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Cool weather, rain impede searchers
Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times, NEW YORK -- Morning drizzle and the chilliest weather since the Sept. 11 attacks hampered search efforts Monday at the wreckage of the World Trade Center.
Mostly sunny weather and highs in the low 70s were forecast for today. Also Monday, New York City offered $1-billion in bonds for sale to start paying for the aftermath of the attacks. The short-term bond offering will pay for such things as debris removal and unemployment insurance for workers who have been put out of work by the trade center collapse. In a preliminary estimate last week, Senate aides said it would cost about $39-billion to clean up from the Sept. 11 attack and rebuild the city. Washington has pledged at least $20-billion. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, after a tour Monday of the trade center ruins with 108 other members of Congress, said no one can know how much the recovery effort will cost. "We don't know if that's the iceberg or the tip of the iceberg," Hastert said. House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, also on Monday's tour, called the damage incomprehensible. "It is the face of evil, and it's hard to understand how people can hate other people as much as obviously has happened here," he said. As a drizzle fell in Central Park, 2,500 mourners gathered under tents at a private memorial for employees of Cantor Fitzgerald, a bond firm that lost about 700 employees at the trade center. They clutched each other and wept as five people who lost their spouses addressed the crowd, along with the mayor and the firm's chief executive, Howard Lutnick. Lutnick's brother, Gary, was lost in the attack. "In these past three weeks, we have felt more pain and sadness than I think collectively any of us had ever thought we could bear," Lutnick said. "And I know that I speak for everyone here when I say we miss -- oh boy, do we miss -- our friends and family." Fire Department Chaplain Alfred Thompson said more bodies have been discovered in the past 21/2 days than in the previous 10. The movement of some larger beams in the wreckage has helped workers locate remains, he said. "We're finding a lot of stuff in there. . . . It's not a happy sight," said construction worker John Yannucci. The number of missing dropped by more than 400 to 5,219 after officials eliminated duplicate names on lists, New York Deputy Mayor Joe Lhota said Monday. Rescue workers have recovered 344 bodies and 289 have been identified. Families of 4,651 of the missing have visited the Family Assistance Center in Manhattan for counseling and other aid, Lhota said. Relatives have applied for 1,082 death certificates since Wednesday, the first day to apply. The city parks department has begun removing posters, pictures and candles placed as memorials to the dead and missing. Many of the posters and thank you notes to rescuers plastered at sites such as Union Square Park and subways are gone. Signs left at the sites say the items will be preserved but it was unclear where or if they will be displayed. On Wednesday, President Bush will make his second trip to New York since Sept. 11. He has been concerned about the effects of the attack on children and plans to visit a school, spokesman Ari Fleischer said. The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Joe Allbaugh, said he would also visit the city to address "quite a few problems" with the cleanup effort. He did not explain what they were. "This is going to take months -- it's going to take three to four months just to get to the ground level," Allbaugh said. "This is going to be better than a year to resolve this debris problem at the site." Trucks have hauled away 151,155 tons of debris. Students at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, about four blocks from the trade center, returned to their school for the first time since Sept. 11. The college was not heavily damaged but had been taken over by as many as 2,000 rescue workers. Rush-hour traffic was moderate Monday morning as commuters entering Manhattan faced the same restrictions that were tested Thursday and Friday. - Information from Knight Ridder and the Associated Press was used in this report.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
