World Trade Centre clearing op scaled down
Round-the-clock clean-up efforts at New York’s World Trade Centre site will be scaled back as winter approaches, but officials say they still expect to have the debris cleared within a year.
Work will probably continue seven days a week, but not overnight once December’s lower temperatures arrive, Commissioner Kenneth Holden of the Department of Design and Construction said.
Typically, New York sees traces of snow in October and an inch in November. But two of the major construction firms working on the clean-up shrugged off the coming winter.
‘‘Winters have a minimal affect on the work, particularly the kind of work we’re talking about here,’’ said Pat Muldoon, senior vice president of AMEC Construction, which operates an 800-ton-capacity crane at the rubble pile.
Heavy machinery is doing about 75% of the clearing of tangled steel and concrete. Iron workers are cutting pieces of debris as large as 60 tons to be carted away.
‘‘Snow doesn’t bother them,’’ said Paul Ashlin senior vice president of Bovis Lend Lease, LMB Inc, which operates a 1,000-ton-capacity crane at ground zero.
‘‘We just have to do a few things differently,’’ to cut down on slippage, he said.
By most estimates, a quarter of the debris has been removed.
So far, authorities have identified 454 victims. On Thursday, the number of missing stood at 4,167.
