Ground Zero Clean-Up Nears End
N E W Y O R K, April 8 -- For the past seven months, the huge jaws of the "grappler" have picked delicately through the rubble of the wreckage of what used to be the World Trade Center, in the hope that more bodies could be found.
Construction workers and firefighters are now working on the last major pile of debris at New York's Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center once stood. It is the beginning of the end of the cleanup and recovery phase.
Since Sept. 11, workers have worked around the clock: 207 days, almost 5,000 hours straight.
As the recovery comes to an end, as the grapplers dig into the final pile of wreckage, there is a fresh sense of loss.
"For people who haven't recovered their loved ones, the anxiety starts to show on them," said Lt. John Ryan, with the Port Authority Police Department. Ryan arrived at the site in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Anxiety shows on the workers here, too, who feel the pressure of the dwindling piles of rubble. Of the more than 2,800 victims who died, only 773 have been found and identified. The sad fact is the recovery workers are running out of dirt to sift at this site, running out of places to look for remains.
Bonded in Tragedy
Even as the exhausting work continues, there is another sense of loss. The close community of firefighters and construction workers will disband when the job is finally done.
"And all the operators, everybody down here has gotten really close with everything that's going on," said Rick Ricciardi, a crane operator.
"These men have skipped holidays and shared meals, they've neglected their families, and bonded in tragedy," said Ryan. "I don't think anybody could have imagined something like this. You always expect to deal with bad issues that come up but nothing of this magnitude for this period of time."
They have done so much together — from September, when they began tackling the seven-story pile of smoldering steel and shattered concrete, to January, removing most of the traces of the World Trade Center.
Trending Reader Picks
ABC News Live