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American Morning
In Less Than Two Weeks, Recovery Work at Ground Zero Will Come to Symbolic End
Aired May 21, 2002 - 09:50 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: In less than two weeks, on May 30th, recovery work at ground zero will come to a symbolic end. That morning, in a somber ceremony, a band will play "Taps" and police helicopters will do a fly-by.
And while for many it may bring a sense of closure, CNN's Beth Nissen reports, there are others who see May 30th not so much as an end, but as a painful beginning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There are just eight of the thousands of police officers, firefighters, construction workers and equipment operators who've been working on recovery at ground zero from September 11th.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've seen it go from the two buildings still standing to just an empty crater in the ground at this point. Sometimes you look at it, and you can't believe.
NISSEN: Can't believe that 1.8 million tons of wreckage and debris have been cleared so quickly, can't believe that what's called the recovery phase will end so soon.
In another week, a last symbolic peace of Twin Tower steel is to be removed from the site, yet so much remains unrecovered. Ground zero workers know hundreds of bodies of the lost were reduced to ash in fires that burned for more than three months.
OFFICER ED SMITH, PORT AUTHORITY POLICE: The heat was so tremendous that there's a good chance that we might not find anymore, but we are still hoping.
NISSEN: And still working, 12-hour shifts, six days a week.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As soon as the machines start up, the grapplers and the front-end loaders, they go through pile, they spread it out at different transfer stations through the site, and we go in with rakes and hand tools, and we actually sift through the rubble to see if we can come up with anything at all.
Anything that was in that building, we found broken pieces of. We found ID, pocket books, cash, jewelry, you name it. NISSEN: It is difficult work -- difficult to do, difficult to hear about. They often find human remains, although fewer now, and smaller.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One day, we were working together, we found a hand and nothing else.
LT. JOHN RYAN, PORT AUTHORITY POLICE: What we're finding now is just small pieces of bones.
NISSEN: Still they search.
SMITH: You hope you find anything. Doesn't matter, a tooth, anything.
OFFICER RICHARD DEPIETRO, PORT AUTHORITY POLICE: That's our goal, to find somebody's loved one and give their family closure.
NISSEN: It is hard for these men to accept that their goal will not and cannot be met. Of the 19,000 body parts already recovered, only 300 have been identified by DNA tests. Of the 2,823 people lost at the World Trade Center, the remains of only about a third have been identified.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I still can't believe this is over about 2,000 people unaccounted for.
NISSEN: The unidentified haunt these men. Eddie Finnegan wonder how many of the lost he saw pass by his World Trade Center post every day.
OFFICER EDDIE FINNEGAN, PORT AUTHORITY POLICE: I wake up in the middle of the night, I might start thinking about it, and I think, I remember what happened that day, and I think about those people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you find something, I've thought of, I wonder what this face looked like, if you find a bone? What was this person like? What did they do?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who are those people that made this building what it was? You know, and this is what we're missing.
NISSEN: Port Authority health directors say recovery workers have been hit hard by survivor guilt, stress and trauma, little of which registered with long-time ground zero workers.
OFFICER JOE O'CONNOR, PORT AUTHORITY POLICE: The tempo we've set since September 11th with 12-hour days certainly at times doesn't really give us time to think.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I personally haven't had a chance to really truly grieve, I don't believe yet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That day they called us this job is over, we will have to start picking up pieces and move on with lives.
NISSEN: Move on with lives that some fear will lack purpose after such dedicated heart-wrenching work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are you going to do, take someone out of here, and then two days later he is sitting in a patrol car on a bridge waiting for speeders to go by?
NISSEN: There will be re-entry counseling support groups, although none of the experts on post-traumatic stress or trauma after Oklahoma City can say what to expect.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have no idea how I am going to feel when I'm told to not come back. I couldn't begin to answer that question.
NISSEN: Where so many see achievement in the recovery work, many workers see only it's ultimate failure. They are dreading the last day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Most guys don't talk about it.
NISSEN (on camera): Why not?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. It will be a strange day. It's going to be a hard day for us.
NISSEN: A day of official closure that will leave so much unresolved, so many unhealed.
Beth Nissen, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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