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CNN Live At Daybreak

CNN Producer, Correspondent Retrace September 11

Aired March 11, 2002 - 05:34   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: One of the first people on the scene at ground zero in New York on September 11 was CNN producer Rose Arce.

She retraces that tragic and unforgettable day with our Nic Robertson, our correspondent who covered the story from Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): You started heading down this way towards what was then just a burning building, right?

ROSE ARCE, CNN PRODUCER: Yes. Well, there was this tall building at the end of this with this gaping hole in it and flames just shooting out one side of it.

ROBERTSON: It's an event everyone knows about now. But then, you had known about it -- what -- 15 seconds when you were moving off down here? What were you thinking?

ARCE: I was just in a state of shock. I kept trying in my head to figure out exactly what had happened.

I think it was right about here that was able to flag down a motorist, and I started just racing downtown.

ROBERTSON: When you were traveling down here, I was sitting in Kabul, and I just decided to call the international desk. They were just too crazy to talk to me, so I called my wife in London, who is also a journalist. And she was explaining to me what was happening there.

It was while we were on the phone -- while I was on the phone with her, that the second plane went into the building. And that was the moment that I realized that everything was going to turn around and come back to Afghanistan, because to me, it had all the hallmarks of terrorism.

ARCE: When the second plane hit, I think I was right in here someplace, right where these trucks are now picking up debris. I thought, all right, "I've got to call the office," and one woman said, "I live in this building, and my husband is upstairs."

ROBERTSON: Right. Yes. ARCE: She said, "Go to 303, my husband is upstairs."

ROBERTSON: OK.

ARCE: You can make a phone call from there. And people were running out of here.

ROBERTSON: They were coming out of this building?

ARCE: They were coming out of this building. They were trying to get out.

ROBERTSON: Right, yes.

ARCE: And I just raced in behind them.

Hello, it's good to see you again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good.

ARCE: It's good to see you again. It's good to see you again. Yes.

The building is so big, that you were looking right into where the windows were, and you could see that people had kind of accumulated.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was so stunned. I thought there were nets, you know, I thought that people were jumping to safety.

ARCE: And then when you turned on turning the television set, I realized, well, we're (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we're it.

ROBERTSON: You're it?

ARCE: Yes. Nobody else could get -- you couldn't get transmission.

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Rose Arce, one of our CNN producers is on the phone. Rose, what have you got?

ARCE: I'm about a block away, and there were several people that were hanging out the windows right below where the plane crashed.

And there's an incredible amount of panic down here in downtown Manhattan as people are...

ARCE: And it was still morning, but because of the debris, it looked like nighttime. I mean, all of this was absolutely dark.

ROBERTSON: So that must have been frightening when that was happening.

ARCE: Oh, it was absolutely terrifying -- absolutely terrifying. I had come out of this building, and I'm walking up and it was just such a fabulous moment when I saw this CNN cameraman down on the street, and I thought, at least now I'm not going to be alone anymore.

I was walking around here. It was almost like walking through snow. You know, your feet would literally go down into the snow.

And what you would see were little pieces of people's resumes, and the photographs that were on their desks, the little sticky pads that they took telephone messages on.

ROBERTSON: Snippets of people's lives.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE POLICE OFFICER: Listen, everybody, everybody has got to move back here. All right, guys?

ARCE: Pieces of that building were just coming straight down just as huge plumes of smoke and fire coming out of the top of it.

ROBERTSON: And you're still our closest reporter to the scene at that time.

ARCE: I called in from this phone that's right here.

JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Rose, can you hear me?

ARCE: Yes, I can, Judy.

WOODRUFF: What are you seeing? Tell us where you are?

ARCE: I am about two blocks north of where the World Trade Center used to be standing.

ARCE: I actually came back here at about midnight, and it was sort of burning still out of control. I think that was actually thing that I did was call into CNN to the anchor desk just after midnight to tell them that these firefighters are getting in for the first time.

ROBERTSON: I feel like I am coming to this story so long after the event is over that I sort of missed it. But at the same time, I haven't. The scars are here, the physical scars, but when you talk to people, the emotions are still there. And that's -- I guess that's a surprise to me just how fresh your emotions are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And that was a look back with CNN producer Rose Arce and correspondent Nic Robertson.

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