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CNN Live At Daybreak

Ceremony to be Held Shortly at Ground Zero

Aired May 30, 2002 - 06:37   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: We want to head back to New York City now where a ceremony is to be held shortly at ground zero. Joining me now with all the details is Anthony Johnson of WABC -- thanks for joining us this morning.

ANTHONY JOHNSON, REPORTER, WABC, NEW YORK: Good morning, Carol.

And of course, that service is going to be starting this morning at 10:29. That marks the exact time that the final beam fell from the second tower. That building started to come down at 10:28 in the morning. One minute later it was all done, except for that final beam. And when that final beam fell, that's when they are going to mark the start of today's session that's going to take place, the ceremony that's going to be taking place this morning.

Of course, many of the families of all of the recovery workers and some of the victims will be out here. There is another service that is going to be set for the weekend. A lot of the families of the victims say they will be attending that event this weekend.

It's really hard to believe that eight-and-a-half months after this began, and when you had a chance to look at the site after September 11 and see the mounds and mounds of debris and twisted steel that was all over the place, that they finally have been able to wrap this up, but they actually have. The final beam was cut down just the other day, and that will be part of today's procession.

Once again, it will start out here at 10:29 this morning. It will take about 20 minutes. And what they are going to do, the only sound that you are really going to hear is the sound of a fire bell ringing. It's going to be four sets of five, and that's traditionally used to mark the death or the fallen firefighter. So that's the only sound that you will hear beside the trucks that will be along the way. We expect that hundreds, probably thousands of people will be out here lining the streets and looking at this service as it takes place and marking the end.

But it is the end. It's a sad day. It's a day of sorrow for many of the families of the victims, but in a way, it's also a beginning for New York, a beginning for the nation to show that we can recover, and that it's now time to move on.

COSTELLO: Anthony, I wanted to ask you about that. I mean, I understand the ceremony today, but there have been so many specials recounting the events of September 11 on television. I mean, do New Yorkers think it's getting to be too much?

JOHNSON: Nobody has said that so far. I mean, the tragedy, the magnitude of this event, everybody pretty much just said, you know, whatever they have to do to mark the beginning, to mark the middle, to mark the end, let them go ahead and do it. Let everybody get a chance to express their emotions, express their sorrow, to share their grief, whatever it took, people have said just go ahead and let it all happen.

But this has been a day that most people didn't expect would come this soon. And you know, a lot of people had expected a whole lot of money would be spent to go ahead and do the cleanup, and it has, but not as much as anybody expected. And when we looked at it, the one good thing I can tell you is that we didn't have a bad winter here in the New York area. So these recovery workers were able to work right through the winter 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So they were able to complete this project way ahead of schedule.

COSTELLO: They did an amazing job, too. Somehow I don't think the weather could have stopped them either.

Thank you, Anthony Johnson from WABC reporting live for us from ground zero this morning.

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