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CNN Live Today

More Buildings May Crumble

Aired September 13, 2001 - 14:01   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.
BROWN: To the possibility that a building has collapsed or maybe about to collapse, Adam Reese is the CNN producer who is in the area. And Adam, I believe you are on the phone, aren't you?

ADAM REESE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron, I am reporting to you from the office of emergency management, just a block north of where the World Trade Center was. And we are hearing from police officers here on site that they are being instructed to leave the area.

The building just south of World Financial Center, we believe, is American Express Merrill Lynch building, and we believe that is possibly going to collapse very soon.

And just let me preface that with, we believe it may. We are seeing smoke come from windows about mid building and the smoke believes to be emanating from the window and is going from floor to floor, higher and higher. I don't know why they believe that this building is about to collapse.

They have had warnings when previous building were going to collapse and that's just the situation here. They have been pulled back -- emergency workers have been pulled back from that area. And that's where it stands -- Aaron.

BROWN: Adam, if you can see the building, I assume you can, you can see the smoke. How big a building are we talking about?

REESE: I am looking at it from the rear. Again, we are just outside the building where (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is being conducted inside the building a makeshift hospital, makeshift IV's, stretchers, beds, also beds for all the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that building. Just to give you an if the amount of people down here involved in this rescue effort. And, again regarding the building we believe may collapse, it's still standing, I see smoke emanating from the windows and that's about all I can tell you. I have just a narrow view only from my location.

BROWN: Is it a large skyscraper, I think is what I'm trying to figure out here? Are we talking 60, 70 stories?

REESE: I'm hoping that you can see it at some point, soon. These are the two building that are equal in height just west of where the World Trade Center was standing. This is what's called the World Financial Center. Again, the headquarters to American Express and Merrill Lynch.

Fairly new buildings in regard to the World Trade Center. I don't know exactly when they were built, but they are much newer than the World Trade Center was.

BROWN: And do you have any -- can you see people moving out of the area? Are they rushing out of the area, is it a fairly calm evacuation? Give me what you can see, here.

REESE: Some of the rescue workers are calm. I did see several officers who are a bit nervous and you can clearly see their anxiety. These officers were the ones who were most likely closest to that building who were asked to evacuate. And they are describing to fellow officers their high concern about the fact that they were so close to it before they got this warning.

BROWN: And again for me, Adam, can you tell me the building's proximity on the trade center itself?

REESE: I am literally across the street from where it was, just a bit south from the West Side Highway. It is basically toward the southern-most end of Manhattan, what we call The Battery.

And we are looking north from Saint Liberty Island where the Statue of Liberty is or Ellis Island. You would clearly be able to see it. It is one of the southern-most buildings on the island of Manhattan.

BROWN: Adam, stay on the phone. Don't go away here. Many of you may remember late yesterday afternoon there was a concern about another building in the area just a bit north of where collapsed building number seven was. We were down there at the time. We could see windows or pieces of glass facing the building coming up.

That was One Liberty Plaza. That's on the right side of your screen. And they moved people out at that time. There are a couple of points to make here, and forgive me if they are frighteningly obvious, that the problems here, number one, are safety issues. You have got to get people, all the people, all the rescue workers away from there. Every time one of these buildings seems to be maybe ready to come down.

And the other problem is that these buildings don't come down and yet they are so unstable that they might, at what point is it safe to move people back in?

So do you have to bring the building down yourself? Is that an operation that is going to have to be to be undertaken. So there are a multitude of problems that are -- that exist down there, and the end result of all of it is that it slows down, it doesn't stop it, but it slows down the effort to get in there and find whoever may still be in one of these air pockets or, as we learned today, in an SUV with the five firefighters that were pulled out, it slows the effort to get to the survivors if, in fact, there are survivors left.

The situation down by the Trade Center, in the blocks surrounding it, and Gary Tuchman reported last night, that the damage, extensive damage, extends 10 blocks from the Trade Center. Some of the buildings destroyed. Many of them just damaged. Tremendous amount of structural instability and all of that is causing problems. Adam, are you still on the phone? Adam -- OK, for the moment we've lost Adam.

We will try and get him back and see if he can update us on that. Just one quick observation before we move on. It strikes me today that the city is unbelievably tense. There have been a number of evacuations we told you about of buildings. There's a real sense of fear, in some cases of anger, building at what's going on. It's been a very long and difficult week for everyone here in the city, everyone who lives here, everyone who loves it as it has been for people around the country.

The tension level here just struck me. There is nothing scientific about this, folks, just a feeling that -- that things here are fraying a bit. As people begin to realize that normal, or what psychologists in these situations refer to as the "new normal" because what was normal -- what was normal in New York City, what was normal in Washington, what was normal in the country in many ways, will never quite be the same.

