Hillary Clinton recalls Ground Zero after 9/11: ‘As close to a depiction of hell that I’ve ever personally seen’
Hillary Clinton says what she witnessed at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks was as close to a “depiction of hell” as she’s ever seen.
“We saw this curtain of black smoke that was stretched across the island,” Clinton told CNN in an interview that aired Sunday, the 15th anniversary of the attacks. “Occasionally it would be broken by a firefighter coming out. I remember one image so indelibly, dragging his ax, and it was as close to a depiction of hell that I’ve ever personally seen.”
Clinton, then a New York senator, was in Washington, D.C., on her way to the Senate when the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. Soon after she arrived on Capitol Hill, Clinton learned of the second plane hitting the south tower — and did what most Americans did: watched the television coverage of it all in horror.
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“I got to a TV as quickly as possible to begin monitoring it,” she recalled. “It was just a sickening experience.”
Nearly 3,000 people were killed and over 6,000 others injured in the attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2001 — the deadliest attack on U.S. soil.
“The loss of life was overwhelming,” Clinton said. “I went like so many others to the armory and the piers, looking to see what was happening, how people were reacting. But it was also my job and the job of other officials to get our city and state and country what we needed.”
The next day, Clinton and her fellow New York senator, Chuck Schumer, flew to New York and saw the devastation at Ground Zero firsthand.
“This attack on New York is an attack on America,” Clinton proclaimed while touring the site. “It’s an attack on every American.”
In the days that followed, Clinton met with families of the victims.
“I would meet these shattered lives of people where they were broken, but I saw so many of them strengthen and show such resilience. So I felt privileged,” Clinton said. “It gave me an insight into the human spirit — and I like to think the spirit of New York and America — that I wish every American could understand.”
Clinton helped spearhead the rebuilding effort, personally lobbying President George W. Bush for federal aid.
But months later, after learning that Bush administration officials had misled New Yorkers about the safety of the air over Ground Zero, Clinton was livid.
“I don’t think any of us expected that our government would knowingly deceive us about something as sacred as the air we breathe,” she said in a recently unearthed August 2003 interview with WNYC. “The air that our children breathe in schools, that our valiant first responders were facing on the pile.”
The smoldering pile, it turned out, contained a toxic combination of asbestos, glass and metal, sickening first responders with respiratory diseases and cancers for years to come.
“I am outraged,” Clinton continued. “In the immediate aftermath, the first couple of days, nobody could know. But a week later? Two weeks later? Two months later? Six months later? Give me a break!”
On Sunday, Clinton attended the Sept. 11 Commemoration Ceremony at Ground Zero but left abruptly.
According to the Clinton campaign, she “felt overheated,” was transported to her daughter Chelsea’s apartment, “and is feeling much better.”
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