“I don’t think even Al Qaeda thought this would happen,” said John Mormando, 54, from Oakland, N.J., who was working as a commodities broker a few blocks from ground zero in 2001. “It was a bonus for them. They thought they killed 3,000 that day, but no one would have thought this would still be killing people.”

He later underwent a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer, an ailment suffered by a cluster of men who spent time near ground zero.

“We were told that the air was fine, and we needed to get back to work,” he said. “There were buildings still on fire.”

Carrie Benedict Foley’s husband, Daniel Foley, died in 2020 at age 46 from pancreatic cancer believed to be linked to his exposure to airborne debris while he searched for survivors at ground zero, including his firefighter brother, Thomas J. Foley, 32, whose body was found 10 days after the collapse.

Daniel’s annual medical screenings never showed ailments until the cancer was diagnosed in 2019, four days after he crawled into a burning Bronx building to rescue two children, which earned him the Fire Department’s Medal of Honor, Ms. Foley said.

Daniel knew his death would devastate their five young children, but he did not regret working on the pile at ground zero. He would come home each night from ground zero with his clothes caked with toxic dust, said Ms. Foley, 47, a funeral director from New Rochelle, N.Y.

“When he was diagnosed, he said, ‘It wouldn’t have changed what I did, even though it made me sick,’” she said.

“It’s two decades later and people are still getting killed by it — the aftereffects are still happening,” Bridget Gormley said of the attacks. Her father, William J. Gormley, was a New York City firefighter who died from lung cancer in 2017 at age 53, 16 years after responding to Sept. 11 and helping in recovery efforts at ground zero for weeks.

“Everybody in the Sept. 11 community who doesn’t have cancer is looking over their shoulder, wondering, ‘When am I next?’” said Ms. Gormley, shown here with her 23-year-old triplet brothers: Billy Jr., Raymond and Kevin.

Barbara Burnette was a police officer (in the gang unit in the 73rd Prescient in Brownsville. On 9/11, Burnette jumped in boats with four other female police officers and took people (including a laboring pregnant woman) from Ground Zero to Sunset Park, Brooklyn. She and her colleagues were hit with the dust when the second tower fell, and Barbara then continued working on the pile in the bucket brigade. She later helped ID body parts in the makeshift morgue. 

Burnette has developed several illnesses since. Once a college and NYPD basketball player, she now uses a wheelchair due to her severe lung disease, late-stage lung cancer and complications. She lives with 3/4ths of lung capacity but isn't a candidate for a lung transplant due to the lung disease. The same disease that forced her to retired from the force in 2006, she wouldn't develop lung cancer until 2017. She and her husband, Lee, a fellow NYPD officer, live in Queens, "I'm still in denial for the things I can't do," Barbara says. "I was an athlete, I never got sick.

Tom Wilson, 52, poses for a portrait at the Bellport Marina on Monday. Wilson was an NYPD officer at the 90th Precinct which typically covers the Williamsburg and Bushwick neighborhoods in Brooklyn. On 911 Wilson was tasked with keeping traffic from crossing the Williamsburg Bridge on the Manhattan side. Willson served with the US Military in Bosnia and knowing that bridges are often targets in combat zones. In the days that followed 911, Wilson and one of his colleagues went to a Hasidic hardware store and asked the clerk if they had anything that might help them in their rescue efforts. Wilson was given a pair of heavy gloves and went to go help with the rescue effort. Later on, Wilson's job was at Staten Island's Fish Kill Landfill, raking through debris in what was called the "final recovery." He was meant to sift through debris that had been brought there and look for any valuable objects. Although they wore tyvek suits, Wilson thinks they were still breathing in a lot of debris when they went to lunch "the wind was so strong, and we were just in these little tents" he said. From 2004-2006 Wilson began to develop GERD, rhinosinusitis, sleep apnea and chronic bronchitis. It wasn't until 2008 that the long term effects of Wilson's exposure manifested in oral cancer, tongue cancer. Wilson had a chunk of his wrist cut out and made into a new tongue he also had an artery taken out of the same arm and put into his neck to supply the tongue with blood. To be safe, the doctor removed 38 lymph nodes on the right side of Wilson's body and then came the radiation. Wilson is still in physical therapy for his neck and suffers pain in his tongue if he talks for too long and has a condition called Osteonecrosis of the Jaw or ONJ which is when the bone cells in your jaw break down or die. Wilson retired from the police force in November of 2020 and lives in Bellport with his wife Jen and five children.

