Fireman heading south on the West Side Highway and past Stuyvesant High School (right) towards the remains of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. (photo by Gabe Palacio/ImageDirect)
There were children on the ground when the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Many of them attended my former high school, Stuyvesant, which was located mere blocks from ground zero.
Those students experienced a terrifying evacuation as the dust cloud surged around them — and the danger didn’t end that day. They were sent back to the building less than a month after the attack. Despite government assurances that the air was safe, many became sick breathing the acrid fumes of ground zero.
In the aftermath of the attack, author and activist Lila Nordstrom led the charge to fight for health benefits for her classmates. Nordstrom tells the story of her experience witnessing 9/11 and advocating for fellow survivors in her moving new book, “Some Kids Left Behind: A Survivor's Fight for Health Care in the Wake of 9/11.”
Nordstrom will be on The Uprising with me today from 12-1 PM talking about her story and what it taught her about the needs of communities where disaster strikes. She will be taking questions from readers in the comments on this page.
A Conversation With Author Lila Nordstrom About The Kids We Left Behind On 9/11
There were children on the ground when the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Many of them attended my former high school, Stuyvesant, which was located mere blocks from ground zero.
Those students experienced a terrifying evacuation as the dust cloud surged around them — and the danger didn’t end that day. They were sent back to the building less than a month after the attack. Despite government assurances that the air was safe, many became sick breathing the acrid fumes of ground zero.
In the aftermath of the attack, author and activist Lila Nordstrom led the charge to fight for health benefits for her classmates. Nordstrom tells the story of her experience witnessing 9/11 and advocating for fellow survivors in her moving new book, “Some Kids Left Behind: A Survivor's Fight for Health Care in the Wake of 9/11.”
Nordstrom will be on The Uprising with me today from 12-1 PM talking about her story and what it taught her about the needs of communities where disaster strikes. She will be taking questions from readers in the comments on this page.
Please join us!
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