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The shuttered Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island was used as a site to sort through debris from the 9/11 terror attacks. (WCBS/Department of Sanitation via CNN Newsource)
By Alice Gainer
NEW YORK, New York (WCBS) — In the 24 years since the 9/11 terror attacks, over 1,600 victims have been identified, but there are 1,100 more who remain unidentified.
Scientists say the commitment they made in 2001 to bring everyone home has not been forgotten.
The search for remains after 9/11
On Sept. 11, 2001, Mark Desire was at the World Trade Center site with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to preserve evidence and set up a temporary morgue when the South Tower collapsed.
“I thought I was dead. I thought that was it,” he said.
He ran as the tower fell, was hit by debris and went crashing through a window, suffering several injuries.
He came to work the next day on crutches and was put in charge of doing DNA identifications at Ground Zero.
“To do proper searching, it needed to be spread out more,” he said.
The decision was quickly made to use the recently shuttered Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island.
1.2 million tons of debris sorted, sifted and buried
Michael Mucci, who was the Department of Sanitation’s director of the site at the time, oversaw its reopening hours after the terror attacks.
“Two a.m. on [September] 12th was when we got our first two loads of material,” he said. “From there, it just ramped up.”
It was a tremendous and deeply personal around-the-clock, multiagency forensic operation with a view of the skyline where the towers once stood.
“There was a tractor operator who lost his son. There was a crane engineer who lost his wife,” he said. “I tell you what really got me, when they started bringing in crushed fire trucks … And you knew, everybody on Staten Island knew a fireman or a policeman that was in the towers, so when they started bringing in the crushed fire trucks, that kinda hit home.”
Material was sorted and sifted, some of it passing through quarter-inch sieves.
After it was all sorted, 1.2 million tons of debris was buried at the site.
More than 100 DSNY workers, including members of the medical examiner’s office, have died from 9/11-related illnesses.
Evolving technology helps identify victims decades later
Mucci explained material that had victims’ remains was in its own section.
“We tried to keep it as dignified as possible,” he said.
Desire, who worked at Fresh Kills and is now the assistant director of the NYC OCME, said remains, some as small as the size of a pea, were then transported to the medical examiner’s DNA lab. Years later, more would be found in Lower Manhattan.
“They were finding remains on rooftops, in manholes, so the search kept getting a little bit more expanded,” said Dr. Jennifer Odien, a forensic anthropologist with NYC OCME.
Scientists say 24 years later, they continue to test and retest remains as technology evolves. They urge family members to contact them, saying they could make more identifications today if they had familial DNA.
“If they want to check on the DNA that was submitted early on to make sure that everything we have is the most sufficient for comparison,” Odien said.
Three more victims were just identified in August, thanks to advanced DNA testing.
The-CNN-Wire
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