'May God Bless America'

President Bush greets fire fighters at the site during a tour of the devastation.

Cheering rescue workers chanting "U.S.A!" welcomed President George W. Bush on Friday to the World Trade Center ruins, on a rainy day that slowed efforts to find survivors.

Four days after an estimated 4,700 people perished in Tuesday's terror attack, Bush, wearing a fire helmet, climbed atop a wrecked fire engine that was brought to a safe location, the corner of Vesey and West streets, to be his symbolic stage.

With the World Trade Center's destroyed north tower behind him, the president spoke into a bullhorn to praise hundreds of firefighters, police and rescue workers.

"We can't hear you!" a worker shouted.

In reply, Bush bellowed, "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!

" ... Thank you for your hard work and thank you for making the nation proud," he said. "And may God bless America."

He later met at the Javits Convention Center with 200 family members of firefighters and police officers killed when the towers crumbled.

There, Arlene Howard of Hicksville presented the president with the badge of her son, Port Authority Police Officer George Howard, whose body was pulled from the wreckage Friday. Bush spoke with the officer's teenaged sons, Christopher and Robert.

In a remarkable sign of New York City's collective grief, thousands of New Yorkers carried lighted candles Friday evening in poignant tribute to those killed. Responding to a suggestion that was spread mostly on the Internet, people walked the streets and clustered together on street corners with their tiny flames dipping and flickering.

Along 42nd Street, closed to traffic, people stood five deep, clapping and waving flags as the presidential motorcade passed before 8 p.m. At Bryant Park, as the president's motorcade drove slowly by, many held their candles aloft.

The investigation proceeded. Federal authorities released the names of 19 people they said hijacked and crashed four jetliners Tuesday. At 3 p.m., they arrested a man they described as a "material witness" in the attack on the World Trade Center, an FBI spokesman said. The spokesman declined to identify the man, discuss the circumstances of the arrest or say where it took place.

Friday night, Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said 111 bodies had been recovered, 59 of which have been identified. Authorities were working to ascertain identities from 13 additional body parts, Kerik said; rescue workers also have found 408 other body parts. The number of people still missing stood at 4,717. As of Friday morning, 4,300 people had been treated for injuries related to the disaster, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said.

For the third straight day, no survivors were found. Rain, heavy at times on Friday morning, hampered rescue operations, officials said. Firefighters leaving the site said the wet weather knocked down soot and dust but turned powdery debris into dangerously slippery mud.

Morning winds sent broken glass raining down on rescuers, who stopped working when lightning flashed in the area. The skies over the weekend are expected to be clear. Giuliani insisted there was "still a strong hope" that survivors will be found and recovered.

Some firefighters sounded frustrated with the slow pace of operations and depressed about what they are finding. "When I'm out there, I'm numb," said Carlos Liriano, a fire department emergency medical technician who works in Woodside. "Occasionally you hear something like 'Pass up a body bag,' and everybody gets quiet."

To assert control of the wreckage and to ensure safety, the Fire Department sent volunteer rescuers away and relied on professionals with safety training and respect for the chain of command, Fire Commissioner Thomas von Essen said.

"We think we can do it much more efficiently with our own people," von Essen said. "So we will not look for help from outsiders any more."

The city also is regularly testing the structural stability of buildings around the Trade Center by running subway trains beneath them and measuring vibrations. "Right now, they seem OK," Giuliani said.

The mayor said 1,400 truckloads of debris, or more than 13,000 tons, had been removed by Friday morning, a tiny fraction of what is left of the Twin Towers.

As of Friday morning, the FBI had released all but one of 11 people who were detained Thursday night at LaGuardia and Kennedy Airports. That person was talking to authorities voluntarily, said Barry Mawn, assistant director of the FBI's New York City office.

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