City will keep looking for WTC victim remains

The city vowed Friday to conduct a new search for the remains of those killed on Sept. 11 as outraged victims' relatives called for state and federal probes following the discovery of more bones. While relatives spoke of the fresh pain of a reopened wound, city leaders huddled in a closed-door meeting where they promised to conduct a new search of underground sites similar to the abandoned manhole from which Con Edison workers stumbled upon the remains Thursday.

A spokesman for the mayor said Con Ed and Verizon will inspect several other manholes and underground areas near West Street, the area of the find, and remove materials that may be found. The city's medical examiner will be on site to examine any material recovered to identify human remains. In calling for the probes, the relatives cited the failure to collect all the remains in and around Ground Zero, saying the fact that more were found five years after the terrorist attacks -- and several times in the past year -- is unacceptable and suggests "We cannot stress strongly enough that we are outraged by the continued cavalier attitude toward the retrieval of human remains," Diane Horning, of Scotch Plains, N.

J., said at a news conference Friday by WTC Families for Proper Burial. "This new development makes us all physically ill and fills us with renewed pain.

" Regarding the city's plan to do a more comprehensive search, Horning said the victims' families would prefer trained experts conduct the search rather than utility workers stumbling upon remains. Horning's son, Matthew, 26, an employee in the north tower, was killed in the attacks. "Oh my God, is that more of Matthew?

" she said Friday, describing her reaction to the new discovery. "But it's been sitting there for over five years." The latest clash between families and officials came a day after remains from inside a manhole were found at the 16-acre site, including remains as big as arm or leg bones and personal effects such as a Relatives also demanded that construction stop at Ground Zero until remains of all their loved ones are recovered.

Construction at the site continued Friday, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the site's owner, the Port Authority. Deputy Mayor for Administration Edward Skyler said the 90-minute emergency meeting held in City Hall, with agency heads such as Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta and Environmental Protection Commissioner Emily Lloyd, was "productive," and he defended the recovery effort launched after the towers crumbled. "The recovery effort after 9/11 was one of our city's finest hours," Skyler said in a statement.

"We will continue to conduct this important work in the same dignified and caring manner as we did in the past, befitting those we lost and this great city." Since the attacks, some 20,000 pieces of human remains have been found, officials said, but the DNA in thousands of the fragments -- some just slivers of bone -- was too damaged to yield matches to victims. Relatives of at least five victims attended the news conference at the offices of attorney Norman Siegel, who has filed a lawsuit against the city calling for a search and proper burial.

"The time has come for all to recognize that no matter how well-intentioned the effort to locate and identify human remains as a result of the 9/11 attack at the World Trade Center was, the painful reality is that it was, and continues to be, inadequate," Siegel said. "It is clear that more needs to be done and done now." Alexander Santora, of Astoria, whose firefighter son, Christopher, 23, was killed in the attacks, said: "It's like a wound that has been reopened.

It constantly keeps coming back." -- This story was supplemented with an Associated Press report. Share your thoughts about Sept.

11, 2001, and the ensuing five years.

. except this game has no winner, just two losers, and most of the fans have left. Submitted by: Shock Awe, rah rah "Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, nothing to kill or die for, a brotherhood of man.

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