Story note -- This is one of several stories filed from New York during the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. Throughout my career, I've regularly parachuted into the big breaking stories – hurricanes, tornadoes, plane crashes, the 2000 presidential recount, etc.Sunday, September 16, 2001
PHOTOS OF THOSE MISSING HAVE BEGUN TO FADE
By BRAD SCHRADE
STAFF WRITER
NEW YORK -- The tears trickle down Brett Brase's cheeks as he views the photos of stranger's faces taped to a window of West Village Florists on Seventh Avenue South.
There's Chris Colansenti, last seen on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center, pictured with his wife and young daughter. Then there's Lucy Fishman, who was wearing a double-hearted ring with the initials "L & G" when she went to work on the 105th floor Tuesday. And 6-year-old Mya Braker, who was on the 107th floor with her mother when the hijacked jets slammed into the twin towers.
This "Missing Persons Wall" is like dozens around this city. They are magnets for thousands who have gathered around them hoping someone had seen their loved ones and hoping for some tangible understanding of how much was lost when the 110-story twin towers collapsed. Rain has so blurred some of the photos that it's difficult to make out the faces.
"It's kind of like looking at ghosts," Brase said. "The rain has faded the pictures, like they're slowly disappearing."
As the search continued here yesterday on a sunny, beautiful day, with almost 5,000 people still missing and feared dead, the city turned away many of volunteers who have poured in by the thousands since Tuesday. There were just too many, and it was becoming difficult to coordinate
Six members of the Smyrna Rescue Squad, who drove here Wednesday, decided to head home. They've helped dig through the rubble for a couple of hours since arriving, but they were told by emergency officials that they were no longer needed for the rescue effort.
They said that seeing the wreckage in person was like nothing they've ever witnessed. The scale of the disaster comes into focus as one approaches "ground zero." There are more than a thousand firefighters and rescue workers, and they appear to be almost like a colony of ants next to the mass of rubble. Some 16,000 tons of debris have already been removed, and many of the body bags that come out have only parts.
"It's the worst thing I've ever seen," said Lt. Tommy Parham, the leader of the Smyrna squad. "We walked over it, and it was like a war zone. The devastation is unreal. It's something that will stick with me the rest of my life."
Connecticut tool maker Dairo Murrillo, 56, says the disaster probably has changed his life forever. His son, Cesar, 32, an international trader, was one of the hundreds trapped on the top floors of the World Trade Center.
Murrillo hasn't heard from his son and fears the worst. He has been going through the city's hospitals looking for him, and yesterday he was carrying a photo of his son near one of the missing persons walls.
"I can't believe Cesar is gone," Murrillo said. "I'm devastated. Every day I have less hope. But I won't leave here until this is over."
The rest of the city tried to return to some normalcy. There were shoppers packed along Canal Street, the northern border of the "frozen zone" around the disaster site that is closed to everyone except residents and emergency personnel.
Ojas Tejani, 24, who moved here from Chattanooga two years ago, was going to work yesterday. He's an Internet consultant and was unable to work for most of the week because of the disaster. On his way to the office, he stopped by the Armory, where photos of some of the missing are posted.
"It's really scary," said Tejani. "It's hit really close to home. I'm just fortunate to not have lost any loved ones."
Postcards of the World Trade Center have become a fast-selling item here as people try to hold onto the image of what was a monument to this city's muscle. American flags also have appeared in what seems like every other shop window. They've become a unifying symbol for this city's residents, whose robust confidence has been severely shaken by the worst terrorist attack in the nation's history.
The flags are everywhere. Attached to cabs. On backpacks of pedestrians, on bandannas, hats and pins. Even the panhandlers in subways are carrying them, hoping to make a buck or two from the bursting patriotism.
B. Rivera, a teacher in the Bronx, carried the flag as she came into Manhattan to catch a firsthand view of the disaster area.
"It makes me feel good," Rivera said of the flag, which she also had on her visor and T-shirt. "I want anyone who isn't from this country that hates America to know we're not going to let our spirits down. This won't destroy us."
Amy Hemstad, a student at University of Delaware, drove 2 1/2 hours into the city to see the wreckage. She was like thousands of others who brought cameras and surgeon masks to get near the disaster. Police have loosened the barricades a bit and opened up the southeast portion of the financial district and one can catch a glimpse from about four blocks away.
"I wanted to see what terrorism actually looks and feels like. I wanted to see what people in many parts of the world live with every day." Hemstad said shortly after two dump trucks passed by carrying debris removed from the wreckage.
Stuart Sharon has listened to the stories from the steering wheel of his cab. Sharon, 52, has been a New York cab driver for a quarter century and said he has experienced a lot of weird stuff, but never anything like the past five days.
He's listened to workers from the twin towers tell of friends who are missing. One man worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, which occupied top floors of one of the 110-story towers.
Friday night was the slowest he's ever seen, he said, and he knocked off early because people seemed to be staying in. For Sharon, who didn't lose anyone he knew directly in the disaster, there is still a grand sense that something is missing.
"For 25 years I've been driving a cab I could look upward and see the World Trade Center," Sharon said. "It's not there. I feel like I lost a member of the family."
