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Aug 20, 2007 7:05 am US/Eastern
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Firefighters 'Needlessly' Walked Into Death Trap
by Lou Young
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
It's a question many are asking: Why, nearly six years after 9/11, did two New York City firefighters have to die in the shadow of Ground Zero?
The damaged and abandoned Deutsche Bank building has been standing like a widow draped in black since the 9/11 attacks nearly six years ago.
Its deconstruction was one of the most contentious projects surrounding Ground Zero. Every aspect of the slow demolition has been the subject of numerous public meetings and many public assurances from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, but many of those assurances ring hollow.
Once again New York City firefighters were asked to climb skyward into a trap. A firehouse that lost 11 on 9/11 lost two more Saturday.
The job would've been horribly difficult in any circumstance, but on Saturday it became impossible.
The dangerous conditions in the skyscraper quickly turned the abandoned building into a death trap. Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino made the ultimate sacrifice fighting a massive fire.
New York City firefighters were forced to carry a heavy hose up 17 flights because the building's water standpipes weren't working. Exhausting work that quickly used up the air supply – more heavy equipment the firefighters were carrying.
Then they were caught in a maze of plastic and burning wood. It couldn't have been more lethal if the trap had been set on purpose.
"These fatalities were really, in a sense needless deaths because there were so many things that should've been done and weren't," said Glen Corbitt, of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign.
Of all the places this could have happened, Deutsche Bank should have been the last.
"After all the wrangling over the insurance and taking the building down and certainly the human remains problems that we've experienced in the building, you would think that there would be so much scrutiny put on this building, especially from a safety standpoint that is wasn't even a possibility," said Corbitt.
Work has now stopped on this project. It was coming down at the rate of one floor a week until this tragedy happened. It was 41-stories tall when they began taking down the tower, and now stands 26-stories high and will remain so until investigators determine the cause of Saturday's deadly fire.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)