Like most first responders, when Brooklyn Battalion Chief Richard Alles was sent to Ground Zero as part of an FDNY Brooklyn staffing contingent just twenty minutes after the second tower collapsed on 9/11, he had no idea that 22 years later, he'd still be a part of a mission meant to rescue survivors.
The number of firefighters who died from 9/11-related illnesses two decades later, nearly matches the number of responders who died on the day. Their names have recently been added to the September 11th Memorial in two separate ceremonies. And for those who are still battling long-term health effects and high medical bills, Richard Alles is still out there helping them secure funding.
Alles continued to work as a firefighter until "retirement" - when he went to work as the Director of 9/11 Community Affairs at Barasch & McGarry. Now, Alles works to "inform the 9/11 community of the compensation programs that are available to help pay for health care and medical bills for those afflicted by related illnesses."
Retired FDNY Deputy Chief, Richard Alles began working with a law firm to help other survivors secure compensation (Instagram/@thepeopleschief)And the program, all these years later, is still seeing applications, as nearly 10,000 people are considered to have long-term health problems after 9/11.
After the area was secured, city officials reopened Wall Street a week later and encouraged people to come back to their homes in Lower Manhattan, clean out the dust, and start living again. Since then, researchers have identified more than 60 types of cancer and about two dozen other conditions that are linked to Ground Zero exposures.
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"Of the survivor community, a community of 400,000 or so, only 10 per cent of those people are enrolled in the health program or have sought compensation with the Victim Compensation Fund because the federal government doesn't do any public service announcements or anything," Alles continued to say.
And according to Alles, the initial effects of working near the site were obvious. Many of his coworkers began to come down with respiratory illnesses, and some had to retire early. Even he felt the effects and said it took his lungs six months to recover. One day, way after the attacks, Alles tried to go running, as usual. And found that he couldn't run.
Alles' may be retired but continues to work on 9/11 related issues (NYSE/Valerie Caviness)"When I first began working on getting the 9/11 health and compensation law passed and then started in 2007, I was a deputy chief in the FDNY at the time but ran for office in my labour union, which was the Uniform Fire Officers Association," Alles explained. "2007 was a critical year because it was the year after NYPD Detective James Zadroga died of pulmonary fibrosis, which is an insidious disease that basically suffocates you."
"And when they opened up his [Zadroga's] lungs, they found everything that we were claiming to the federal government and to New York City was in the air, which was ground glass, heavy metals, benzene, chromium, [and] asbestos - a perfect cancer-causing toxic group. That's the first forensic evidence, and that's what we used to get the law passed. So there were two aspects to it: the health care, the World Trade Center Health Program, and then the Victim Compensation Fund, which is the compensatory side," said Alles sadly.
Michael Crane, MD, MPH, director of the World Trade Center Health Program Clinical Center of Excellence at The Mount Sinai Hospital, says that the average age of a 9/11 first responder is now about 55. While every individual faces a cancer diagnosis as they age, the rate of some cancers among first responders is up to 30 per cent higher than in the general population, according to the medical professional. Alles has seen the same among friends and others who have applied for compensation in the years since.
Many first responders have publicly gone on record to talk about the failings of the government to keep them safe, during and after the events of 9/11 (Richard Alles)
Alles says he watches people get cancer diagnosis at ages that are far too young, and he knows the culprit - because he was there (Instagram/@thepeopleschief)"Now, in all of those years of advocating, it took many, many years because when the law first passed in 2010, both aspects of the law were only put in place for five years. We had to go back to Washington again prior to 2015 to get the law extended. And at that time, we were able to get the World Trade Center Health Program permanently in place, permanently funded, and then got the Victim Compensation Fund extended for another five years," Alles went on to explain.
The fight for compensation for victims gained national attention after a number of Republican lawmakers refused to vote for it. Comedian John Stewart, who had the national platform, had to dedicate an episode of his own show in order to publicly air interviews and evidence of severe illnesses in order to gain enough national sympathy to get first responders and the people of Lower Manhattan the necessary healthcare costs covered.
