60 Minutes 9/11 Archive: Frozen in Time

60

minutes

rewind as the rest of the country continues its life at ground zero, the World Trade Center site has been in a sense

frozen

in

time

, 9/11 never ended there, it has endured in the recovery work all days and nights without stopping. Now, after 233 days, it's almost over in terms of concrete and steel, what you're about to see is something close to a miracle, but in terms of flesh and blood, there's a limit to what can be done; Most of the lost probably never do. be found lower manhattan hasn't looked like this since 1968 now that the clock is about to start moving again here's a recount of what was found, what was lost and what's coming after 9/11, the world Trade Center was a mountain of misery.

One million 500 thousand tons of rubble and nearly three thousand people who were inside began to move from hand to hand, one bucket at a

time

and has not stopped for a single hour since that day, now almost eight months later It is almost finished at the base. Of the downtown towers the only thing left is a gash that covers 16 acres and cuts a 70 foot deep hole in the heart of Manhattan this was the scene today these men and women are working in the well the basement of the mall Seven floors in they are up to the bedrock of the island, the front loaders are shaking out to inspect what is among the last ruins when you are in the pit digging, what have you seen?

I have seen many organizations working hard together getting along well. I've seen the look on people's faces like they still can't believe it even though it's been months. Dan Henry, a port authority police officer is helping to recover the human remains when we have a recovery. No, I don't consider it a bad thing. What I think is the beginning of closure for families who have been through true hell. Today it is difficult to imagine the seven buildings that were lost. The seven World Trade Centers had 47 floors. Building six had eight floors. Buildings five and four had nine floors each. towers one and two were 110 stories each and number three was a 22 story hotel piece by piece those buildings sailed on barges across the hudson to a landfill on staten island here the ruins are separated, classified and searched again tons of concrete passed before there is even a hint of a life, a frequent flyer card or the keys to the office, they have attended these lines every day, weekends, holidays every day and after eight months of that, for many there are a sense of loss when leaving, when it's all over, it's all over.

It will be difficult, it will be difficult to say goodbye to this, but we will, and although this operation will end, the friendships and bonds that were formed were never good. Jim Luongo and Bruce Bovino of the NYPD and Richard Marx of the FBI lead the operation. Give me some sense. From what you've found in the last seven months or so, it's life interrupted, it's just fragments of people's lives. You see all the cars we've brought here as you go along and try to get personal effects out of the place. cars, you find golf clubs, you find birthday gifts, you find kids toys in the car.

It's just a snapshot of these people's lives that abruptly came to an end. Most overwhelming were the wedding invitations which of course hit that debris field and Fill yourself with these pure white wedding invitations that still have little doilies on them. There have been a lot of other things, like wristwatches, rings, about 500 600 pieces of jewelry, and it's amazing that an entire building that you saw before is destroyed and crushed, and what a diamond engagement looks like. The ring or wedding ring survives, I just feel like it is meant to be found and while we were there, they were meant to find another one, a women's ring that they will try to match with a family.

There is no rhyme or reason, here gold survives and steel does not. Police checking the cars say this wheel and engine are all that remain of an armored US Secret Service limousine kept at the World Trade Center for visiting heads of state. Some of the most notable things they found are hidden in a storage container. The marks took us inside. These are elements of the plane. Mechanical parts that we have recovered. It looks like a landing gear strut. We've got a landing gear strut on the side and part of an engine back there. I think this is from flight 11.

It crashed into the north tower. How do you know that from the serial numbers of the engines and next to Boeing is Balzac, the bust of the French novelist sculpted by Rodin, these were statues of Rodin from the 105th floor. They would have been in the main hall of Cantor Fitzgerald this Part of the sculpture is one of the three door shadows at the top of Rodin's Gates of Hell, which is a huge, wide structure. Hell's doors. The landfill is a field of lost souls. Here 135 victims have been identified who were not found. at the World Trade Center site families call almost every day, what do you tell them when they call and say deputy inspector, you're going to find my wife, my son, my dad, I tell him we're going to do everything we can to do it and we won't stop until we finish.

