Ny.com, a Web site that calls itself the “paperless guide to New York City” and Prodigy, the national ISP, are offering interactive databases listing survivors of Tuesday’s World Trade Center collapse. As of Wednesday midday, with rescue workers still sifting through piles of debris at the building sites in New York and Washington, there was little official information about fatalities.
Both databases are compiling information with submissions from the public. The NY.com staff says it is attempting to confirm the accuracy of all submissions, however a review of the database showed a number of entries were not thoroughly checked; many of the entries were incomplete and others were obviously fictitious. The Prodigy “I’m OK” Message Center did not claim it would attempt to verify the accuracy of submissions.
With information about survivors still sketchy, and New York City’s phone system still suffering from overload, both sites are being heavily used. At various times, both were unreachable. However, InternetNews.com reporters were able to access the site on several occasions.
New York City officials said that more than 250 uniformed fire fighters and police officers were missing in the World Trade Center collapse, but there is no reliable way of accounting for the thousands of people who were believed to be in that building or the Pentagon at this time. Scores of people were able to leave the building but many are believed trapped inside. New York City officials have confirmed that some survivors trapped inside the rubble had placed cell phone calls.
The URL for submitting the name of a survivor to the NY.com database is http://www.ny.com/wtcform.html. The URL for viewing the names of survivors is http://www.ny.com/wtclist.html.
By 3:00 pm, EDT, NY.com was reporting the database had more than 4,100 entries.
Prodigy’s Message Center covered the crashes in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The URL for viewing the list of entries is http://okay.prodigy.net/. The URL for adding a new name is http://okay.prodigy.net/message.html.
