Comments by "Mikko Rantalainen" (@MikkoRantalainen) on "Eyewitness News ABC7NY" channel.

@imthecoolest50 TV cameras were really heavy year 2001. The most heavy part was obviously batteries – they had much worse battery tech and those old cameras were using a lot more power than their modern counterparts. Even today, a single high quality lens will have minimum weight around 1 kg. A camera operator carrying even a couple of lenses and multiple batteries has lots to carry even today.
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To this day, I haven't seen official statement if the dust included asbestos or not. I think it's safe to assume it was mostly asbestos considering the years WTC towers were built. If that's true, breathing even a minor amount of that would have been bad for your future health.
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@Frau_Blucher Another site seems to claim 400 tons of pulverized asbestos (*). It's safe to say that anybody breathing the white dust would have been seriously affected. The big problem with asbestos is that even a single fiber in your lungs can cause issues decades later if you're unlucky. The more fibers you have in your lungs, the bigger the probability of developing Asbestosis or Mesothelioma in long term. The latency period (from exposure to the diagnosis of negative health effects) is typically 20 years so I'd expect a lot more cases to be diagnosed during this decade. (*) "The collapse of the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, released a plume containing 400 tons of pulverized asbestos and other hazardous materials across lower Manhattan."
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