Sally Regenhard, the mother of 28-year-old Christian Regenhard, a Fire Department of New York (FDNY) probationary firefighter killed in the World Trade Center (WTC) collapse on September 11, 2001, urged attendees at the Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC) to put their safety first.
“All the power is in your hands,” she said. “We need you to get angry … to take care of yourselves. Let us establish legislation of safety. “We need to change building codes. We need the influence of the fire service,” she emphasized at the April 11 General Session. She is proposing that 50 percent of the committee for code reform be comprised of members of the fire service, including fire protection engineers. “Today, she added, “builders can construct structures of any size for money and greed.”
Regenhard, the founder and chairperson of The Skyscraper Safety Campaign, asked the audience members to contact President George W. Bush; Congressman Sherwood Boehlert, chairman of the House Science Committee; and their federal legislators to solicit their support for the establishment of a presidential commission to lead the investigation of the WTC collapse.
In pressing for their support and the petitioning of legislators to establish a presidential panel to investigate the WTC collapse, Regenhard told the hushed audience: “The good news is that President George W. Bush has authorized $16 million to investigate the collapse of the WTC. The bad news is that the agency doing the investigation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cannot testify in any court of law regarding the results of this investigation. Even worse, this agency does not have subpoena power.” She implored the audience members not to let their families have to go through what she and all the survivors of those lost at the WTC have had to endure.
President George W. Bush may be contacted at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW; Washington, DC 20500; Phone: (202) 456-1414; Fax: (202) 456-2461. Congressman Sherwood Boehlert may be reached at 2246 Rayburn House Office building, Washington, DC 20515; Phone: (202) 225-3665; Fax: (202) 225-1891.
