As administration officials and the international community sharpened plans for a response, local officials and workers back home took stock of the attack’s effects. In New York, as the New York Stock Exchange and City Hall prepared to reopen today, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani urged citizens to continue on with their lives.
“Go ahead and go about the everyday activities,” he urged. “Go to church on Sunday. If you go to a park and play with your children, do that. If you like to go out and spend money I would encourage that. It’s always a good thing.”
As Giuliani spoke at a morning press conference, rescue efforts continued unsuccessfully. No one has been pulled alive from what workers are calling “The Pile” since Wednesday, the day after the attacks.
Crews reported finding body parts instead of bodies as they sifted through the twisted rubble. One hundred eighty people have been confirmed dead, and 5,097 are missing as of yesterday.
“We can’t even find concrete. It’s dust. What we’re calling bodies aren’t really bodies,” a high-ranking police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Elsewhere in the U.S., several apparent backlash attacks and threats have been reported against people of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent. In Mesa, Ariz., an Indian immigrant gas station owner was shot to death and a Lebanese-American clerk was targeted—but not injured—by gunfire at another gas station. In Seattle, an armed man was arrested after allegedly setting fire to a mosque.
Cheney also disclosed that after hijackers slammed planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon on Tuesday morning, Bush ordered the military to shoot down any commercial aircraft that disobeyed orders to turn away from Washington’s restricted air space.
Upon returning to the White House from Camp David, Bush said: “I gave our military the orders necessary to protect Americans. Of course, that was difficult.”
The president worshipped at the Camp David chapel yesterday, joining millions of Americans seeking spiritual comfort after the tragedies.
—Wire reports were used in the compilation of this story.