Remnants of life in mounds of debris

NEW YORK -- After a while, the rubble all begins to look the same.

But every so often, there's a reminder that this mound of shattered concrete and broken glass was once home to thousands of New York workers.

"They took out a metal office chair, and it was just a twisted frame," said George Myers, an ironworker who has spent hours on the front lines as a volunteer, sifting through the mess that was once a vibrant office complex.

"All the glass is shattered because cars are crushed, buses are crushed," said Myers, covered in a thin veil of white dust after spending hours knee-deep in wreckage. "Tragically, there are human parts to deal with. The rubbish is coming out in drips and pieces -- it looks like a junk yard."

Two days after the leveling of the World Trade Center, troops of volunteers devoted hours to combing through the debris in hopes of finding survivors.

By all accounts, the outpouring of volunteers and donations to aid in the rescue efforts has been overwhelming.

Thousands of trained professionals and ordinary citizens flocked to organizations like the American Red Cross to donate their time, expertise and blood. But no survivors were found yesterday, and the likelihood of locating the more than 4,700 missing dimmed as yesterday passed.

But despite an apparent lack of success, Laura Brounstein, a volunteer handling communication for the American Red Cross, said the numbers of people coming in to help has been uplifting.

"My feeling is that [the Red Cross] is thrilled with how many people are coming out to help," Brounstein said.

Among the masses that have descended on the Red Cross in the past 48 hours were nearly 800 trained professionals -- 300 disaster response volunteers and 500 mental health workers. And there were many more who, like Brounstein, were just glad that they might be able to make a difference.

"I wanted to help," Brounstein said. "I was happy to hear that there was something productive that I could do."

Brounstein, joined by fellow Red Cross workers, stood in front of the Red Cross headquarters on Amsterdam Avenue distributing leaflets outlining how the average citizen can lend a hand.

For every volunteer like Brounstein, however, there is one like Myers, who spent his day sorting through disaster debris in the hopes of finding one of the thousands missing.

"The workers are coming from all the districts in New York City," Myers said. "Right now they're sifting through the rubbish, which is approximately the seventh floor, if you can imagine that -- it's seven stories high."

Many of Myers' fellow union members are among the crew, which he described as enormous.

"I estimate that there are 2,000 heads down there right now," Myers said.

Others have been offering help whenever, and in whatever way, they can. New York University graduate student Jake Johnson helped to make stretchers to carry victims out of the rubble.

"I got down into lower Manhattan [Tuesday] and I asked the cops if they needed volunteers, so they let us through," Johnson said. "So we got wood and we made stretchers and then there were hundreds of people making stretchers."

As Johnson assembled stretchers on Tuesday, however, the simple desire to help turned potentially lethal as buildings surround the World Trade Center threatened to fall -- with Building 7 of the complex eventually coming down.

"I was there when 7 fell," Johnson said. "I ended up running down the street and all the debris and smoke started chasing us. I thought I was going to get hit by all the debris."

Johnson returned to help on Wednesday, but police told him that they had too many volunteers already. He plans to return again this weekend, when he thinks that help will be needed.

But volunteers said that even though Wednesday and Thursday saw thousands donating their help to the rescue efforts, more were there to pitch in on Tuesday.

Red Cross volunteer Erickson Calderon said he thought that businesses reopening, and the renewed need for a labor force, had detracted from the size of the volunteer pool. Calderon, a Red Cross volunteer even before Tuesday's attacks, was at the organization's building on Amsterdam Avenue even though he had not been called.

"Today, everybody's starting to go back to work," Calderon said. "I think on Tuesday there came down like 4,000 blood donors. I haven't been called yet, but I'm down here working."

New York rescue volunteer Robert Schubin said he saw a rising coldness among the city's residents, although he noted that this was probably because people were trying to get back to their normal lives.

"Maybe people are trying to get their minds off it, but I can see [increasing apathy]," Schubin said at St. Vincent's Hospital. "There were a lot more people down here at this time yesterday."

In the background, dozens of volunteers stood behind Schubin assembling sandwiches as reinforcements for doctors and volunteers.

But the sad truth may be that there are few left to save. Ivan Young, a physician at St. Vincent's hospital, said that the hospital had seen mostly minor injuries, and few survivors had been pulled from the rubble.

"Unfortunately, we geared up from a lot of people, but now we're just getting inhalation," Young said.

So far, the hospital has seen around 400 cases related to the accident. When asked if there would be many more, Young was not optimistic.

"There will be a few, but not many," Young said. "Mostly some of the workers."

According to Schubin, there may be only one option left for many of the victims.

"All that's left now is to pray," Schubin said.

Daily Pennsylvanian staff writer Samantha Melamed contributed to this report.

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