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CNN Live Today

Frank Lucier Discusses Search and Rescue Efforts After Attacks

Aired September 12, 2001 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: We want to talk with Frank Lucier who is with the North American Emergency Management. Mr. Lucier's firm specializes in emergency and disaster planning and we know that you teach rescue skills. Thanks for being with us.

FRANK LUCIER, NORTH AMERICAN EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Thank you.

ALLEN: I talk to you first about the scenes that we are witnessing in New York. I don't know if you saw a few moments ago, we had video from the doctor who went in yesterday, right after these planes hit the World Trade Center towers. And he was there in the thick of things when this happens, the towers collapsed. And you could see the aftermath of that.

Many of us can't begin to comprehend what it is like to be in there, but perhaps you can give us a sense, as we sees these pictures from Doctor Heath, of what the people are dealing with.

LUCIER: It's definitely unprecedented. If you compare to the Oklahoma City bombing, the Murrah Federal Building was nine stories high. It was 200 feet wide. And the rubble pile that ended up was about 35 feet high. It took 11 search-and-rescue teams 14 days working round-the-clock to get all the victims out. And we're talking about two towers 110-feet high, a couple of other buildings one other building, one other building. It's an undaunting task.

ALLEN: Right, they describe the rubble as being 5-6 stories high in some places. How do you go about it at this point when you don't know what is stabile and what isn't? We heard the descriptions of the soot in the air, there may be a problem with asbestos in New York City.

We just saw pictures of dogs. Where do they go from here?

LUCIER: Well, first thing you have to do is extinguish the fires so they can get to the locations. And then there are techniques using listening devices and search dogs and I know there are some search robots they are using to find, if any, signs of life -- people are in the rubble pile.

Once they find that, it can be -- the area that they're directing the search can be stabilized using shoring and other techniques. So they can tunnel down to the victims and hopefully extricate them. ALLEN: How difficult is it to be able to detect where these pockets might be? We know that several firefighters were pulled out early this morning that were in a pocket so that debris didn't fall directly on them. LUCIER: It's impossible from the exterior to identify where these pockets are. You really have to depend on the technology that's available, both technology and the dogs, to find people that are tapping on something or screaming or calling out, whatever, that noise can be identified with these listening devices and those pockets can be identified where they are. ALLEN: And certainly cell phones have come into play in this horrible tragedy from people calling from the telephones and there have been a couple of calls from the rubble. We have heard that this could take weeks, if not months to sort through all of this rubble from what you are seeing, is it impossible to tell?

LUCIER: It's impossible to give you an exact timeline. That's for sure. It's still a crime scene so it has to be treated as such. Like I said at the beginning it took 14 days, took 11 USAR teams 14 days working round-the-clock just to search the Murrah building in Oklahoma City.

So we are looking at at least that amount of time if not a lot more for this.

ALLEN: And finally it is one thing to train to search and do a technical search. It is another to deal with just the emotional element of being at such a scene of a devastation. How do these officials train to handle what they are seeing and experiencing?

LUCIER: You can't -- you can't simulate what just happened. The fire service, the emergency responders know they have a job to do. There's a potential for saving lives. That's what they do every day, so they will deal with the emotions as an ongoing process and at the end of this rather than right now.

ALLEN: Frank Lucier, thanks for being with us. We know you were about to begin more training on terrorism when this occurred, a conference that has been postponed.

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