NEW YORK, USA (AP) - America mourned the victims of September 11 yesterday as the siblings of the deceased read their loved ones' names to a weeping crowd at the site where the World Trade Centre once stood. One by one, the names of the dead echoed across the site where the twin towers collapsed four years ago in a nightmarish cloud of dust and debris. The ceremony drew to a close after four hours, the time it took to read the 2,749 names. Relatives in the crowd bowed their heads and sobbed as speakers uttered brief, personal messages to the brothers and sisters they lost, many voices breaking in sorrow. "Mom and Dad ache for you every minute," Linda Giammona-Julian said to her brother, Vincent Giammona, one of 343 firefighters killed. "We love you and we miss you; til we meet again." "My big sister, my better half, life will never be the same without you," Rolando Moreno said to Yvette Moreno, who worked for a brokerage in the north tower. As the names were read, weeping mourners filed down a ramp to a reflecting memorial pool at the floor of the site, which remains virtually empty four years after the attack killed 2,749 people and tore a hole in the New York skyline. Families filled the water with red, orange and yellow roses, some shaking as they inscribed dedications on the wooden edge of the pool. The ceremony came as Hurricane Katrina left Americans once again struggling with a catastrophe that caught the nation unprepared and left citizens dead and grieving. Mayor Michael Bloomberg opened with words of condolence for those devastated by Katrina and the terrorist bombings in the London Underground. "To Americans suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, our deepest sympathies go out to you this day," Bloomberg said. In New Orleans, New York firefighters helping with the relief effort gathered around a makeshift memorial for their fallen comrades, accepting the gift of a bell from a nearby church whose steeple was destroyed in the storm. Reprinted from jamaicaobserver.com