Web Aids Search for Loved Ones
After a day of uncertainty and silence, Jessica Trant logged onto America Online and began typing: “Looking for my dad, Dan Trant. He worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor.”
The 19-year-old pleaded with the world: “My family and I need him to come home, so please if anyone has heard about anything, e-mail me.”
As of Wednesday, she had heard nothing on the whereabouts of her 40-year-old father, whose law firm occupied four floors of the World Trade Center.
She and others searching for information about their loved ones after Tuesday’s attacks have turned for hope to the Internet, which has emerged as one of the key tools in the effort to locate the missing.
At least half a dozen Web sites have sprung up with the sole purpose of helping people like Trant find their friends and family. The Internet, with its interactive features and its ability to organize vast quantities of information, has turned out to be ideally suited to the gargantuan task.
It has become a haven of hope for searchers who have exhausted company hotlines and pleaded in vain to government officials.
Only a lucky few have found encouraging news via the Web.
One poster searching for an update on a World Trade Center worker named Jim Coffey received this reassuring reply from one of his co-workers at ESpeed Inc.: “Jim Coffey is fine in the Rochelle Park data center.” Chris Messineo, ESpeed’s head of network operations, said he has been scanning message boards to provide information to those looking for other employees.
An Internet user with the handle “obi31” logged onto a Web site called Disaster Message Service on Wednesday to offer some comforting news.
The poster wrote that a friend had received a cell phone call from level 4 beneath one of the towers.
“She said there are many down there, all OK, with food and water,” obi31 wrote. “God bless us all.”
The use of the message boards in searching for the missing is a “threshold moment for the Internet,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life project. “You can post a lot of information that wouldn’t be available in its entirety even on a printed press, much less on the radio or on TV.”
Among the victims being searched for on the Internet are a New York police detective, a red-haired grandmother, an estranged son, an electrician who answered a call on the 105th floor, and a fireman with a 1-year-old daughter.
Few Answers Even With Technology
On message boards focused strictly on the Pentagon attack, rank has no privilege. Victims being sought range from privates to generals and include both men and women.
Despite the power of the technology, there were few answers for anxious searchers. The messages convey a desperate plea to the world for any shred of information.
“We are looking for Pedro (Pete) Checo who worked in WTC Tower 2 at Fuduciary [sic] Trust,” wrote one group of searchers. “We last spoke to him around nine. If anyone spoke to him or saw him after that . . . we beg you to please contact us.”
A Staten Island woman named Lisa tried to get an update on her friend, Deanna Micciulli-Galante, who is eight months pregnant. “Last heard from at 9:10 a.m. via phone from 106th floor while waiting for firemen to arrive,” Lisa wrote. “Family and friends are frantic.”
A 15-year-old girl named Brandice spoke directly to her mother, Manette Beckles, who worked on the 97th floor of one of the towers: “Mommy, I love you!”
The boards sprang up within hours of the attacks.
More than 5,000 people have checked in on Prodigy’s I’m Okay Message Center to let friends and relatives know they had survived the attacks.
America Online, the world’s largest Internet service provider, set up two boards--one for New York, the other for Washington. By Wednesday afternoon, they had logged more than 9,500 messages, mostly from people seeking information on the condition and whereabouts of victims, said spokesman Nicholas Graham. The boards could be accessed by the 31 million members of AOL’s subscription service, but weren’t open to the general Internet community.
Other boards have more grass-roots beginnings, sparked by a desire to help in a tragedy of overwhelming proportions. As her housemates tried desperately--and unsuccessfully--to reach friends in New York by phone, Miriam Walker created her own Web site.
“It seemed that if one person could report in and say they were OK, everyone else could get that information,” said Walker, a 24-year-old computer science graduate student at UC Berkeley. “It would reduce traffic on the telephone lines and allow the information to reach people faster.”
Within four hours, she and fellow student Ping Yee had patched together a site they dubbed Safe. In its first day, Walker said, it processed reports on more than 3,200 people who were known to be safe in the wake of the attack and fielded inquiries from more than a million visitors.
“I’m far away, so I can’t help directly,” said Yee, a 25-year-old studying how large groups of people use computers to work together. “It seemed like this would be a good way to use my particular abilities to do something useful.”
Hate-Filled Messages Also Appear on Boards
Amid the heartfelt postings, there were flashes of hatred. A list of survivors posted on NY.com included such bogus names as “Paybacks 4Laden” and “NUKEmiddleast.”
Administrators of the site said they were working as fast as they could to weed out false entries.
Although the results for searchers have been meager, the message boards have served another purpose as well, becoming a virtual commons where people have been able to share their anguish.
“I’m looking for my husband, Neil Wright, and his friends John Bocchi, Vincent DiFazio and Sean, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor,” posted Trudi Freeman.
“My heart goes out to all of you. God bless.”
Later, Freeman explained that posting a message and reading others was comforting in itself.
“It’s very easy to get wrapped up in your own grief and then you realize the magnitude of people that are missing loved ones,” she said.
“It gives you hope in finding your loved one and staying strong. If he is out there I will find him.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
The Search for the Missing
The Internet is an important tool for those looking for information on missing friends and relatives in the wake of this week’s attacks. Here’s where to go online to find names of reported survivors and to seek information on people who are still unaccounted for.
American Online
Subscriber-only service. Keywords: America in Crisis. Click on “community.”
*
Disaster Message Service
66.40.240.240/dmstest/america.html
*
Safe
safe.millennium.berkeley.edu
*
I’m Okay Message Center
okay.prodigy.net
*
SeptEleven
bostoncoop.net:8080/SeptEleven
*
World Trade Center Survivor Database
www.ny.com/wtclist.html
*
List of Harvard University graduates who are confirmed survivors
www.jasonwhitlow.com/people.html
*
New York City Bombing Check-in Registry (registry closed)
www.shunn.net/okay
Source: Times research
