By Frances Burns UPI
Flowers and pictures are placed along the North Pool at the 9/11 Memorial during a ceremony marking the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, September 11, 2013. UPI/Justin Lane/Pool
The unidentified remains of those killed in the 2001 attack on New York’s World Trade Center are to be moved to a repository on the site.
Officials say the remains will be escorted Saturday by vehicles from the city’s fire and police departments and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Family members have been told that a “reflection room” at the site will open May 15.
Julie Bolcer, a spokesman for the New York medical examiner, said 2,753 [sic] people are believed to have been killed on September 11, 2001, when two hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center towers, and 1,115 of them remain missing. She said the medical examiner’s office is holding almost 8,000 remains identified as human but not linked to one of the missing.The repository is next to the memorial museum but officials said it will be supervised by the medical examiner’s office and closed to the public.
People who lost relatives in the attack had a mixed response to the news. Sally Regenhard, whose son Christian died, is part of a legal challenge to the plan for the repository. She accused the city of making last-minute plans for the move.
“What makes it worse is that they are doing this the day before Mother’s Day, which is one of the most hard, horrible holidays for us,” she told the New York Times.
Eileen Fagan of Toms River, N.J., lost her sister, Patricia.
“That is where they died, that is where there is a proper memorial for them, and to me it is a good, safe and holy place,” she said. “One thing that has struck me over the years is that when you have almost 3,000 people die, there are a whole lot of family members attached to everyone, and they all have different opinions on everything.”
