NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document
LOncH-',/|.. In addition to remains and per
sonal effects, investigators are
looking for clues to the identity,
methods and activities of the hi
jackers, including the four orange-
teered to help sift the wreckage, painted flight data and cockpit
among them a retired detective voice recorders, commonly known
seeking something belonging to as “black boxes,” from the two hi
his son-in-law, missing in the dis jacked Boeing 767s that smashed
aster. “It’s a very emotional pro through the 110-story skyscrapers,
cess,” Kerik said. said Allee.
Chief of Detectives William They are not particularly inter
Allee said 300 to 350 trucks and a ested in the heaps of metal and
few -barges have already depos concrete debris from the build
ited their loads at Fresh Kills. ings. “We know what caused the
Sanitation workers weigh the two towers to fall down,” he said.
material and then dump it on the “We know what happened. We saw
hill. Workers pick through each it.” . ■
pile by hand or run it through a Apart from the immense — and
mechanical sifter. By yesterday, growing — field of debris, the site
the tons of debris had yielded 256 looks like a military encampment.
body parts, many personal belong Tents and trucks line the perime
ings and “several” knives and box ter of the work area. There are
cutters, officials said. It was not medics, a mobile kitchen and mess
known whether these were the hall, a communications center and
weapons used by the hijackers to a cell , phone site. There are tents
take over the two aircraft that hit and refrigeration trucks and trail
the Trade Center. ers and work areas covered in
“Anything of an evidentiary na camouflage netting.
ture” is removed and catalogued, An immense, ragged American
said Allee. Body parts are stored flag flutters behind one of the
in an on-site refrigeration truck tents...
and are sent to the medical exam “That flag was recovered from
iner’s office. the rubble,” said Allee. “That’s our
A kind of order is emerging flag.”
from the wreckage: There is a pile An address is printed in a corner
of flattened cars, another of incin of the flag:! 130 Liberty Plaza; a
erated trucks — their original
shapes impossible to discern — building across the street from the
and heavy metal girders are Trade Centdr.
stacked together in a heap. As for health concerns, Allee
Among the vehicles retrieved said the state Department of En
are 10 ladder trucks, five fire en vironmental Conservation contin
gines and several support vehicles uously monitors the air at Fresh
— battered reminders of the Kills. .He said the medical exam
nearly 300 city firefighters who iner and other health officials had
perished, most of them buried in visited the site and found condi
the collapse of Tower 2. tions to be safe.
Firefighters’ jackets, helmets “We wouldn’t have all these peo
and other effects were stored in ple wolfing here if it was a health
danger,” he said.
one tent, which was being treated
as a shrine, said Fire Lt. Peter He said the former dump site is
Cassidy of Linden, N.J. crucial to the success of the inves
Some of the I-beams and other tigation.
large metal pieces will be re “We were fortunate that we
cycled, said Allee. started with a flat surface with
Sanitation Commissioner Kevin nothing on it,” he said. “We feel
Farrell said most of the rest of the very secure here.”
material will be buried in Section Allee,-a Staten Islander, said he
1/9, at the foot of Arden Avenue was; happy to see the landfill
across the West Shore Express closed in March. “But I think ev
wayin Arden Heights. erybody understands the reasons
“I think Staten Islanders accept, why we’re doing this here,” he
said.
readily, their part in assisting in
this tragedy,” Farrell said in a (Advance reporter Heidi
press conference yesterday. Singer^contributed to this re
port. Associated Press mater
ial was also used.)
NYC-WTC_000152283
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