13 days that shook their world: a team of rescue and recovery workers help with the aftermath of Sept, 11, but pay a steep price in terms of their health and out-of-pocket expenses

Risk & Insurance, Sept 1, 2007 by Steve Yahn

Summary

* Harold Schapelhouman and his 67 team members of California Task Force 3 provided pivotal support at ground zero immediately following Sept. 11.

* But their work exposed the firefighters to particulate-dense smoke at the World Trade Center site.

* For Schapelhouman and his crew, recovery--physically, mentally and economically--is still ongoing.

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Not long after leaving his doctor's office recently, 46-year-old Harold Schapelhouman, chief of the Menlo Park, Calif., Fire Protection District and national recovery and rescue unit, said over his cell phone, "Now I've got asthmatic bronchitis."

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For Schapelhouman and many of the 67 members of California Task Force 3 who followed him to the World Trade Center, the months post-Sept. 11, 2001, have been a long and arduous road to physical and emotional recovery--not to mention financial recompense.

Schapelhouman and his group--professional rescuers, doctors, bulldozing specialists, fire fighters, police and communications experts, among others--played two crucial roles at ground zero.

The first assignment, even now listening to Schapelhouman matter-of-factly recount it, offers a chilling inside look at what could have been further disasters related to the ground zero tragedy.

Just nine days after Sept. 11, Schapelhouman's group arrived at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Midtown Manhattan awaiting their first mission. What they were asked to do stunned them. They were asked to develop and staff a Rapid Response Task Force Concept for the city.

"That term had never been used before, nor was it standard practice," recalls Schapelhouman. "What it ended up being was that, within 24 hours, we were asked to provide and develop the capability for all of New York in ease secondary attacks were to occur. And I can tell you just the first meeting at the Javits Center down there literally made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Because they were very fearful--there were representatives of the mayor's office there--of secondary attacks."

Many of the city's physical resources for rapid response had been destroyed or lost. "So," says Schapelhouman, "the city's physical ability to respond to a second or a third event was almost nonexistent."

In the face of this, within 24 hours of their arrival on Sept. 20, Schapelhouman and his men commandeered a beer truck to haul equipment and a prison vehicle to transport members of the team and built the infrastructure necessary to carry out a counterresponse to another attack.

"Within 24 hours, we technically ended up being the only backup New York City had for any other event," Schapelhouman says proudly.

California Task Force 3's next assignment was a dangerous one from a day-in-and-day-out health standpoint--rescue and recovery work on "the Pile" in 12-hour, nightside shifts.

"Literally it was like the end of the earth because, here you were, surrounded by complete devastation," he recalls. "If it wasn't the smoke or the fires, then it was soot or the lights. There was no heavy equipment being used where we were, so a lot of what we did was hand jacking work."

With regard to his task force's own health, they did make one significant error. "We set up across the street from the World Trade Center and that forward-staging area was in the plume itself, meaning the particular matter and the debris and so forth, the smoke even, kind of wafted over that area. As soon as our guys came clear of the actual site, they would take off their mask." This was allowed by the group's rule, but left them in a highly saturated area of dangerous particular matter and other debris.

Schapelhouman himself was in special danger because, as the leader of the group, he often had to remove his face mask to communicate more effectively. "As a manager, as much as I felt I probably needed to wear a mask, because I had to give physical orders to people to their face and I had to talk on the phone and the radio, I often did not wear a mask," he says.

California Task Force 3's deployment time at the Trade Center was for about 13 days, with each team member spending at least 56 hours, or four operational periods, on duty.

For Schapelhouman, days often blended into other days--when he wasn't directing his team on their night shift, he spent days coordinating activities with dayside managers--again, often not being able to wear a mask.

CONNECTING THE DOTS

Once the task force returned to California, it was only by happenstance they collectively began to realize the extent of probable Sept. 11-induced maladies they had suffered.

The occasion for this realization was the gathering of some 200 family members and friends of the group at the Napa estate of one of the members of the Swanson frozen-food fortune.

"One of our guys came home early," Schapelhouman recounts, "and when word got around on his plane of what he'd done, somebody gave up their first-class seat for him. He ended up next to a woman who happened to be Mrs. Swanson, and she asked what she could do to help out. Our guy said, 'Well, you know, every time we come back from one of these events, we try and throw a barbecue or picnic for our families and kids."