CHANDLER SCHOLAR EARNS HONOR
ARIZONA AVENUE RAPID TRANSIT?
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Chandler blast a ‘game changer’ for 4 men
INSIDE
This Week
BY KEN SAIN Arizonan Staff Writer
L NEWS ...............................
September 5, 2021
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Kyrene has scores of unfilled jobs.
ife was heading in the right direction for the Ryan brothers until an explosion Aug. 26 knocked it onto a new, rockier course. “This was their livelihood, they worked 24/7 to get this thing going, and it was actually a very pro�itable year,” said Paul Ryan, their father. “Now it’s gone.” Chandler Police say an unintentional natural gas leak ignited by an “independent ignition source” caused a massive blast that ripped the roof off of a portion of Chandler Sunset Plaza at Ray and Rural roads. Four
Sports betting just days away in Arizona. NEWS .......................................... 2 COMMUNITY ........................24 BUSINESS ................................29 SPORTS ....................................34 GET OUT ..................................36 CLASSIFIEDS ...........................39
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9/11: ‘I knew I would know people there’ BY TOM SCANLON Arizonan Staff Writer
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Brothers Andrew and Dillon Ryan ran Platinum Printing together. (Special to The Chandler Arizonan)
people were injured, all are expected to survive. Brothers Andrew and Dillon Ryan ran Platinum Printing together. A longtime friend, Parker Milldebrandt, was an employee. The fourth person injured was 58-year-old Glenn Jordan, who worked at All-American Eyeglass Repair shop a few suites down from the printers. All four suffered major burns. “The boys had a pretty good following from through the years they’ve had the business,” Paul Ryan said. “You knew the two boys, once you met them, you’d fall in
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tudents in Jim McNamara’s Fire Science classes at the East Valley Institute of Technology main campus in Mesa learn, according to the program website, “basic �ire science fundamentals and technical rescue.” McNamara was part of one of the largest, most complex, technical rescue efforts in American history: the 9/11 attacks response. On Sept. 11, 2001, McNamara was at his Long Island home, getting ready for a doctor’s appointment.
“You better turn on the news,” his wife told him. Like millions of others, McNamara watched live footage of the World Trade Center as smoke poured out of the North Tower – and then saw a plane �ly into the South Tower. At the time, McNamara was the Nassau County �ire marshal, a teacher at Nassau County Fire Service Academy and volunteer �ire�ighter. “After the attacks, my technical rescue team was activated,” he said. Within hours, his boots were on the smoldering grounds of the World Trade Center, where two giant towers collapsed, killing
2,606 people. (Another 125 were killed at the Pentagon and 265 passengers of four planes that crashed died.) Of the World Trade Center deaths, 343 were �ire�ighters who responded to the scene. Some were McNamara’s friends. “Almost all Nassau County was volunteer �ire�ighters, so a lot of them were New York City �ire�ighters. And police of�icers also were volunteers. I also taught at the �ire academy, so I knew other instructors who were New York City �ire�ighters or cops,” McNamara said.
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