FEMA was in New York the Night Before 9/11

Click HERE for a RealAudio recording of a statement made by FEMA spokesman Tom Kenney to Dan Rather on Wednesday, September 12th, 2001. In this interview, Kenney states that FEMA was deployed to New York on Monday night, September 10th, to be ready to go into action on Tuesday morning, September 11th.

Kenney: "We're currently one of the first teams that was deployed to support the city of New York for this disaster. We arrived on late Monday night, and went into action on Tuesday morning. And not until today did we get a full opportunity to work the entire site."

Needless to say, this recording caused quite a stir. The official reaction was Kenney was simply confused about the dates.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has said it did not have urban search and rescue teams in place in New York City prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, contrary to an Internet-based rumor alleging otherwise. ... FEMA officials said Kenney, in the heat of the moment, misstated his team's arrival date. [WorldNetDaily 11/15/01]

However, on the recording Kenney is complaining about not getting full access to the site until "today". Kenney talks about a Monday, a Tuesday, and "today". That's three days.

If the above recording was made on Wednesday, September 12th as claimed, then the explanation that Kenney was simply confused about the days doesn't work, because there is one more day than can be accounted for.

Some news sources went to great lengths to dismiss Kenney's remarks...

Information provided through FOIA requests ... show that FEMA had no personnel in place Sept. 10, 2001 - the day before Sept. 11, 2001 - which would have suggested the agency had prior knowledge of the terrorist attacks. "This interview [with Tom Kenney] took place sometime on the 13th, two full days after all hell had broken loose," [Devvy Kidd - former head of the now-defunct Wallace Institute] said, noting that she has an audio copy of Rather's interview. "Kenney sounds winded on the audio as if he had been exerting himself. It is more than likely Kenney, having worked virtually nonstop since his arrival in NYC, had his days run together, and his statement simply came out wrong." [WorldNetDaily 11/27/02]

...but the cover story was blown when Rudolph Guliani testified before the 9/11 Commission:

Long Debunked "Rumor" Validated by Giuliani

FEMA in NYC prior to 9-11 for Project TRIPOD terror drill, scheduled for 9-12

As of this writing, June 2, 2004, the transcript of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's testimony to the 9-11 Commission during the May 18-19, 2004 hearings in New York is the only transcript of that hearing omitted from the Commission website
(http://www.9-11commission.gov).

Did Rudy say something wrong?

"... the reason Pier 92 was selected as a command center was because on the next day, on September 12, Pier 92 was going to have a drill, it had hundreds of people here, from FEMA, from the Federal Government, from the State, from the State Emergency Management Office, and they were getting ready for a drill for biochemical attack. So that was gonna be the place they were going to have the drill. The equipment was already there, so we were able to establish a command center there, within three days, that was two and a half to three times bigger than the command center that we had lost at 7 World Trade Center. And it was from there that the rest of the search and rescue effort was completed."

Major questions exist as to why FEMA would deny being in New York City prior to 9/11 without mentioning the 9/12 bioterror drill. These questions must now be addressed as the initial suspicions of those who learned of the Tom Kenney statement have been clearly validated. The coincidental presence of a large FEMA team in NYC at the location, Pier 92, which became the Command Center for the entire emergency operation is disturbing. An alert press and a legitimate 9-11 Commission should have raised this issue long ago. [Scoop]

The eyewiness in the following C-SPAN video states that FEMA were at the towers before the collapses, and an FBI agent indicated to him the buildings were going to "come down":

The following videos show a large convoy of trucks heading through New York on 9/11 to assist in the WTC wreckage clean up, and dump trucks arriving immediately after the collapse of WTC 7: