NEW YORK (KRT) — At Ground Zero, now comes the hard part.
In 37 weeks, a small army has removed 1.8 million tons of World Trade Center debris, sifted through grime and ash for human remains and consumed 3.2 million meals served by a volunteer force of more than 7,000.
Thursday morning, the recovery and cleanup of the Sept. 11 attacks officially ends. For the army that became a community on the site of unspeakable horror, this is hard to take.
“This is very difficult for all of us,” said Sean Callan, a stonemason who has worked on the site since October. “First, we faced the enormity of this, then we supported each other as a family and now we’re scattering to the four winds.”
The site now looks like any 16-acre construction zone. But the fact that workers achieved a monumental, emotionally draining feat ahead of schedule and under budget offers small comfort to some.
Tim Cahill, who operates cranes and other heavy equipment, finished lunch in the huge “bubble” where workers eat, shower and decompress, then talked about the emotional toll and the sense of an incomplete task.
“Emotionally, many of us just shut down. Construction guys aren’t used to finding pieces of people every day,” he said, nudging at his helmet. “There’s no preparation for it. I just became numb.”
Cahill and Callan also spoke of the grim reality of the arithmetic: 2,823 known victims, but the remains of only a third have been found. The medical examiner’s office hopes that DNA tests may eventually identify some others.
“Psychologically, that’s what’s hard to take,” said Callan. “We realize most are gone without a trace.”
Molly Shotzberger, a counselor and major in the Salvation Army, has worked on the site since “Day 2,” Sept. 12, and will be part of the honor guard at Thursday’s ceremony. An empty, flag-draped stretcher will be taken from “the pit” to honor the victims never found.
She’s afraid that many workers are experiencing a delayed reaction to the enormity they have experienced. Their work is visually dramatic. The toll on them is largely hidden.
“There’s a feeling of relief and achievement, but there’s an overwhelming sadness that just grips at you,” she said. “Many people have put off thinking about it, and they can’t talk to their families about it.”
Shotzberger likes to use the analogy of a video freeze frame to describe what workers are going through: “For months, we’ve been caught in that freeze frame, now it’s time to get it moving forward and see the rest of the story.”
One place where workers can talk to each other, get a hot meal, a foot massage and relax is the bubble, also known as the “Taj Mahal,” operated by Salvation Army staff and volunteers.
After a shift, weary cops, firefighters and work crews trudge across West Street, get their boots scrubbed and sit down with a good meal, surrounded by flags, banners and thousands of letters from school kids.
Volunteers have streamed in from all over North America. Win Burge, a nurse from British Columbia, took two weeks vacation to keep the tables clean. Pamela Hughes, a disaster specialist from Tallahassee, Fla., helped coordinate logistics with New York city government.
“Gruff New Yorkers? No way. This is like Southern hospitality,” said Hughes, who packed supplies for the South Florida victims of Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
Jennifer Spano, a New Yorker who delayed a job consulting with the casino industry, said her work as a volunteer coordinator has changed her life.
“It’s like you’ve seen the worst and then the best of humanity,” said Spano. “This has reaffirmed my faith in people.”
At 10:29 EDT Thursday morning, the time the second tower collapsed on Sept. 11, the empty stretcher and the last steel girder will emerge from the burial ground. The “bubble” crew will serve its last supper tonight, and the fabric dome will be taken down.