"So my concern was always what was going to happen when the medical proponents had told us that we could expect cancers in 10 to 20 years. I mean, people started getting sick much sooner than that. Personally, I had no illusions about the contamination that was in the air," said Alles.
But he went on to say that for him, he took an oath as a firefighter to do this kind of work. He expressed deep concern about the many who did not sign up for this. The FDNY instituted a call to all other firefighters, so there were plenty of volunteers who weren't counted in the numbers submitted to the city from that department.
When he arrived at the scene of the collapsed towers, Alles said he "thought that we were going to be part of the largest search and rescue operation in our nation's history, and I had no doubt that we were going to be finding hundreds upon hundreds of people. Little did I know, if I really had some time to think and process it, the way the buildings collapsed with pancakes ash and all, everything was basically pushed into the earth. We weren't gonna find anyone, but at that time, we didn't know that."
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Now, though, we know better. Even those who escaped the dust cloud tornado down New York streets, chasing those who had already escaped the towers, have to worry about health problems related to that debris. Technically, Alles is still looking for survivors and finding ways to help them.
Retired FDNY Deputy Chief, Richard Alles knew that the city tried to herald people back to Lower Manhattan way too early - and now over 10,000 are sick, according to medical experts (Instagram/@thepeopleschief)"My eyes were opened by the extent of the people and coming in touch with people that were really innocent victims. Anybody in the survivor community is truly an innocent victim. And then I became passionate about that," said Alles.
"The federal government could really be doing a lot more to inform people who have no idea. And then, even when people in those categories of survivor when they find out about the law, they think it's just for first responders.
"We dealt with a lot of politicians from across the country, and the biggest problem was we had to let them know that it was not a New York problem. I used to tell these politicians wherever they were in the country. I said, well, the terrorists, if, if the Twin Towers were located in Dallas, Texas, and the Twin Towers were a symbol of democracy, that's why they chose them. They just happened to be in New York City.
"That's why they went there. They didn't make an attack on New York City. They didn't say, well, 'let's go attack and bomb Tribeca.' No, it was an attack on America. So we had to overcome that. There's this New York animosity, even though New York first responders are responding to tragedies all across our country. Anything if something happens in California or Texas or Florida, we're the first ones there.
"So I used to take exception to that, and there was a lot to overcome with those red state cities. that they just didn't want to hear about it, but eventually they came along, I think because there was no other choice. You don't want to be on the wrong side of history when the 9/11 bill was going to get passed."
"And even with that, there would always be a couple, and one in particular in the Senate was Rand Paul, who's still there. He voted no all three times in 2010, 2015, and then in 2019 - always with some failed excuse. I mean, it's just infuriating," Alles presses on.
Alles with John Stewart and other heroes who came forward to talk about the illnesses prevalent at ground zero, and the importance of compensation for survivors (Richard Alles)Alles talks about his clients. Some are women who are 26 or 27 years old, who came down with breast cancer, which is really unprecedented in the general population. It is a result of their exposure to the toxins in the schools that they went to, according to the former first responder turned advocate. He also says that within a few years, other first responders, young men in their 30s, were being diagnosed with prostate cancers at rates that are only common to the elderly population.
"All the politicians wanted to get their picture taken with first responders that are wearing a dress uniform," said Alles, who noted that part of the reason that the world forgets there are more survivors is because of photo ops like this. While many first responders had health insurance as a part of their jobs, others, like those volunteers or residents or students, do not.
"I speak to people who talk to me at the law firm, and they feel guilty about filing a claim, and say they don't want to take any money away from first responders. I'm glad that I'm a first responder. I let them know my background to take that guilt away and say, hey, you're not taking any money away from first responders because every claim is paid on its individual merit. A dollar to one person is not a dollar less than someone else."
"And now that the Victim Compensation Fund is permanently funded, there's money there. Once people hear that, you know, it's great. I mean, it restores my faith in humanity," Alles concludes.
As of today, 341 former FDNY personnel have died, 95 per cent of them from cancer, according to Alles. To put that in perspective, 343 firefighters died on the day of the attacks.
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