And so we search for what the new normal is. People are beginning to realize that that new normal is going to take some time to get to. In the meantime, we've got a lot of stress and fear and anxiety that is being dealt with. And every time one of these things happens, the possibility of a building collapsing, as we have with the American Express building which is being evacuated, the people around it.

We went through the same thing with One Liberty Plaza yesterday. Every time that happens, every time there is a crank call somewhere or anything like it, it just raises the anxiety level. It frays the nerves yet again, and I dare say it makes people a little bit angry or maybe more than a little bit angry. And now three days later -- it's palpable. You just kind of feel it out there today, down below on the streets.

People are frustrated and tired and angry, and want to know where we, as a city, where the city of New York goes next. Martin Savidge has been covering for us today the rescue of firefighters down on the scene.

Marty do you have new developments on that or is it something else? MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Basically, Aaron, we can report to you the situation regarding this building. We cannot verify what Adam has said. He is obviously quite accurate. What we can tell you though is that the activity here on the West Side Highway, which is one of the main thoroughfares for all the emergency equipment, has been brought to a standstill here.

So it appears that something is going on. There are also have been some talk earlier in the day coming from the site that there were at least two buildings that were considered so unstable that the thought at least was being given to the prospect of possibly purposefully bringing them down, either by triggering some explosives or other means, because as you point out, the threat of that hanging over the heads of rescuers is a problem, a serious problem and they need to resolve it one way or another.

Now, last night there were engineers that were literally going through many of the buildings surrounding the area where the twin towers did stand for the World Trade Center, trying to verify what was the structural integrity. The Liberty One Plaza building was one building that got the OK, they said it is all right. It suffered a lot of damage but it is not in danger of falling down.

Other buildings that they said could be potentially threatened, the building number five out of the World Trade Center complex, and also the Millennium Hotel. There's been this ongoing concern. We already had a number of collapses yesterday and there has even been talk that despite the fact that a building may be on the outside could look rather fit, that it could actually be very much unsound, especially if the lower floors have been damaged to a severe degree, or any of the major support structures.

Then on the other hand there are buildings that look extremely damaged, like the Verizon building that has a huge hole in the front of it, and yet they are deemed to be structurally sound. So appearances are not all what they seem to be when you look out at the devastation here -- Aaron.

BROWN: Marty, stay where you are. You seem to have a terrific vantage point of what's going on, so just stay with me. Let me go back to Adam Reese on the telephone. Adam, you were at the emergency command post, what are you hearing and what can you tell us?

REESE: Aaron, I can second what Marty just said. These two buildings certainly (UNINTELLIGIBLE) structurally sound. However, the smoke continues to come out of the windows and police, like I said before, have moved back. And they've are all looking up, looking in, and it appears, in anticipation of a collapse. Yet at this point the building continues to stand.

What I can tell you is the smoke continues to move through the area. Police continue to move out all the gear they had in that area because they were making some progress in terms of evacuating some of the debris. We see dozens and dozens of cadaver dogs coming through this area.

I spoke to one of the owners of a cadaver dog earlier. These cadaver dogs are highly sensitive. They can pick up any body part. They can pick up something as small as a nail. So obviously they are being diverted at every movement.

As far as this building is concerned, still status quo. We see smoke continuing to emanate from those same windows about midway up and it appears to be a structurally sound building. But as Marty said, with the collapse of the towering World Trade Center, the stability of the ground underneath these buildings is precarious. And so we are keeping an eye on it. BROWN: It seems to be structurally sound building with smoke coming out of it. That is not a very healthy sign. Martin Savidge, pick up where you are with what you can tell us.

SAVIDGE: We are still trying to make, note, Aaron, of activity going on. Now we watch the streets sort of being cleared for a fire truck to make its way down the West Side Highway here.

There is no pandemonium here. There is no one screaming, get back, get back or anything like that. And there are a lot of people that are in the immediate area at least where we are. So we are about -- I would say, five blocks away. And so -- you know, if there a is sense of disaster about to strike, it is not felt here.

One of the things I can point out about what Adam was reporting regarding the search for remains, the ability to try to identify. I was talking with some of those that worked all last night and they're digging in there and in some cases literally digging with a shovel and churning up the earth.

In every particular case, every shovel full of dirt that they dig up, it is then placed into barrel. And then that dirt is sifted through, looking for any sign of evidence and any sign of human remains that could be used to help identify. That's how thorough they are being. And that is how hopeful they are they that they will try to identify as many people as they can.

It also shows you just how long that process could take when every shovelful has to be looked through -- Aaron.

BROWN: Marty, thank you. You guys keep an eye on things and we will get back to you as things develop at the American Express Building. But again, the building is being evacuated, the concern is that it is going down.

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