What Christie Todd Whitman did as head of the EPA in the weeks after the attack were a tragedy. More people will die premature deaths from that smoke than from the WTC collapse because the EPA steamrolled or falsified air quality testing reports, and Whitman went forward as a public spokeswoman for the deadly charade.
I live 30 miles from WTC, and the day after the attack you couldn't help coughing when outside here. Anyone with any sense knew what was going on with the air quality.
I live in Dallas and when Mount St. Helens erupted we had the same problem here, as did much of the country. Since there was no Republican to blame not much was said about it.
You are 100 % correct