Ed Serrapede can't believe he witnessed another raging inferno at Ground Zero - and that once again city officials neglected to evacuate him and other nearby residents.

Six years ago, when the twin towers collapsed, Serrapede, just released from the hospital after open-heart surgery, was trapped in his apartment.

Back then, overwhelmed city officials hadn't thought to double-check to make sure everyone in buildings adjacent to the World Trade Center was evacuated.

He and many of his neighbors decided after that great tragedy not to abandon lower Manhattan. For six years they have endured the daily tribulations of noise and dust from 24-hour construction at the Ground Zero Pit outside their windows. They figured that, at the very least, our city had gotten better at disaster response.

This weekend, they were shocked to learn otherwise.

On Saturday afternoon, Serrapede was sitting in the living room of his 11th-floor apartment at 125 Cedar St. when a rumbling noise - "like a monstrous waterfall" - startled him.

He rushed to his window and looked across narrow Greenwich St. at the giant former Deutsche Bank building that looms about 100 feet away. Chunks of debris and broken glass were raining down on the black-shrouded scaffold around the contaminated building, and he saw the building was on fire.

"I started getting calls from all my neighbors asking what we should do," Serrapede said.

He and his companion Mary Dericks didn't waste any time. They grabbed a few items, got out of the building and stayed blocks away from the scene.

One block south, Esther Reggelson had just arrived at her apartment on Washington St. after being away for a few days. When she heard the former Deutsche Bank tower was burning, she and several neighbors rushed to their roof. They were astounded as they watched the flames spread and engulf several floors. They began to worry about a possible collapse.

"We didn't know what to do, and no one was telling us," Reggelson said, "and I'm a member of the community emergency response team."

Reggelson called 911 and asked for guidance on whether to leave the building or stay.

"They told us to stay where we were," she said, "but didn't explain anything else."

Certainly, after what happened six years ago, no one can be blamed for worrying about a massive fire causing a high-rise collapse. If the former Deutsche Bank building had fallen, who knows what would have happened to Serrapede, Reggelson and those in the immediate vicinity.

At a press conference yesterday near the fire site, more than a dozen residents and community leaders blasted city officials for failing to evacuate those closest to the fire or to provide better communication to the community.

"No officials seemed to know what to tell us," said Pat Moore, a member of the local community board.

"This is a painful reminder that all is not well" with the Ground Zero cleanup, said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who mourned the loss of two brave firefighters and joined local residents in demanding answers to the blaze and any potential health impact from toxins released in the fire.

"This is one of the most-looked-at buildings in the world," Stringer said. Still, we have "another great fire, another great tragedy."

City officials have been quick to say all preliminary air tests show there was no major release of toxic substances from the fire. After all the lies neighborhood residents got about air quality from city officials and the federal Environmental Protection Agency after 9/11, that's not enough.

This time, Stringer said, residents want "detailed and transparent" information about all testing and the methods used and they want city officials to answer questions at a town hall meeting.

Test results have been reported only for asbestos and particulates, and only from air samples. But the former Deutsche Bank building was enormously contaminated with dioxins, mercury and other heavy metals as well.

The plume of smoke from the fire could have deposited contaminated dust on nearby buildings, roofs and windows, in subway tunnels and in heating and ventilation systems. Only extensive testing for various contaminants, in the dust as well as in the air, willtell us if any contamination spread elsewhere.

How the city responds in the next few days to a tragedy that should never have happened will show if our leaders learned anything at all from the health response to 9/11.