Ground Zero operation winds down

With the last hillock of the mangled steel set to be removed from Ground Zero next week, New Yorkers are preparing to move on from the disaster that has dominated their lives for nearly nine months.

With the last hillock of the mangled steel set to be removed from Ground Zero next week, New Yorkers are preparing to move on from the disaster that has dominated their lives for nearly nine months. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that a closing ceremony will take place on 30 May during which the last steel column and an empty flag-draped stretcher symbolising people not recovered would be carried from the site.

But the timing of the ceremony has angered victims' relatives and rescue workers because they were not consulted on the date, which falls on a weekday and at the same time as a Republican Party convention in the city.

'You can't pick a day where everybody is going to be happy,' Bloomberg said. 'I made the decision and that's when we are going to have it.'

Over the past month, the city-within-a-city at the tip of Manhattan has been winding down. The debris known as The Pile that was once the remains of the World Trade Centre is a neat hole.

A few months ago, hundreds worked here round the clock. Almost every day, workers would halt as the remains of a firefighter or a police officer were carried from the wreckage. Dozens of bulldozers worked night and day.

Now that urgency has departed, leaving Ground Zero a sadder, quieter place. Last week the Salvation Army tent where rescue workers ate, slept and consoled one another was almost empty.

More than 107,000 truckloads of debris have been taken from here - 1.8 million tons in all - in an operation that has exceeded expectations in terms of the time and cost. For many who have worked here, the end of the operation is a bitter-sweet moment. 'It's the way it should be,' said firefighter Mickey Kross. 'Two months from now they'll start rebuilding.'

But without Ground Zero as a focal point, many say they do not know what to move on to. 'It's time to move on but it's going to be hard to leave this place behind,' said Charlotte Leopard, who lost her fiancé, a firefighter, in the attack and has been volunteering four days a week.

'Everyone down here has been so focused that they haven't had time to grieve. It's safe here. Through this tremendous loss, we have become very united, almost like a family.

'The further away you get from the site it's like it never happened. It saddens me that everyone seems to have forgotten about it after only eight months.'

If anything, the end of the recovery makes their loss more painful. One of the most poignant symbols of the loss has been the retired firefighters who lost sons in the collapse and who have been at the site since September hoping for word they had been found.

'It's empty and hopeless and that reverberates around the whole site,' said Leopard. 'Everyone is affected by the sadness. This is the end. Where are all those people?'

Every inch has been carefully checked for human remains, once here and twice more at the Staten Island landfill where the remains of the World Trade Centre have been taken. The acidic smell of destruction has mostly departed from the site.

On the last hillock a torn blue sweatshirt still carries traces of the telltale odour of decomposition. But any find, unless it contains bone marrow, is now useless to pathologists because the DNA is too degraded by time to make a match.

Using DNA samples to identify remains has been far less useful than anticipated after the disaster when relatives were urged to supply items such as hairbrushes that might contain correlating samples.

Only 300 people have been identified using DNA samples from the 19,500 body parts recovered, and only 1,050 of 2,800 who died have been identified at all. In the early days of the recovery many of the DNA samples that were recovered proved useless because they were contaminated by other samples from unsterilised equipment.

Most positive identifications that have been made came from dental records.

As one Fire Department chief, surveying the last hillock of debris last Thursday, noted: 'I'll have mixed feelings when it's done. I'm sad we didn't find more people.'