Search for WTC remains expands in NYC - Yahoo! News

Search for WTC remains expands in NYC - Yahoo! News: "By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer"


NEW YORK - New searches for human remains from the Sept. 11 attacks are beginning this week at buildings near ground zero, a city official said Wednesday.

Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler laid out a schedule for a yearlong planned search of buildings, rooftops, streets and ground zero for human remains that weren't recovered in the eight-month cleanup following the 2001 attacks. More than 200 bones have been found in three manholes on the service road in the past month.

"This renewed effort will continue until we have searched every place where remains could be found," Skyler wrote to Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a letter given to Sept. 11 victims' families and some reporters.

Work resumed Monday at the former Deutsche Bank skyscraper across from the 16-acre lower Manhattan site. More than 760 bones and fragments were found in the past year on the roof. Officials used vacuums to remove debris from some of the upper floors and planned to sift through them outside the building for remains.

Workers planned to begin sifting through gravel on the roof of a nearby hotel at the end of the week, Skyler said. Searches are planned in the coming weeks on the roof of a building housing downtown rebuilding agencies, two other buildings and the site of a destroyed church.

Skyler said that after finishing searches of a dozen manholes and underground cavities, "exploratory" work along the service road for trade center debris will begin next month and could last until next summer.

The father of a Sept. 11 victim said the city needs to dig up the entire service road rather than making spot checks for remains.

"You just can't dig a hole a couple of feet deep in some spot and then say, 'Well, there's nothing here,'" said Kurt Horning. "It means digging up everything that was never looked at, that's what they should do."

The renewed search will be coordinated by an agency managing downtown construction and the city's Office of Emergency Management, Skyler said. The city's Department of Design and Construction had overseen the initial cleanup of ground zero and prepared a report last month recommending where to search.

Some officials who worked at the site in 2001-02 have said the DDC rushed to complete the ground zero cleanup without adequately searching for remains