Mike O'Connell was a fire fighter in Flatbush, Brooklyn when 911 happened. He was a "probie" at the time-- someone very new to the fire department. He had only graduated from the fire academy in May of 01. O'Connell got sick in 2007 while his wife was pregnant with their first child. At first he was diagnosed with lymphoma and given only months to live. It wasn't until later that the doctors figured out what he actually has which is sarcoidosis, a condition that comes from exposure to toxins. By 2010 O'Connell was a lieutenant but had to get off they job because his lungs were so bad. He now coaches his son's lacrosse teams and helps care for his three children.

When Val Velazquez-Stetz, 53, of Wall Township, N.J., assisted as a Jersey City police officer in the effort to recover remains at ground zero, the air was so laden with dust that it felt like a snowstorm, yet she wore no mask.

Within months, she began having sinus and lung problems that worsened over the years. Then came skin cancer and severe reflux.

“I didn’t know it was related — just thought I was an unlucky person,” she said, adding that she has helped some 300 people, mostly responders from New Jersey, apply for the federal benefits.

For Lower Manhattan residents, “we’re one big cancer cluster at this point,” said Mariama James, 50. She and her husband, David James, 49, have three children — Abishai, 28, Armani, 25 and Alijah, 19 — who have had chronic Sept. 11-related illnesses largely from their exposure to ground zero dust in their apartment building five blocks from the site. Ms. James was pregnant with Alijah on Sept. 11.

“It was a hot day, over 80 degrees, so all the windows were open,” she said, adding that the apartment got so dirty, she had to tear up the carpet in her children’s room and throw out all of the furniture.

Ken Muller, 62, who worked at Goldman Sachs in Lower Manhattan, followed the government’s guidance that the financial markets should reopen days after the attacks and that the air was safe.

“I came home every day with dust on my clothes,” said Mr. Muller. “Most people who worked in Lower Manhattan were not thinking about this — they never connected the dots.”

Along with a host of other Sept. 11-related illnesses, he learned he had kidney cancer in 2015. After a year of daily chemotherapy, he still suffers from mental fogginess he attributes to “chemo brain.”

“A lot of people believed this just happened to first responders, but a lot of us went to work every day and were inhaling the same dust,” said Yvonne Phang, 69, an accounting professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College several blocks from ground zero, where classes resumed weeks after the attacks.

“In my sixth-floor classroom, my students would have to cover mouths and noses, it smelled so horrible,” she said. “The dust would blow through the windows.”

“No one knew it could impact us that way,” said Ms. Phang, who had a double mastectomy for breast cancer. Dozens of her colleagues have received diagnoses of Sept. 11-related illnesses, some of whom have died, she said.

“Many people who got sick are embarrassed to talk about their illnesses,” she said. “They avoid talking about Sept. 11 because they are so traumatized they want to forget it.”

Liz Wilson, 62, of Beacon, N.Y., was assigned to ground zero as a social worker for emergency medical workers and family members of victims. A nonsmoker, she has since experienced lung and breathing problems, including asthma, and growths in her lungs, breast and nose.

“I was a very strong person and now I have anxiety attacks,” she said. “If I see a lot of people running, I want to crawl under something.”

Amit  Friedlander was a senior at Stuyvesant High School when 9/11 happened. He and his classmates were evacuated from the school but returned to their normal campus in October of 2001, just a month after the attack. After high school, Friedlander went to the University of Pennsylvania where he frequently experienced flu like symptoms. It wasn't until after graduating from college that he went in for a routine checkup that a lump was found in his lungs. At the age of 22 Friedlander was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. Friedlander was able to go into remission and at the age of 37 is considered cured from his cancer but now has early onset Parkinson's disease. A condition that hasn't been linked yet to the WTC health program.

Lila Nordstrom, 37, was a senior at Stuyvesant High School near ground zero on Sept. 11 and fled with her fellow students away from the thick dust plume as the north tower collapsed. By Oct. 9, they were back in class.

Her asthma quickly worsened and she developed rhinosinusitis and extreme acid reflux, which she believes is connected to the students’ exposure that fall and winter.

“As students we were told, ‘Everything’s fine, don’t worry about it,’” she said. “We were minors, we shouldn’t have been down there.”

“A lot of people don’t understand how bad the exposure was and how bad the issues are that we have,” she said.

