In "American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center," William Langewiesche writes about the cleanup of the World Trade Center disaster. In this excerpt he describes the conflict between those trying to move ahead with the cleanup and those trying to recover the bodies of the dead:

One morning in October, I accompanied Ken Holden into the expanding valley at the center of the pile, where a temporary access road of ground-asphalt millings was being built. A fire chief came up and said, "You gotta give us time. You gotta get these guys to stop covering up the debris, burying us with dirt."

Before Holden could answer, another fireman, an older man in filthy clothes and a scarred helmet, rushed up and said, "You stop these guys from pushing dirt in here!" He had a weathered face, and heavy sweat on his upper lip. His eyes were wild. He said, "I've got two friends out there. And I've got my son buried right in here." Holden put a calming hand on his shoulder, but to no effect. The fireman wandered off with his shovel, a short entrenching tool bent 90 degrees, and climbed down into a hole in the rubble. The chief repeated almost apologetically, "He lost his son in there."

Holden said, "How much time do you need? A day? Two days?"

The chief swept his hand wide. "They're buried all through." Holden went off to find Burton and tell him to stop the road for now. When he came back, the old fireman was down on his knees, probing loose debris and sniffing shovelfuls for the scent of death.