On Sept. 11, 2001, Scott Strauss learned about the attack on the World Trade Center while traveling to his home in Mineola.
A detective with the New York Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit, Strauss immediately returned to Ground Zero, where two passenger planes had crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, which both collapsed into a giant heap of rubble.
Strauss joined rescue teams to search for survivors amid the dust that enveloped the area with a toxic mix of chemicals.
He and his team were instrumental in rescuing Port Authority Police Officer Will Jimeno and Sgt. John McLoughlin, who were trapped beneath the rubble.
Strauss’s heroism on 9/11 was later depicted in Oliver Stone’s film “World Trade Center,” in which actor Stephen Dorff played him.
Strauss has gone on to serve as a Village of Mineola trustee and then mayor. He currently serves as a Nassau County legislator and has been active in the Mineola Fire Department.
Some of those who joined Strauss on the pile have not been so lucky.
This is what makes the Trump administration cutbacks at the World Trade Center Health Program so wrong. The federally funded initiative provides medical monitoring and treatment for individuals affected by the Sept. 11 attacks – a need that continues to this day.
The cutbacks began with Dr. John Howard, the longtime director of the WTCHP and a pivotal figure in its establishment, who was dismissed during a wave of federal job cuts ordered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Howard had led the program for over a decade and was widely regarded as its guiding force.
He was reinstated after a public outcry. But 16 probationary staff members, who were fired, were not reinstated and five other full-time staffers accepted buyouts.
These reductions amount to a 23% decrease in the program’s workforce, raising concerns about potential delays in enrollment and medical care approvals for 9/11 survivors.
More than 112,000 emergency responders, clean-up workers, volunteers and residents are enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program not only in New York City but in the two other places that were attacked on 9/11 – the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pa., where the fourth airplane crashed.
Approximately 15,000 of the first responders enrolled in the program are members of New York City’s Fire Department — firefighters, Emergency Medical Services personnel and others — who were exposed to dust, gases, chemicals, particulates and fibers over the 10 months that they searched for the bodies of the 2,753 people who died at the World Trade Center. Many live in Nassau County.
Of those enrolled, about 11,000 have been diagnosed with cancer, lung ailments, post-traumatic stress disorder and other diseases.
The impact on Nassau County has been powerful.
Some 344 residents of Nassau County lost their lives in the World Trade Center attacks. This number is commemorated at the Nassau County 9/11 Memorial in Eisenhower Park, where a stone wall bears the names of these individuals.
In the years since 9/11, many more have died from illnesses related to the attacks, such as cancers and respiratory diseases caused by exposure to toxic debris.
The Town of Hempstead’s memorial wall has grown from approximately 2,500 names to over 4,000, reflecting the ongoing toll of 9/11-related illnesses.
On Long Island and across New York, elected officials have responded strongly and bipartisanally to the World Trade Center Health Program cutbacks.
U.S. senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand have demanded that Kennedy immediately reverse the program’s staffing cuts. New York’s two senators accurately called the cuts a betrayal of the nation’s commitment to its 9/11 heroes.
U.S. Reps. Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen joined Rep. Gregory Meeks and other Democratic House colleagues in also urging Kennedy to reverse the staffing terminations and funding cuts, stating that such actions should not have occurred.
U.S. Rep. Andrew Garbarino, who represents part of Nassau County, joined fellow Republican Representatives Mike Lawler, Nick LaLota, and Nicole Malliotakis in successfully lobbying the White House to reinstate Howard as the program’s administrator and acknowledging the WTCHP’s importance to their constituents.
The Trump administration should listen to the bipartisan coalition that has responded to the cutbacks.
Studies have shown that the program’s work has saved lives.
The federal government should provide this needed care to people like Scott Strauss, who risked their lives trying to save those trapped amid the World Trade Center’s rubble and to give closure to the families of those they could not save.
We as a nation owe them nothing less.
