Something in the Air

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Today is March 11. It was about this time of day, on a morning six months ago, when the world stopped, watched, and listened to the stories of four airplanes and four crashes in Pennsylvania, and Virginia and New York. One image from that morning is the smoke, great brown plumes from the World Trade Center towers. And then, as the buildings collapsed, the roiling cloud of ash, dirt, smoke, and paper that seemed to envelope Manhattan for days and weeks.

Six months later, questions about that cloud are still unanswered. Medical experts are testing the rescue and the cleanup crews, and there’s disagreement over the nature and extent of the hazard; about whether the air inside apartments and schools and homes is clean.

Guests:

Thomas Cahill, Professor Emeritus of Physics and Atmospheric Science at the University of California at Davis

Hugh Kaufman, chief investigator for the Ombudsman’s office at the Environmental Protection Agency