We recently passed the anniversary of 9-11-2001 tragedy of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. I wanted to remind everyone that the effects of that fateful day are still being felt and especially by some of the heroes that were affected by the initial exposure and then the secondary exposure that took place during the cleanup. Some of those exposed were firefighters, police officers, EMTs (Emergency Medical Technician), construction workers, transit workers, cleanup workers, debris removal crews, truck drivers, nearby office workers, and Lower Manhattan residents.

This was extremely personal for me. My good friend and business partner Ed Kranepool (69 Mets) and I were in the tower’s conference room with the Port Authority attorneys just days before that attack took place. We were meeting about us starting to encase the elevator shafts and then continuing to encase all the asbestos spray-on fireproofing on all the structural steel on all the floors where asbestos was present. I had already successfully applied 8,000 gallons of our coatings on over half a million square feet of asbestos containing spray-on fireproofing covering the structural steel in the loading docks. 

Asbestos wasn’t the only toxic material that was in the debris. There were also harmful levels of heavy metals, which included antimony, chromium, arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead and zinc. This mixed array of hazardous debris also contained electronic waste from computers, monitors, batteries and other toxic substances from, paints, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and other toxic substances.

All this lead to the unnecessary exposure that took place during the cleanup.

Disaster Cleanup Can Lead to Their Own Disasters –https://valqrs.wixsite.com/encasementguyblog/single-post/2017/12/29/Disa...

Big Disasters Produce Big Hazards Causing Both Primary & Secondary Exposure - https://valqrs.wixsite.com/encasementguyblog/single-post/2017/12/18/Big-...


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