Wounded City Endures More Chaos

New Yorkers alternated between hope and despair Thursday as they struggled to resume normal routines in the face of rising body counts and agonizingly slow digging at what rescuers call “The Pit,” where thousands of people are buried beneath the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

On a day when no survivors were pulled to safety and a dramatic rescue story proved to be overstated, the city endured more chaos. Much of Manhattan was in turmoil, triggered by more than 100 false bomb threats that emptied buildings and sent thousands of anxious people into the streets.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani began the day with sobering news: The number of people missing since hijackers slammed two airliners into the center had reached 4,763--including about 360 firefighters and police officers.

City officials said 30,000 body bags had been ordered for the collection of corpses and individual body parts.

The mayor said 184 bodies had been recovered so far, but only 47 were whole corpses. Of those, 35 had been identified. The number of people injured rose to 2,300.

Rescue and recovery efforts were slowed by fears that more damaged buildings would collapse and by bursts of flames and possible gas leaks in the huge mountains of debris.

As recovery teams and firefighters toiled under a punishing sun and thick clouds of gray dust, the city began preparing for a visit today by President Bush. The White House announced that the president will tour the disaster site and “hug and cry” with traumatized residents.

The visit is certain to add a new layer of congestion and upheaval. Security is expected to be exceptionally high, even tighter than for presidential visits during more sedate times, when streets are blocked off, sharpshooters are stationed on rooftops and special vehicles are filled with police carrying shotguns and automatic rifles.

Throughout the city Thursday, people watched TV news reports and tuned into radio bulletins, rejoicing or despairing at each new development on a day when roads, schools and bridges reopened but lower Manhattan remained sealed off.

Just hours after New York’s airports reopened, they were suddenly shut down again while authorities detained three men at La Guardia Airport and two more at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said the men, “some of them Arab nationals,” presented false credentials and crew member tags. A Saudi national who held a phony pilot’s ID was arrested, Kerik said.

People in the city were buoyed at 1 p.m. when news outlets reported that three rescue workers had been pulled alive from the rubble. People in cars and on sidewalks cheered and waved American flags. But authorities announced several hours later that the men merely had suffered from heat and exhaustion during rescue efforts Thursday.

Deputy Fire Commissioner Frank Gribbon said two firefighters were found in a ditch after they collapsed during rescue efforts. An emergency medical technician on duty Thursday collapsed as well.

The revised account meant that no one trapped since the attacks had been pulled out alive since five survivors were rescued Wednesday.

Former President Clinton and his daughter, Chelsea, made appearances Thursday. They visited a National Guard Armory on Lexington Avenue, where city officials have set up an information center for people seeking news of loved ones who disappeared the day of the attacks.

“The way New York works, every single day is a rebuke to this act,” Clinton said.

“The life and activity you see every day on street corners. Every single group I’ve seen on the street--including Arabs--says: ‘We hate this.’ This is not how we want to live.”

Clinton said of the terrorists who carried out Tuesday’s attacks: “They misjudged America. The people who were going about their business didn’t deserve this. And the people who did this will find out how wrong they were. . . . We’re going to be all right. We’re going to get through this.”

Other New Yorkers, beaten down after three days of terror and shock, tried Thursday to summon a spirit of patriotism. American flags sprouted up across the city--on apartment buildings, in shop and restaurant windows, on shirts and jackets and car antennas.

Many firefighters at the disaster site pinned flags to the backs of their heavy black coats. Fire engines and emergency medical vans flew huge flags. Street vendors shouting, “God bless America!” sold thousands of flags.

In a city boiling over with frustration at America’s seeming inability to strike back effectively against terrorism, the patriotic displays brought a measure of solace and support.

“The enemy should know America is not going to say this is over until we say this is over,” said Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.). “We stand united in this struggle. . . . America is together in this fight.”

Across the water from the World Trade Center, hundreds of people gathered Thursday night on the promenade of Brooklyn Heights to sing, light candles and pray.

Around an American flag at half-staff, neighbors sang “Amazing Grace” and “Give Peace a Chance.”

Fixed to the fence facing the city were prayers, flowers, candles and postcards of the old skyline dominated by the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

A shroud of ashes and dust illuminated by floodlights at the disaster scene drifted into the night sky.

“It’s so ghostly,” said Charles Smith, 47, cradling a candle.

Earlier, officials strained to cloak the city in a veneer of normality, announcing that lower Manhattan will be reopened today from 14th Street south to Canal Street. The city’s mayoral primary, canceled Tuesday, was rescheduled for Sept. 25.

In the city’s devastated financial district, the bond market reopened Thursday. Officials announced that the New York Stock Exchange is to reopen Monday.

But even with those harbingers of routine, the city continued to focus on the surreal scene at the disaster site on the southern tip of the island.

Early Thursday, exhausted firefighters slept on the street after a full night of work in the ruins of skyscrapers at The Pit.

Surrounded by flattened buildings and crushed vehicles, all caked in white dust, search teams continued to gently pick at the wreckage, probing for the living and the dead.

Frank Terry, 34, lowered himself onto a filthy ledge, unable to continue. He had pulled a man’s torso from the rubble.

“I wasn’t prepared for this,” he said quietly, unable to take his eyes off the partial corpse. “You can’t get it out of your mind. You can’t forget this.”

Nearby, several workers made their way to a hill of rubble. A crane operator lowered his chain. The workers wrapped it carefully around long strands of melted steel, and the crane swung the wreckage away.

The process was repeated, again and again, as the piles of rubble shrunk imperceptibly. A convoy of dump trucks roared away with load after load of steel and concrete.

Workers trudged through a dark, muddy tunnel in the adjacent World Financial Center to reach the far side of the wreckage. Along the way, some have scrawled messages in the dust-coated windows of what once was a shopping court:

“John Crespi, please call home,” “John in Reserve 2--I am here and I love you--Dad.” And finally: “New York will always stand.”

Outside, another ash-smeared window is scribbled with the words “body bag.” About 40 boxes of them are stacked there.

One rescue worker said he had found a liver. Some workers said that the stench of decaying flesh guides them to corpses.

“It’s difficult to imagine that there might be people alive under this,” said Jason Rodriguez, 30, as he and two dozen fellow workers passed buckets filled with rubble. “But we can’t give up on hope. That’s all we have.”

Rodriguez, a Baltimore highway construction worker, said he drove to New York to volunteer his help. His eyes filled with tears as he described what he has found.

“We found a woman folded in half,” he said. “One of her thighs was completely missing. Her other leg had no foot.”

Gingerly, each body part is placed in a separate body bag.

At midday, there were three sudden blasts of a warning horn, and workers ran from the recovery area. The top 10 floors of One Liberty Place, a skyscraper in the World Trade Center complex, were swaying and threatening to collapse.

Some of the firefighters who had run to safety decided to take no chances the next time they went in. With felt tip pens, they wrote their names and telephone numbers in huge block letters and numerals along the length of their arms.

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Times staff writers Jeffrey Gettleman, Matea Gold, Michael Quintanilla, Booth Moore and Maggie Farley contributed to this story.