultation with other Federal officials, reaching up to the Director. This is where the situation gets blurry.
New York City authorities continued to maintain control of the WTC site. That means that they convinced the Federal On Site Coordinator and his bosses that NYC could handle the job. That also means the property owner would have shown sufficient resources to mount a response. That would have included a Work Plan that identified how the public health and safety would be maintained.
That Work Plan exists somewhere. In that Work Plan are the details of exposure monitoring and minimum site entry requirements. The monitoring plan would be supported by some preliminary analysis. Something exists that says, "hey we can allow guys to work in the Hot Zone in surgical masks". Or maybe not.
In that Work Plan are the details of Personal Protection Equipment for all site workers. In that Work Plan are specifications for Perimeter Monitoring to determine whether residents and other authorized entrants were not being endangered. Documentation of this ongoing analysis exist as a record of events.
The details of everything I have described are public record. That is where what happened, and who authorized what, is contained. That is where the string that leads to the truth begins.