Cleanup nearly over The Ground Zero cleanup will be done May 30 acording to this report.
The job will have been completed three months faster than city officials had predicted — in part because of the extraordinarily mild winter — at a cost of about $750 million, or one-tenth the initial estimate of $7 billion.Thousands of people have worked for more than eight months in a practically nonstop effort to find victims' remains and remove the 1.8 million tons of rubble.
The May 30 ceremony is set for 10:29 a.m. — the moment the second of the twin towers fell — and will be held at the seven-story crater where the skyscrapers once stood
Ahead of time and under budget. A crisis always brings out the best we have to offer.
While I was stationed aboard the USS Nimitz we had a flightdeck fire involving 4 planes, and a small amount of ordinance. Fire out at sea is one of a sailor's worst nightmares, because there's nowhere to go. You have no choice but to fight it. Considerig=ng that a carrier is a floating airport, you have literally tons of jet fuel on board, not to mention lubricants, solvents, not to mention the flammable metals that make up some of the more exotic alloys on the planes. A similar flight deck fire on the USS Forrestal had spread throughout the hanger deck and down into the living and working quarters before finally being put out. Dozens of sailors died fighting that fire. The Navy learned as much as possible about fighting fires at sea from the Forrestal, and based on what they learned, changed the way they trained the crew to fight a major fire. We were about to find out if the training worked.
The flight deck fire happened in the early hours of the morning, when most of the crew was asleep. The duty section manned the watches, but about 3/4 of ships company were sound asleep. A couple of airdales were performing maintenance on the cannon of an A-7 Corsair. The cannon had a few rounds of live ammo left in it, which discharged, and struck a KA-6D tanker, which was full of jet fuel. The resulting explosion engulfed the A-7, the KA-6D, and two other planes nearby.
The intercom announced "General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations. Set Condition Zebra throughout the ship." What this means is that everybody on the ship goes to Repair Lockers, which are areas scattered throughout the ship that are stocked with damage control equipment. Once there, the sailors set Condition Zebra by closing all watertight doors and hatches. This prepares the ship for battle by making sure that any flooding is limited, and by scattering the crew throughout the ship. It keeps the majority of the crew from being wiped out in a single hit, and it makes sure that there are people nearby to repair any damage that occurs.
On a ship the size of a small city, crewed by over 5000 men, this can take awhile. We practiced setting Zebra on a regular basis, and our goal was to have Zebra set in seven minutes. After a few months of hard work, we made our goal.
I woke up hearing my shipmates yelling "GQ! GQ! And it's for real!" I rolled out of my rack, grabbed my pants and shoes and began running for my battle station, which was right outside Medical. As I ran past the berthing lounge, I glanced at the TV, which was tuned to the cameras covering the flightdeck. All I could see was a rolling mass of flames and black smoke. At the time, I didn't know what had happened, and I didn't really care. All I cared about was getting to my station and securing the ship. All around me, sailors ran to their battle stations, following the routes we'd practiced, carrying their clothes and dressing on the way. Some didn't even bother to dress, but reported to their repair lockers in t-shirts, underwear, and steel-toed boots. I was the phone talker for our locker, so I quickly put on the sound powered phones, and checked in with DC Central. While doing this, I was busy setting Zebra as other members of the repair locker arrived.
Zebra was set throughout the ship in three and a half minutes. A real crisis had brought out more than we thought we had in us.
The fire was out in less than ten minutes. We had to jettison two planes, but were able to put the fire out on the others. The two airdales were brought to Medical, then were airlifted to a burn center in German, but it was clear that they weren't going to make it. But the fire didn't spread, and no other lives were lost.
Posted by Rich at May 17, 2002 1:06 AM