Word: pits
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...remains of the World Trade Center are also being buried. The debris is being trucked from the pit at the center of Ground Zero at a rate of a dozen dump trucks an hour; as of Saturday, the city had already hauled out more than 20,000 tons of debris. It is being driven over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, which is closed to traffic, to a 3,000-acre landfill on Staten Island that used to be the city's main dump. The FBI then sifts all the debris for evidence. By the time the operation is completed, an estimated...
...Akana and his team headed straight into what Akana calls the pit at ground zero, a gigantic crater of mangled steel beams that looked like curly fries and pretzels. He was stationed in a very dangerous area near 1 Liberty Plaza, a building that was thought to be on the verge of collapsing. Officials would yell at everyone to evacuate, and there would be stampedes to get out. Ive never been so scared in my life, Akana says. In the back of my head, I knew I was probably in a really risky position. But you just dont think about...
...pit, Akana helped set up more triage clinics and worked on not only rescue workers but also corpses found in the rubble. His extensive medical training prepared him for the intense experience, but he was still somewhat traumatized by the horrifying and gruesome things he saw. I was in shock when I dug out a leg from the rubble, he recalls. For the remainder of his time in New York, Akana worked with dead bodies, attempting to retrieve bodies from the wreckage. We would try to get the majority of the body out, so if it was caught under something...
Having worked in the pit, Akana brings a different perspective to the volunteer situation in New York. Almost as upsetting as pulling bodies from the rubble was hearing reports of volunteers who looted triage sites, took equipment from trucks, and stole doctors and firemens uniforms to walk around the site. There was one guy who was actually rapelling off what was left of [the World Trade Center]. There I was, a beautiful sunset in the background, a leg sticking out of the rubble, and a lunatic 100 feet above me climbing like a monkey. It was totally crazy, Akana says...
Gornick’s contention that for personal nonfiction to work, the narrator must adopt a persona that must not fall “into the pit of confessionalism or therapy on the page or naked self-absorption,” is an accurate and important observation. By creating a narrator separate from herself, the writer is able to transform the uniquely personal into something that can be felt and understood by others. The narrator becomes the link between writer and reader, allowing the latter to feel the truths that the writer tries to express through the story, without...