Sally Regenhard
SallyRegenhard@aol.com
www.skyscrapersafety.org
At almost every press conference, in almost every interview, Regenhard will say that what killed her son, a probationary firefighter, was not our policy in the Mideast, a lapse in U.S. intelligence, a failure in airline security, the force of two jetliners, the depravity of Osama bin Laden, or the zealotry of nineteen homicidal maniacs. She will say the towers themselves murdered her son. The towers and the forces that built them.
"It has been proven scientifically that the World Trade Center did not collapse because two planes hit it," she continues, pointing her finger at the camera. "It collapsed because of insufficient spray-on fireproofing, which the Port Authority has known about for two decades."
Regenhard used to be a nice lady from the Bronx who worked in the nursing-home business. Today her advisory panel includes prominent professors, retired fire chiefs, and civil-liberties lawyer Norm Siegel -- "amazed at her ability to organize, amazed at her ability to handle the press."
She adds that she hasn't taken a vacation day all year and that she no longer socializes with her old friends -- just victims' families. "I know I sound obsessive," she says. "I was never like this." She starts to cry again. "I don't know why God did this to us. It has to be for a higher purpose. If we could just reform those building codes . . . "