[jorian]

A friend of mine is a local FF here in Vancouver. His brother was travelling at the time of the attacks and happened to have a planned stop in NYC. My buddy had planned on visiting him there and as soon as air traffic resumed he went. He took his FF credentials and gear with him. He was allowed on site and worked for three days clearing debris. On his 4th day they shut the site down to volunteers and restricted access only to those workers that had been vetted by the state.

Turns out they weren't as concerned about his safety as they were about the security of bank vault deposits somewhere in the bowels of the WTC. Workers found torch marks on vault doors within the first week of the buildings coming down. Crime never sleeps. I read that mob-controlled interests were busy carving up the clean-up contracts hours after the first tower fell.

Another thing he mentioned was how many other first responders on site had respirators but didn't wear them. They were handed out to everyone on site as mandatory gear. My buddy wore his anytime he was on or near the site. He could tell by just walking around that there was a lot of air contamination.