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CNN Live Today
CNN Staff Remembers September 11
Aired March 11, 2002 - 11:51 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: You're looking now at a live picture from ground zero in New York. Half year later, looks more like a construction site than it does a disaster zone. But still, it remains hallowed ground for the families of almost 3,000 people who lost their lives there, late last summer.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And on that note, we're going to leave you this hour with the thoughts of our many CNN colleagues who covered the events of 9-11, and we're going to use this as an opportunity to check out. We'll see you tomorrow morning.
HARRIS: See you tomorrow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: This just in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Another plane has crashed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The impact of the explosion...
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: There has been a second explosion right here in...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything was in slow motion. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing.
PHIL HIRSCHKORN, PRODUCER: We drove down as quickly as we could. It was incredible. It looked like a huge bomb had -- had gone off.
MARK ABRAMSON, PHOTOJOURNALIST: It was just sheer pandemonium.
I got the DVC Cam, and I started shooting. I thought that perhaps that people had made it up to the roof. I went in close on the helicopter thinking that maybe they were going to drop a ladder or something or a rope or something. I don't know. But that didn't materialize. The helicopter pretty much went away and people started jumping off the -- I guess, about the 100th floor or something. PHIL HIRSCHKORN, PRODUCER: Until you started to hear the stories of people jumping or otherwise being injured, it hadn't become a human struggle yet, in your mind. And as you heard the stories from people who survived or escaped or witnessed people dying, it definitely changed for you.
ROSE ARCE, PRODUCER: I stood in these people's apartment, with Jim Hubrecks (ph). He was filming the whole thing that happening. So I called into the office and started describing what was going on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARCE: A few minutes ago, we saw, there's a portion of the building where the first plane struck, that seemed to be buckling inside itself, almost as if the top of the building was going to fall.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God!
ADAM REISS, PRODUCER: You'll never forget the voices of the people saying, "Oh. my God. Everybody looking up, not believing what's happening.
There was such a huge cloud of smoke.
(SIRENS)
REISS: That we still thought the World Trade Center was there. I said, "It's got to be behind that smoke. There's no way the World Trade Center just collapsed." And -- it did.
(SCREAMING)
ARCE: I made the decision to leave the building and ran out into just this absolute blizzard of debris.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that's the point when I ran into Rose. It was actually before the second tower collapsed.
(BUILDING COLLAPSING)
(SIRENS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was chaos all over again.
ARCE: It was absolutely dark and silent outside. All I kept thinking was, well, what happened to the firefighters? Why aren't the people still running up town? Yet, I don't think I could wrap my head around the fact that nobody was running uptown any more because anybody that had been by that building couldn't have possibly survived such a tremendous collapse.
JOE CANTELLI, PHOTOJOURNALIST: Everywhere I -- you turned around, you pointed the camera, there was -- just chaos. Chaos. It was just -- it was like a war zone. It did -- it didn't even look like New -- New York. To me it looked like a bad Hollywood movie. You know, like a disaster movie. And I was in it. I was part of that. I was like I was sent down to shoot that. It was all these special effects that was happening all around you. It just didn't seem real.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD ROTH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And right now it's like a war zone. Thousands of New Yorkers streaming north. The Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, has told everyone to get north of Canal Street.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please step to the back of the boat. Please step to the back of the boat.
ROTH: One of the most ironic moments for me, was towards the end of the day, as the sun was setting, the ferry line was still rather long. In the background, along the Hudson River, you see the USS aircraft carrier Intrepid. Here, all that firepower was just parked. Kind of in moth balls, while, a couple miles south, hijacked aircraft had attacked the United States and brought down the Twin Towers.
MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It became very clear it that it a was a terrorist attack fairly early. But everyone started speculating about what the fall out was going to be. Not just politically, but obviously in terms of the human toll. Maybe there are 5,000 people in that building. Maybe 10,000 people in that building. The numbers were greatly exaggerated in the early hours. But what we knew was, we had to get to the hospitals.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OKWU: Dozens of men and women in scrubs under portable lights. Waiting. Basically gurneys that have set up, wheel chairs, office furniture covered in sheets as they await more victims, more people whose lives they are hoping to save. That's what the scene looks like outside St. Vincent's Hospital tonight, on what I have to report is probably one of the most eerie nights that I've spent in the city.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OKWU: We were all so aware of how many people must have been in the Twin Towers. And to see literally no one come by that night was shocking.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Getting there at three in the morning and seeing the plume of smoke and knowing it would become a graveyard for thousands of people is not only appalling but just unbelievable.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCHMAN: It was 24 hours close to this very moment that the United Airlines plane went through the south tower of the World Trade Center. We are using, right now, a video telephone because we're in a place where we can't use our normal live truck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TUCHMAN: Rescue workers who were on the scene had a sense of purpose. They were truly heroes. They were going to an area, they didn't know if there was going to be another attack. They didn't know if there was going to be a collapse. They were there to try to save people. And it was so admirable, and it's something I'll never forget.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Instead after story about doctors trying to help people and pulling people out of heaps and that kind of thing, it became a story about people looking for their missing loved ones.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only thing we had that they could tell us is that there was a 9-1-1 call.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anybody who knows, please call.
COHEN: Families are handing out flyers to the media hoping, hoping for some news on their relatives. Here for example, Paul Ortiz is missing. He was on the 107th floor of the first tower. Ten-month old baby, Rebecca. Daren Bohan was on the 102nd floor. Katie...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: It was the enormity of it that really got to me. And it was just person after person saying, "Please help me find my husband. Please help me find my wife."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is Craig Stahb (ph), he was on the 89th floor of the second tower.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: I won't forget how much they loved the person who they were missing. And it really made me think a lot more about valuing the people who are in your life. Whether it's your family or your co- workers. These people had so much love in their hearts. These people were looking with every last ounce of energy. I mean, I just can't imagine what it would be like, and to see that kind of fortitude, I'll remember their strength as well as their sadness.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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