10 December 2001

Night in the Pit At Ground Zero, perhaps half of the rubble has been removed, but working round the clock, the good men and women involved in clearing the site of the Twin Towers collapse are still pulling bodies from the wreckage. New York Times - At the Pit, a Night Shift to Numb the Body and Soul: When the bodies are gone, the work resumes and all the undramatic things familiar only to the ground zero crew assume their proper places. The excavators claw through the pile. The ironworkers are hoisted up in a bucket to burn away the remaining wall. It rains fire, pressurized water dissipates into mist and the blowtorches produce an eerie green vapor. The pit fumes a white stinking smoke. Men shout. The falling metal makes the sound of the ocean booming as it breaks over the shore. The smells are of burning wiring, dankness from the subway tunnels and the sweet, acrid, cherrylike smell of death. 7:37:35 AM