"I hope we do it right and I hope we do it well. I hope we get the bastards so everyone can relax and we don't have to go through this again."
That comment from a Port Authority official at Ground Zero in southern Manhattan yesterday was typical of reaction among police and rescue workers to the news that the United States had begun military strikes against targets in Afghanistan.
Much of the response was along similar lines.
A National Guard soldier on duty in Vesey Street which runs beside the ruins of the World Trade Centre said as he turned off his portable radio minutes after the announcement: "Great, it's about time."
As trucks rumbled past carrying massive lengths of twisted steel supports, he added: "We should take some of the metal from here, melt it down and make bombs to make sure they get the message."
There were some who voiced great concern about the consequences.
"It's scary," said a police officer escorting 30 relatives carrying flowers who had just arrived across the wind-whipped Hudson on a New York Waterway ferry.
"They promised retaliation. They have small groups everywhere. They will strike back."
A rescue worker wearing a double-nozzle gas mask near the smashed Winter Garden atrium in the World Financial Centre, removed it to say: "They had to do it, but there will be more trouble."
Small knots of security personnel and rescue workers lingered round radios to listen to developing news of the attacks.
"Here we go," said a maintenance man who had been working to tie down tarpaulin at a feeding centre ripped away by a sudden squall, "I just hope lightning doesn't strike."
A policewoman laughed and replied: "This is the safest place here now. They have done their work here."
A couple who had returned to Battery Park City to arrange to move home to Hoboken across the Hudson with their baby, expressed despair.
"It's a no-win situation," said the young woman of Chinese origin. "This is going to go for a long time." Her opinion was echoed by the doorman of their building. "They had to do it, but there will be more trouble," he said.
A recent Washington Post poll showed 90 per cent support for taking military action against groups or nations responsible for the attacks.
A Newsweek poll showed 86 per cent approval for how President Bush was handling the crisis. At the same time the number of Americans willing to be patient and who agreed the United States should "take as long as necessary to plan something that will work" had risen from 59 per cent to 63 per cent.
The total missing at the World Trade centre site now stands at 4,979.
Of the 393 bodies recovered, 335 have been identified. Two more bodies have been found in the last 24 hours as a small building on the south-west of the complex was demolished.