BOSTON HERALD, September 17, 2001

On Scene with Mass. Rescuers in New York

By LAUREL J. SWEET

NEW YORK - You go up the buckled and shattered stone steps and across the concrete lip that was once the World Trade Center plaza, and then the hauntingly breathtaking view unfolds into the valley of death.

A series of craters mark the face of the 10-story deep pit of concrete, steel and glass that entomb thousands of victims missing since the terrorist attacks that toppled the twin 110-story towers.

The focal point of an intensely human tragedy is, oddly enough, unmarked by human touches. There are no framed photographs, no file cabinets or desks, no bits of clothing - just an impersonal steel face that has greeted search and rescue crews since Tuesday.

Gargantuan steel beams, once intended to hold the Trade Center towers up for all eternity, now criss-cross like straws thrown in an otherworldly game of pick-up sticks.

" I don't think a lot of these people will ever be found, " said Boston Rescue 1 firefighter Larry Holt, 54, of South Boston. " There's 110 floors here compacted into seven or eight. It takes your breath away. "

Holt and members of the Massachusetts Urban Search and Rescue Task Force have split themselves into two 31-person crews, alternating shifts on " the pile " every 12 hours.

They look for voids that might contain bodies. If an opening is wide enough, they crawl. If it's small, they slide. They use strobe lights to mark their descent, flashlights to lead them over a jungle gym of steel.

By yesterday afternoon, they had managed to reach spaces 100 yards within the crater and aided in the recovery of one victim and the partial remains of another. The search has been hampered again by the thick blanket of pulverized concrete dust generated when the two towers collapsed within two hours of being struck by the kamikaze jet attacks.

" It's hide and seek, " said one searcher, speaking on condition of anonymity. " The victims are all covered with dust and they just blend in with the rubble. "

The pace of recovery is painfully slow in the disaster area, where nearly 5,097 are listed as missing, including more than 300 New York firefighters.

Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said the tally of the missing was increased because more reports had been received, from outside the city - 1,200 reports were filed with police departments in the region - and by family members reporting to a Manhattan crisis center.

Among the missing were two federal agents, one with the FBI, the other with the Secret Service.

The Fire Department, in the worst tragedy since its first engine companies were formed in 1865, lost about 300 members in the Trade Center carnage and announced 168 promotions at a ceremony yesterday.

The police force is missing more than 100 officers.

It was easy to see why rescuers were numb. Among the grisly finds at the site were a pair of hands, bound together, found on a rooftop. Another was the torso of a Port Authority police officer, identified by the radio still hanging from his belt.

New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani recognized that while Manhattan will attempt to return to some semblance of workday normalcy today - with the stock market expected to open - it may take a long time for tensions to subside.

" This could be the most jarring event in American history . . . so there's every reason to understand why people are going to be very traumatized or very upset by it but the best way to deal with it is to try to get back to normal, " the mayor said.

Behind a tight belt of police security, workers drove heavy machinery, ran generator systems, climbed down manholes and dragged power lines along streets and into sub-basements in an effort to bring the financial center back to life.

Huge securities firms scrambled to find new office space, their former offices devastated in the attacks. An estimated 3 million square feet of office space on the market at the time of the attacks has been taken over.

Back at the center of the disaster area, known as both " Ground Zero " and " the pile, " workers dug feverishly to find anyone alive in the 450,000 tons of debris.

As the stench of death became more powerful, rescue workers found bodies and body parts, but no survivors.

The pace of recovery efforts ranged widely, from the violent, noisy work of cutting through concrete and steel to the almost hushed tones of the " bucket brigades " called in for the painstaking task of sifting through debris believed to contain human remains.

Search dogs excitedly hit upon several " hot spots " in the perilous canyon, while devices that measure both heat and the gases generated by body decay sounded in other locations.

Capt. Mike Clarke, 38, a firefighter from Bath, Maine, has waged a particularly personal mission because he is a fourth-generation firefighter, the son of retired New York Fire Department Lt. Walter Clarke, who worked in Manhattan.

" My dream was to work mid-town Manhattan, but it wasn't meant to be, " said Clarke, who went through training with some of the missing firefighters. " But maybe that was my blessing. "

With as many as 400 of their colleagues in the rubble, New York firefighters have maintained vigils at the scene.

" Whenever we come out of the pile, they look at us and say 'What do you think? Could it be one of ours?' " said one search and rescue worker. " It's awful, because from what we're seeing, there's just no way to tell. "

Just two miles away from Ground Zero, firefighters refuse to speak in the past tense of the members of Engine Co. 226 on State Street in Brooklyn.

Five men on the engine were at the World Trade Center within four minutes of the first jet strike. Four went into the building and never came out: firefighters Brian McAleese, Stan Smagala, David DeRubbio and Lt. Robert Wallace, filling in for a shift from another station.

The best information their colleagues have is that the crew was inside the South Tower, hooking up hoses to an internal stand pipe. None of them have been heard from since.

Yesterday, Ann Marie McAleese came to the station house, now papered by notes of support and sweetly scented by bouquets of flowers and dozens of burning prayer candles. The display frames four photos of the missing jakes.

" That's my son right there, " McAleese said, pointing to a picture of Brian. " He was very special. His brothers are down there digging for him every day. All these guys are special. "

" I really love him, " firefighter Peter Chiodo said of McAleese. " Brian would do anything for you or anyone. "

And he has, giving his life with his colleagues as they answered what looks more and more like their final bell.