New Yorkers Visit Scene, Return to Homes

Sept. 22, 2001 -- They've seen it on TV, and this weekend, members of the general public are seeing with their own eyes the destruction wrought when two hijacked jetliners slammed into and collapsed buildings at New York's World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

"Total devastation," said one onlooker. "I mean … I've never seen anything like it."

The general public is now allowed to get within just a couple of blocks of ground zero. People stop, they look in awe. Many of them take pictures. The skeletal remains of the World Trade Center's south tower loom above.

"When you see all the pictures on TV and hear it on the radio, you think of seeing Bruce Willis walking out of it," said another onlooker. "And then you're here and you know that it's reality, it's people's lives."

"We won't be able to find them, and you have to pay your respects somehow," another said.

Service for the Victims

The official number of people missing at the World Trade Center stands at 6,333 — and 261 are confirmed dead, 194 of whom have been identified, New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said today.

Another 189 people are missing or dead after another hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon outside Washington on Sept. 11. Forty-four more perished when passengers apparently struggled with hijackers in another plane, which crash landed in western Pennsylvania that day.

On Sunday, more than 55,000 people able to get free tickets will be able to pay their respects to the missing and the dead at a special outdoor service at Yankee Stadium. Thousands of others will gather at minor league stadiums in the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn, and in Newark, N.J.

James Earl Jones and Oprah Winfrey will emcee the two-hour event, which begins at 2:30 p.m. Singers Bette Midler, Placido Domingo and Lee Greenwood will perform, and religious leaders from various faiths are scheduled to speak.

Slim Hopes for Survivors

But even though the missing will be memorialized, they're not necessarily all being given up for lost just yet. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said officials haven't turned the corner and given up hope of finding someone alive.

"On the slim chance that there is anyone still alive, [recovery workers] are conducting the operation so they would be able to save someone if that were the case," Giuliani said. "The mission is going to remain the same for some time. In other words, the firefighters and construction workers and police officers that are there are removing debris carefully in order to find human beings or human remains."

But Jason Smith, an American Red Cross worker on the scene, said no matter how positive they try to be they've got to be realistic.

"Hope for survivors continues to diminish by on hour by hour and a day-by-day basis," he said.

Another rescue worker agreed.

"I think everybody's losing a little bit of spark, the hope that they're going to find somebody as time goes on is realistically … going to be a fluke, I feel," the worker said.

But Capt. Stewart Willig of the Florida task force working at ground zero says it's still possible for people to survive in the levels below ground.

"The oxygen level is fine, so people can breathe down there," he said. "The top floors we don't expect to find many survivors, but the lower floors that were pancaked down … we expect to find quite a few bodies and hopefully survivors down there."

Return to Offices, Homes

As work continued at the scene and passers-by gawked, many business owners and office workers waited in long lines to get police escorts back into buildings near ground zero. Many allowed to enter for a few minutes said dust blankets everything in most offices with open or broken windows. They say there's glass and paperwork scattered everywhere.

John Horran, an attorney, said the stuff he had to leave behind is now desperately needed.

"We're trying to get our business back to normal," he said. "So in order to go to court and make appearances we need our files back."

Residents also have been trying to get back to their homes near the attack, and Giuliani said a majority of people — five or six thousand out of nine or ten thousand displaced — that live in the area have returned.

Giuliani: ‘Stop Being Afraid’

Giuliani urged New Yorkers, where possible, to return to normal life as a way to help the relief effort.

"Stop being afraid," Giuliani said. "Stop being afraid doesn't mean that you can get rid of the emotion. It means overcoming it. Just going out and doing the things that you normally do."

"You can go back to your normal way of life," he added. "And I think you honor the people who are missing and the people who died if you did that. After all, they died to protect our normal way of life."

Former President Clinton, at a press conference with Giuliani and city officials, said he plans to do his part. On Friday, when Giuliani asked New Yorkers to go shopping to bolster the local economy, he complied. On Sunday, he said he plans to attend the Yankee Stadium service. And he added that he plans to resume his travel schedule.

"Next week, I think I'll be on at least four commercial airline flights," Clinton said. "I think that's right — anyway a large number. I feel quite confident that the airlines are safe for travel again and that New York is safe for visitors."

Giuliani said Friday night's Mets game at Shea Stadium, the first major league baseball game in the city since the attack, is proof that New York can move on.

"I even got cheered at Shea Stadium — something that made me very nervous," Giuliani said. "I thought we had gotten really weird when that happened. And then all of a sudden [the Braves' slugger] Chipper Jones came to the plate and the Mets fans booed. So we were back to normal."

ABCNEWS' Steffan Tubbs and Michael S. James in New York contributed to this report.