September 16, 2001

6:27 PM

Having removed ten thousand tons of debri in the first four days, it will take close to a year to remove 1.25 million tons for the two 110-story buildings.
posted by HoldenCaulfield (21 comments total)

I believe there will come a time when the "recoverers" (now no longer called rescuers) will no longer be picking through debri, but carting it off in larger chunks. Far too gruesome of a task to still be finding bodies some 11 months from now.
posted by kpett at 6:35 PM on September 16, 2001

Actually your numbers are old... word from the local news stations is that it's closer to 25000 tons.
posted by clevershark at 6:48 PM on September 16, 2001

clevershark, very clever of you (no pun lol), but by now it's been 6 days, no? When they stop looking for bodies sometime next week, they'll start carting it off as kpett said, and overall it's going to take no less than two months.
posted by HoldenCaulfield at 6:58 PM on September 16, 2001

Two months would be conservative. Also, they still need to recover the black boxes and I'm sure they'll want to still be a bit careful in removing the rubble so as to keep bodies intact... It won't be as easy, to be sure, as removing the rubble from a planed implosion, but it also won't continue in the future to go this slow...
posted by fooljay at 7:28 PM on September 16, 2001

Sadly, I think "bodies" misrepresents the state of many of the victims.
posted by NortonDC at 7:53 PM on September 16, 2001

We don't really know, though do we? I'd expect those on the lower floors to be more intact...
posted by fooljay at 7:55 PM on September 16, 2001

Unfortunately, I have a feeling a large number of bodies are now nothing but ash. Those were some awfully big fires you know.
posted by spilon at 8:09 PM on September 16, 2001

Liked both pieces.

This evening, after deposing my girlfriend at Grand Central, curiosity got the best of me.
I emerged from the 4/5 Train at Bowling Green and zigzagged east and north through dark, wet streets filed with Police, National Guard and lots of regular Joes going to their offices/businesses. Eventually, perhaps by walking deliberately and talking with Policemen, I managed to get to Broadway and John St.; basically 1 block from the WTC: I was the only civilian around.

From there, in the dark, the floodlights show what, in my "experience," best resembles one of the Borg Collective cubes from Star Trek, NG. Lots of darkness and metal with those pieces of the WTC facades you see on TV. It didn't look that different than it does on television; on the other hand, a policeman told me most of the debris was towards Church St.

I spoke with several policemen. One, in response to my question, told me that an effort to access the WTC via the PATH tunnel has proven difficult due to flooding/cascading water. Another said that the real official death toll is about 450. The same cop said a good deal of information is being withheld. Whatever that means.

I then continued up Broadway. I was the only one there who was not a policeman, fireman or National Guard member. At some point, I turned west, on Leonard, I think, but was stopped by two cops. I'm not sure how far from getting arrested I was.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:27 PM on September 16, 2001

(sorry for the double post [plus the first 'graph, which refers to two articles recently sent to me])
posted by ParisParamus at 8:28 PM on September 16, 2001

A couple of nights ago, Ted Koppel was talking about the dust, and the fact that steel beams and marble floors literally got vaporized when the towers collapsed... I don't remember the details but he was talking about 50 million pounds of debris, including several acres of marble. I've looked for a recap of that broadcast or a transcript and haven't been able to find anything. If anybody sees it, please link it.
posted by JParker at 8:37 PM on September 16, 2001

I doubt much was vaporized other than what was immediately adjacent to the Jets. On the other hand, what is the smoke which continues to emminate from the site? I fear it's fires from below--which rule out anyone being still alive. On the other hand, the smoke is white, which doesn't seem like it's from most burning materials I know of. Any ideas?
posted by ParisParamus at 8:55 PM on September 16, 2001

Aerosolized is probably a better, if not perfect word. I would venture a guess that thousands of pounds of debris is now scattered across lower Manhattan in the form of dust...
posted by fooljay at 9:03 PM on September 16, 2001

Aerosolized is probably a better, if not perfect word. I would venture a guess that thousands of pounds of debris is now scattered across lower Manhattan in the form of dust...

future geologists will take soil samples and assume there was a volcanic eruption on Manhattan Island. : (
posted by ParisParamus at 9:12 PM on September 16, 2001

: )
posted by ParisParamus at 10:19 PM on September 16, 2001

Interesting article. I agree with kpett that at some point they'll need to move larger amounts at some point, but of course the question for that becomes "when?"

ParisParamus, any indication from the cop you talked to about if they're working as actively in the subways as they are above ground? Being an ex-NYC resident (parents still live there, they're fine thankfully) and having some pretty good knowledge of the subways, I am somewhat surprised that we haven't heard more about what the MTA/PATH are doing to get into the muck at their level. Or are they worried about collapsing the subway tunnels further?

To be slightly tagential also.....my biggest criticism of Shrub right now is that he hasn't publicly ordered the bulk of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Seabees up to NY to help with recovery and analyze the safety of buildings/subways (although I have heard some Corps are up there). Geez, we pay our taxes for this, use 'em damnit!

Sorry about the rant, had to get that out....
posted by PeteyStock at 10:19 PM on September 16, 2001

aaron,
Excellent!! Thanks.
posted by JParker at 1:18 AM on September 17, 2001

Petey,

I hear several accounts of attempts to access the subway tunnels beneath the buildings failing as those tunnels were filled with close to (or more than) 10 feet of water.
posted by Sinner at 4:36 AM on September 17, 2001

Another said that the real official death toll is about 450. The same cop said a good deal of information is being withheld. Whatever that means.

