9/11 program faces deadline for payments

WASHINGTON -- Officials overseeing the fund to settle victims' claims from the 9/11 attacks will make their final decisions today for awarding money to those injured or killed.

The program created by Congress had authorized $5.9 billion in payments as of yesterday afternoon, with payments ranging from $500 to $8.6 million.

Fund administrators have determined awards for 2,454 out of 2,963 death claims, and 2,449 injury claims out of about 4,400. The vast majority of injury claims are for lung-related ailments from those who worked in rescue and recovery operations at the World Trade Center site.

Close to 2,000 injury claims are expected to be rejected or withdrawn because of insufficient medical proof of injuries.

Fund workers still have hundreds of claims to finalize before their deadline today, said Kenneth Feinberg, the special master overseeing the fund.

"We will be working right up until midnight," he said.

Once the deadline passes, officials expect it will take about eight to 10 weeks to get all of the checks mailed out.

The average death payment is just above $2 million, while the largest death payment to date has been $7.1 million.

Among injury claims, the largest payout has been $8.6 million for a woman crushed by debris at the World Trade Center, and the smallest $500.

After a troubled start, the fund is largely judged a success.

"It had all the ingredients in the world of a monumental failure, and instead it has been an extraordinary program," said John Bailey, executive director of Trial Lawyers Care, a group that coordinated free legal services for applicants to the fund.

Bailey credited the success to families, their lawyers, and fund administrators agreeing to work together after some particularly bitter criticism, much of it directed at Feinberg.