Department store workers who fought to reopen after 9/11 now suffering from ground zero illnesses

NEW YORK — Lori Ellis had a front row seat to the horrors of 9/11. As senior manager for operations and merchandising at the Century 21 on Cortlandt Street in lower Manhattan — mere feet from the twin towers — she saw desperate people jumping from windows after the planes hit. She can’t forget stepping over dead bodies, trying to keep her panicked employees away from the store windows, evacuating everyone and escaping through the smoke and a layer of white dust that covered everything like new fallen snow. She also remembers what happened five months later, when she and her co-workers proudly ...