Chris Dodd: “Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of a dark day in my State's history: the day the L'Ambiance Plaza towers collapsed…”

“Yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of a dark day in my State's history: the day the L'Ambiance Plaza towers collapsed in Bridgeport and took with them the lives of 28 Connecticut construction workers. For millions of people in Connecticut, that day's images are still fresh; time can blunt their pain, but it can never erase them. We remember the shock: 16 stories of new apartments reduced with a roar, within seconds, to ruined concrete and steel. We remember the hundreds of volunteers who combed the wrecked piles for their friends. This is how one newspaper reported their remarkable endurance: 'Physically and emotionally drained by a nightmarish task of seeking and sometimes finding the bodies of friends and loved ones, some of the volunteers have pushed themselves to exhaustion, working around the clock and then begging to go on working.' We remember their frantic search for survivors, and the slow-dawning truth that there were none. But above all, we remember 28 men who died too soon. They were union men from Bridgeport and Waterbury who poured concrete, laid pipe, and fixed steel. Not a single one of them went to work that morning expecting to die; but each knew the high risks of his trade, and willingly took them on to make a good living for his family. We can clear rubble and rebuild towers, but not a single life can be replaced.”