Anne-Marie Principe poses for a portrait in Lower Manhattan near to where the Twin Towers once stood. Principe, 62, was ran a fashion company out of an office in the area. She was on the street when the Towers were attacked and got covered in debris. She went on to suffer severe lung damage and needed assistance from a machine to breathe until very recently. Principe also suffered a brain tumor caused by the exposure and underwent brain surgery while conscious. She is now battling breast cancer and lost her best friend to 9/11 related cancer three months ago. Principe carries a flag that a soldier gave to her as she was walking down to her office on September 12. She's held onto it for 20 years and is one of her most precious items. She also wears the boots that she wore when going to work in the days and weeks that followed. "They would spray down our shoes," Principe says "when we were leaving the area they'd spray them with a hose and I said 'not my Pradas!'" Principe bought the boots to walk through the debris and she wore them as she fought for legislation on Capitol Hill.

Jose Santiago, 72, was the news director at WBAI Radio when 9/11 happened. He was on his way into his office on Wall Street when the second plane hit. As the director he went upstairs to the news desk while his City Hall reporter rushed to the scene. WBAI was still broadcasting because their radio tower was on top of the Empire State Building. Shortly after the second plane hit, Santiago's office was asked to evacuate and he went into he field to report. It would be just a few days before Santiago and his colleagues were let back into the building but he went back to the pile over 20 times. Six months after the attacks Santiago began to develop a cough that never quite left him, along with sinus issues. He would later develop COPD, GERD, skin cancer and PTSD. "People [who are sick] don't want sympathy, they don't necessarily want acknowledgement... it's not like we want our own monument at Ground Zero. But I really would love for there to be a general understanding for everyone who went through that who are now dealing with these illnesses," Santiago says, " We're doing it all with these limitations... going to daughters weddings and can't breathe. Everything is such a chore. And you're so thankful that you're still around and thankful that you're getting good care... at the same time it effects everything, you know? And it's always there, and every year about this time you know it's coming."

Martin Preston, 68, was a New York City employee who helped set up tables, chairs and other equipment at ground zero for months after Sept. 11 and later developed fibrosis in his lungs as well as asthma and severe acid reflux.

“It’s the catastrophe that keeps on giving,” he said

Andrew Pillay, 58, who worked at a printing and advertising firm near ground zero, helped work on the pile for several days and then sifted through heavy dust in his office. He now has sinusitis, lung disease, asthma, severe reflux and thyroid cancer.

He began being treated at the World Trade Center Health Program at Mount Sinai in 2005 after he began to have health problems, and in 2013 he had surgery to rebuild his esophagus, which was damaged by reflux.

“It’s just a constant fight,” Mr. Pillay said. “Twenty years later, and I’m still suffering.”

He added, “Every time you think you have something fixed, something else kicks off.”

Mary Montgomery, 57, of Stroudsburg, Pa., said her husband, Jeffrey Montgomery, died in 2018 at 59 from esophageal cancer that she believes stemmed from his five months of emergency telecommunications work during the ground zero recovery.

“This man was like an iron horse,” she said. “He was never sick. He worked 16 hours a day at ground zero and forbid me from coming anywhere near it.”

She said he became a city bus driver after the telecommunications company laid him off along with other co-workers following their Sept. 11 work. Several of the workers have also died, she said.

“His doctor said this type of cancer was an anomaly, given his medical history, and that he could only have gotten this type of cancer from exposure,” she said. “He was like, ‘That’s why I have this?’”

Bill Roane poses for a portrait at his home. Roane, 74, was working as a psychology professor at BMCC when 9-11 happened. He lead his students out of the building and to safety, telling them not to look behind them. His illnesses began around 2017 but it wasn't until September of 2019 that a tumor was found and he was diagnosed with rectal cancer. Mr. Roane has to wear an ostomy bag which he hopes will be removed in the fall.

Barbara Mohan poses for a portrait in her apartment. For months, Mohan was wheelchair bound in her home while she battled Lymphoma, a cancer she contracted from working near the debris pile of the fallen twin towers. Ms. Mohan considers herself lucky, she works hard at her job at Barasch & McGarry and she remembers her friends who have died from these illnesses.

Attorney Michael Barasch poses for a portrait in his office in Lower Manhattan. Barasch of Barasch & McGarry represented James Zadroga, an NYPD detective who developed pulmonary fibrosis as a result of his exposure to the deadly 9/11 toxins. His death persuaded Congress to pass the “James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.” Barasch suffered form prostate cancer as a result of the proximity of his law office to the World Trade Center.