The September 11th attack
Hard rain slows 'ground zero' search
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Sopping-wet search crews slogged through the rubble of the World Trade Center yesterday under gray skies that mirrored their dwindling hopes for miracle rescues.
Though President Bush made a morale-boosting visit to the site in the afternoon, the grim reality was that for a second straight day, no survivors were found in the debris.
Night fell in New York and across the nation to the flickering light of candles, from a few dozen outside a bank in Charleston, W.Va., to 2,500 in cups on the steps and balcony of the Rhode Island Capitol.
A crowd that gathered at a Mexican restaurant in New York spilled into the street carrying candles and flags, blocking traffic as people cheered and sang "God Bless America."
On street corners, clusters of people stood silently at sunset clutching candles, while parts of upper Broadway were lined with small, sputtering flames.
Amid the rubble during the day, Bush worked his way through a throng of rescue workers, donned a fire helmet and later addressed the cheering crowd through a megaphone. "Thank you for your hard work," he said.
"U.S.A.! U.S.A.!," the firefighters and volunteer workers shouted in return. "God bless America!" screamed one man.
But most of the rescue work has been done quietly. Occasionally, crews paused to listen for any noise — a knock or muffled voice — that might lead to a survivor.
"When they call for silence on the pile ... (it) caused me to say a prayer every time," said volunteer Richard Coppo. "It meant there was a possibility — a hope that we had found something."
But all they heard was silence. And then they resumed moving rubble — 10,425 tons and counting.
More than 4,700 people remained missing, including 23 New York police officers. Just five people have been pulled alive from the ruins since two hijacked jetliners toppled the twin towers Tuesday. The official death toll remained at 184, while the number of people injured — including those injured in the rescue efforts — climbed to 4,300, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said.
Among the dead were 13 city firefighters, three Port Authority police officers, two emergency medical technicians and a New Jersey firefighter. More than 400 body parts have been recovered, the mayor said.
Work at ground zero — the enormous mass of wreckage created when the two skyscrapers crumbled — was complicated by a ferocious overnight downpour that turned dust into mud and made even the simplest tasks more difficult and dangerous.
Workers who have battled fatigue and choking smoke were slowed by the muck. One worker reported finding mud-caked body parts.
They were armed with a new tool: directional antennas and other radio frequency-tracking equipment that "sniff out" signals from buried cell phones, beepers and other devices. The hope is that the signals might correspond to trapped victims.
The 894-foot USNS Comfort — one of the Navy's two hospital ships — arrived in New York harbor yesterday evening to provide a rest area for relief workers. On the gleaming white ship, the crew stood along the railing to stare at the gap where the trade center had once stood.
An overflow of response led the city to temporarily suspend its call for volunteers and donated goods for victims and rescue workers.
For the first time since the tragedy, Giuliani said, a few looters had slipped into the banned area of Manhattan below 14th Street. One man was arrested carrying $3,000 in watches from a Tourneau store.
In another incident, a woman dressed in medical scrubs and carrying a cell phone showed up at a police station insisting she had just spoken to her husband who was beneath the rubble. When her story proved false — she also said her husband was a police officer and was with nine other survivors — she was charged with reckless endangerment, obstructing fire operations and filing false reports.
"She's a nut," said Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.
A man was arrested on federal charges for allegedly phoning in a bomb threat to a junior high school, Kerik said. The city has been plagued with more than 100 bombs threats per day since the attack; this was the first arrest.
Kerik said several people also had been arrested for using phony identification or pretending to be volunteers, then committing crimes in the cordoned-off disaster zone. And Giuliani said a phony telemarketer was soliciting bogus contributions for a nonexistent fund to help the families of victims.
"We'd really like to catch them and make an example of them," the mayor said.
