

Associated Press
Published Wednesday, October 24, 2001


They are still far from giving a final toll, but they say have culled most of the duplicated names that have caused the numbers to fluctuate daily, sometimes by hundreds at a time.

On Tuesday, the number of missing and dead reported by the city stood at more than 4,700, including those in the trade center and those aboard the two hijacked airliners that crashed into the twin towers.

"I think we're in the ballpark," said Police Chief Charles Campisi, who heads the missing-persons effort. Still, he cautioned: "The list is in a state of flux and it will continue to be."

If anything, the number will drop. For example, Campisi said he expects police will continue to discover that some families who filed early missing-person reports neglected to notify police when loved ones turned up safe. Duplicate missing-person reports and overestimates from some foreign consulates also contribute to the swings.

The city's total as of Tuesday consisted of 4,339 missing, plus 425 identified dead.

Despite the fluctuations, Mike Byrne, deputy coordinating officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, praised the city's efforts to catalog the missing and dead.

"The work that's being done is the best and most capable that is available on the planet today," he said.

The numbers have raised many questions, though.

Why, for instance, does the count of missing people drop so much faster than the number of identified bodies rises?

Police say they are still winnowing duplicates from an enormous list that initially contained scores of names reported by more than one well-meaning source.

"You get different spellings, different date of births. You don't want to definitely say that this person is not missing or that these two are the same people" without a full investigation for each name, Campisi said. "There's a lot of legwork that goes on."

The number of missing has jumped, sometimes erratically, while the legwork goes on. The number of missing stood at 5,422 on Sept. 20, only to balloon to 6,453 three days later as the police database was flooded with reports from a dozen sources, including family members, the Red Cross, airlines, employers and law enforcement agencies.

Early on, foreign consulates accounted for a lot of the overcount, Campisi said. One nation reported some 400 people missing, but the number gradually shrank to just over 100.

The accounting raises other questions, too. Why does the city medical examiner consistently count around 100 fewer identified bodies than the mayor does?

Most of the difference involves the identification of firefighters and police who perished in the trade center, Deputy Police Commissioner Thomas Antenen said.

The Police Department uses "a police standard" for identification, while the medical examiner relies on scientific evidence, he said. For instance, an officer's unrecognizable remains were found with his clothing and an identification card, "so we knew it was him," Antenen said.

The medical examiner's office makes positive identifications only when relatives visually identify a body or when remains are matched to hard proof such as dental records, fingerprints or DNA, spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said. Police must notify relatives before those names are released.

This week, the medical examiner started using DNA to identify remains, a process that will cause the number of identified bodies to jump considerably.

An ongoing Associated Press tally of the victims at the trade center, including those on both the planes, stood at 2,553 late Tuesday. Of those, 1,377 had been confirmed dead by a coroner or declared dead by a court; 329 were reported dead by employers, airlines or families, or had memorial services; and 847 were reported missing by families, employers or other officials. Names on the AP tally came from various official sources; no news organizations have access to the city's full list of missing.

Whatever the final figures, they will establish the magnitude of the Sept. 11 disaster in the eyes of the world.

Perhaps the most accurate determination was made by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on the day of the attacks, before the counting had even begun. "The number of casualties," he said then, "will be more than most of us can bear."


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