There is a first-person account, written by Michael Burkhardt, circulating on the email lists for a national educational non-profit I volunteer with, that seems to support this, Paris. I hope you'll indulge me while I share his email with you:

=====

Dear Friends,

As may of you already know Mike and I went to the WTC site about 6pm on Tuesday night after working at Mt. Sinai Hospital emergency room in Manhattan offloading patients.

For those of you who sent emails to see if we were ok, don't worry - physically we are ok. We got home last night. Let me first say that the scene is much worse than is captured TV. And organization at the site was very poor. I will give you all the details later. But I will just share with you a bit of what happened.

Mike and I helped organize the volunteers. We helped the med staff set up medical stations at ground zero. Then we organized raiding parties to break into restaurants to get food and water for the fireman, cops and med staff. Groups of 10 were sent out and lots of food and water was gathered and then distributed. Fireman cut the stores open with big saber saws so we could get in to take what was needed. Cops helped us loot as well. We then got the food and water out to several stations around the site and directly to the fireman and climbing the debris and manning hoses.

About midnight bodies and parts started coming in, so we converted Brooks Bros. dept. store into the morgue. The National Guard gave Mike and I several units men to order around and we cleaned the place out and set up the morgue. About 30 cops helped us as well. Come day light on Wednesday, I ran the morgue at Brooks Brothers while Michael went to set up and run the a field morgue at one of the holes where they started to get a large number of the bodies/pieces from. Mike then sent them on to me where we identified what we could and put them in body bags. At this time I will not share those details with you.

We got a lot done, good work. but finally our strength ran out. We turned the morgue over to a red cross doctor who has severed in 4 wars, desert storm, Macedonia, Kosovo, Ethiopia. So things are in good hands now, better hands. At that point on late Wednesday afternoon the NYC
Med. examiner had not arrived yet.

You might be wondering why anyone let us just take charge of things. First, nobody seem to be in charge so we just decided to get things done. Lots of people just standing around waiting for direction. Second, we were both wearing scrubs from the hospital with our work slacks and ties underneath. So everybody assumed we were doctors. Third, what we told people to do made sense, so they did it.

To give you an idea of where we set up shop, Brooks Brothers is across the street from 1 World Trade. If you want to see what we saw, watch 11 NY news. Their camera man was hidden out with us in the store.

Friends, if you are the praying type, say a few extra. It is much worse than it looks on TV. Mike and I walked around the site to get the body bags at first. It was hell. I mean it, it is what hell must look like. A fireman or EMT's hell. Firetrucks where buried and burned out, ambulances burned out shells with their doors open from when they were helping people when the buildings fell. Cars are piled on top each other, just twisted metal. And many of the streets are piled 8 feet high with metal and concrete. Buildings are destroyed all around, very few windows for a quite a distance. Paper is everywhere. and over everything is 3 inches of concrete dust which turned to mud from all the water. Abandoned firetrucks sit in the street, all the hoses uncoiled and running along the street toward where TWC buildings were, the hoses run straight
until they are lost under the debris. There were firemen at the end of those hoses.

Truly a nightmare. Words cannot capture what I have seen. I urge everyone to help in anyway they can, donate money or blood, the damage and loss of life is horrific.

I will try to go back to help, but I am not sure if I have the courage. I am shaken, I am changed. Words cannot describe.

If I have not told you lately, I care about you all a great deal. You mean some much to me.Thank you for being a part of my life.

Michael Burkhardt

=====

The 'Mike' mentioned in the email is Michael Martin. He and the author live in Manhattan and teach computers in another area of NYC (I believe Queens, but could be wrong about this). They walked into Manhattan on Tuesday, intending at first to just go home, but ended up helping people wherever they went along the way ... organizing an impromptu blood drive, unloading Ambulances at Mount Sinai Hospital (where they got the hospital scrubs mentioned above), and finally working at Ground Zero.

Private conversations with both Mike and Michael bear out what is written in their email ... It is much worse than it looks on TV.

PS: I am a regular poster on MiFi, but am posting under a one-time-use name to try and somewhat protect the privacy of these two men ... there are hundreds of us across the country who know them personally, and who are not surprised at the heroic effort they put forth. However, Mike and Michael themselves are attempting to deflect attention from their actions, saying they simply did what anyone would do in this situation, and that the real heroes are the firemen and rescue folks who are still in there searching, some seven days later.
posted by Tuesday911 at 8:34 AM on September 17, 2001

Tuesday911: thank you for that. It's the kind of thing I hoped to find of Metafilter.

any indication from the cop you talked to about if they're working as actively in the subways as they are above ground?

I was given no clue. I can say, however, that when I passed buy the City Hall Entrace to the N/R train there was little or not activity (that's the stop before the WTC, and would be a likely point of access. There is also the PATH, which would only be accessible through NJ, I think, the 1/9 Line and the E/C line. No clue. But you'd think that would have already have been tried.

Or are they worried about collapsing the subway tunnels further?

I suspect collapse is not a major concern.
posted by ParisParamus at 9:54 AM on September 17, 2001