The Lost

By Stephanie McCrummen | STAFF WRITER

September 15, 2001

COLLECTIVELY, THE names and stories are not unlike an avalanche now, relentless and pushing its way well beyond Manhattan canyons into engine company after engine company, leaving collages of missing faces on walls and telephone poles, rolling inside the

Staples store in Islandia, where a manager worries about a good friend, and onto Vincent Avenue in Lynbrook, where not one neighbor is missing, but two.

It is the details that overwhelm us as we eat a turkey sandwich or put on mascara, that drive the horror of Tuesday into the hearts of everyone who thanked God they had no family or friends down there.

Because most everyone can relate to 40-year-old Paul Talty, who decided lately to build an addition on to his house in Wantagh. Or they can picture John Dallara of Pearl River eating the lunch his mother made him Monday, his favorite, spaghetti with garlic, red pepper and sausage. Or maybe they have a son like Brian McDonnell, who said he wanted to change the world and probably thought nothing of rushing toward 110 stories of flaming steel and glass and who rarely spoke of things like fear.

On Tuesday, thousands ran from the collapsing Twin Towers, from black, then gray smoke and ash, ran as fast as they could on the clearest, bluest day, north, south, east and west.

The lost and the missing are chasing us now as we drive to work or put on our clean clothes and shiny shoes. They are chasing us in words and story after story on page after page after page, and they are catching up to us all.