Emotional Visit to the Purchase Building

Christie Coombs, a 9/11 widow writing for the Patriot Ledger in Boston, describes what goes on inside the Purchase Building under the Brooklyn Bridge. The Office of Emergency Management and the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office have been using the former OEM headquarters site to sift World Trade Center debris for human remains:

"Twenty-two individuals, well-trained in the field of forensics, stand at their workstations. Meticulously they screen through buckets of debris, rooftop gravel and landfill brought in by a conveyor belt. They screen it and wet it down, searching by hand and eye, for anything that resembles human remains or bits of personal property. Once through the first layer, they lift the screen and sort through smaller pieces. Anything questionable goes into the small white bucket to their left. The screened debris is discarded and another bucketful is put before them. They repeat this routine for eight hours a day, five days a week, finding at least one remain almost every day..."