A woman called you. You found her husband's ID in all of this, but she was mad at you because you didn't find her body. The reality is that not everyone is going to be found. that's the very harsh and horrible reality michael was michael was determined he was wonderful firefighter mike ragusa responded to the world trade center his father vincent and mother dee haven't heard from us since and after all this time they're not sure they want to because If at this point they identify him it would be through DNA and instead of wondering what happened I will know with certainty that he was blown to pieces and as a mother that is very painful the raguzas are one of the few families that refuse to have a monument in memory until they are Their last hope of identifying their son is gone.

It's a comfort not to know that my grandson says it for no reason. Uncle Mikey is in Pennsylvania. He's three years old. He's four years old. He just says it all the time and my daughter says he might know something that We don't, but by identifying him by DNA we will know that he is not in Pennsylvania. Sound crazy? Whatever it takes to get over it, believe me, there are two types of suffering. Now those who don't know. and those who do it, more than 19 thousand human remains have been collected. the families have the option of being notified once at the end or being notified every time a DNA match is made a year before this happened nicole petrucelli has been informed about four recoveries of her husband I choose to know every time I feel that you know if he was sick and dying, I would have taken care of him, so this is the way I can take care of him and when it is identified, I want to know and I want to take into account house mark petrucelli a commodities trader had just received a promotion that placed him in tower number one his remains were identified for the first time the day after his funeral there are many hundreds of families in fact most families have never received that first notification and it seems likely At this point, they will not, but it is important for families to remember that the recovery, the identification process will continue in the medical examiner's office for quite some time, probably almost a year, so there is hope and never I lose hope of being able to do it. get his wedding ring back that I want so desperately or I will get another phone call about other remains a couple of weeks ago I got a phone call that they found his heart I never imagined his torso wasn't intact and I never imagined his heart would be lifted from the ground amid fire and rubble, although among the luckiest of families, the luckiest of the unlucky families tend to view the World Trade Center site as sacred, a final resting place. place, but that feeling has not stopped the beginning of reconstruction.

They are already working on the subway that ran along this route, transporting 60,000 travelers from New Jersey every day. The first thing to be rebuilt will be the subway. Port Authority Engineer Lou Minnow is in charge. He took us under the Hudson River to tunnels that were flooded during the attack. These cast iron walls are 100 years old, but they retained the light. At the end of the tunnel is the site of the shopping center and the little fish can see all the way to the lines that reopen in 20 months for him it is a way to fight back on 9/11 he had a different job at the port authority he was general manager of the World Trade Center all you want to do is sit there and cry because you think about all the hard efforts of a lot of people to make that happen, what the World Trade Center meant to downtown New York and then to the entire city and Then you thought about the people who were trapped, the people who were killed, and especially the people who worked for you, all missing, what does it mean to rebuild this railway?

This line means to you, we are telling the world that we have survived, this will be our finest hour and this will be the beginning of the rebuilding of downtown New York, exactly what will be rebuilt will be debated for months. Michael Bloomberg is the new mayor of New York many people are going to have a say in what is built here eventually, yes, but tell me about yourself, what does the mayor of New York want to see here? I think the first thing is that we want to complete the recovery effort, the second thing is to make sure that we repair the underground infrastructure and find the right monument above ground.

The Vietnam memorial took five years before everyone said "ah, this is it" and then they actually made something beautiful and we. We have to go through that process and we will build buildings that will be residential, commercial, office, cultural, maybe sports facilities. It's not clear if that fits, but it's too early to say what fits. Now it's in the hole, it's the last standing steel of the twin towers there's a reckoning in spray paint port authority pd 37 dead new york pd 23 new york fire department 340 and of course two thousand four hundred and twenty others just a little more than a thousand have been identified how many can be found in the last of the ruins that question weighs on officer dan henry because among all the people he is looking for he is looking for his brother firefighter joseph henry if in these last few days they do not find Joe this is going to be his final resting place along with hundreds of other people, what do you think they should do with this?

I think there should be a nice park, a good size, with lots of beautiful trees and flowers and benches, and I think a big wall, a big memorial wall. with the name of each victim and since you know you don't have a cemetery to go to, this will be the place we go to on their birthday or Christmas, you know, say hello, we thought you might like to see what they have. made with the other target of 9/11 the pentagon this was the scene that day and this is the same place now they hope to reopen this section on 9/11 of this year 189 people were murdered in the pentagon five of them have never been found