Remembering September 11, 2001

by , CIH

September 2002 Braegen, East Central Ohio Mensa Newsletter
Karen B Bujak, Editor

©2003, Text and Pictures, Karen B. Bujak, all rights reserved

Is there one of us that doesn’t remember where we were and what we were doing on September 11, 2001?  A co-worker, listening to his radio, announced that a plane had hit a building in New York City.  I presumed he meant a Cessna or some small plane had accidentally hit the building. When, sometime later, we heard that a second plane had hit, we found a 13-inch television in our conference room, with no antenna and watched fuzzy pictures of the towers collapsing.  It was almost surreal, no one left early, some even continued working.  Did they not realize that the world, as we knew it, was changing before our very eyes?  I can understand that reaction better now.  A tragedy of that immensity could not be grasped easily, even weeks later as I stood on "ground zero" and actually viewed the devastation first hand. 

The company I worked for had been contracted to provide air-monitoring services for the tradesmen working at the site.  The contract required a Certified Industrial Hygienist to be on site at all times and I was asked to go to NYC to help.  I did not know how I could handle it, but I knew I couldn’t say no.  I arrived on October 15th and stayed two weeks.  My job was to oversee the monitoring of the workers’ exposures to the various potential hazards as they excavated the site, and to patrol the entire 16 acres with a real-time dust monitor and advise safety personnel when I spotted safety and/or health hazards.

I can’t begin to describe my experience.  The magnitude of the devastation was overwhelming.  You couldn’t see that on TV.  The banding together of the city, and of the nation, was awe-inspiring. And there are no words to describe the feeling when thousands of workers, gigantic cranes, and earth-moving equipment went suddenly silent as another person was found.

I wish I had kept a diary of my time there, especially the interactions with the NYC Police, Fire Department, Port Authority, and other New Yorkers, most of whom knew someone who was lost in the disaster.  Everyone had a story to tell.

One day, a woman had found her way inside the restricted zone and was sitting on a stone wall, just staring.  I approached her and asked if she need someone to talk to.  She poured out her story, through tears, of people she had worked with in the World Trade Center, where she had worked until her office moved a few weeks before.  I understood; she had nearly been one of the missing, too.  She thanked me for stopping, and for caring.

One of the technicians who worked for me there was an Afghan.  His story affected me deeply.  He felt the prejudice of those who believed his country was responsible for this disaster, when, in fact, he and his family were also victims of Bin Laden and the Taliban.  He has family still in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and worked long hours here to make enough to have something to send back to them to help out.

I have a new respect for the Red Cross now, too. They supplied us with food, clothing, toiletries, beds, computers, telephones, and even counseled us and gave us massages.  I still have a teddy bear given to me in the wee hours of one morning by a volunteer in the “stress-relief center.”  We were treated like royalty and heroes--something hard for me to fathom.  The heroes were the ones we were searching for.

Although only paid for 80, I worked nearly 160 hours in my two weeks there, much of it on the 6 PM to 6 AM shift.  NYC will always bring memories of fresh coffee aroma emanating from the dark, almost invisible street carts in the pre-dawn hours, as I trudged wearily back to the subway in Lower Manhattan, to my hotel, and to few hours of sleep - maybe.  In the seclusion of my room, my emotions sometimes found their way to the surface – something I didn’t have time for until my job here was done.  I was sorry to leave, but left with a new appreciation for the tenacity of the American spirit.

©2003, Karen B. Bujak, All rights reserved

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