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CNN Live At Daybreak

America Under Attack: In Aftermath of World Trade Center Bombings, Search for Answers Begins

Aired September 13, 2001 - 08:46   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to turn it over to Staten Island, New York, not far from where Paula is standing right now.

CNN's Hillary Lane is there with some information on the phone with us from there, some information about what is going on there -- Hillary.

HILLARY LANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

What is happening here is that they have shut down Staten Island. Port Authority police are telling us this morning, there is no way anyone will get on the island, and they are not allowed on cars off of the island at this point from New York or New Jersey. There are about four entrances to Staten Island. That is five of New York City boroughs. All of those bridges have been closed at this point. The Staten Island ferry, which runs from downtown Manhattan, obviously is not in service as well. They will not confirm what is going on at Staten Island that the point. They're saying that they are moving emergency personnel in and conducting some sort of investigation, but a police officer, she was with the Port Authority Police, will not tell us, she was only saying that Staten Island has been shut down at this point.

Back to you.

O'BRIEN: Hillary, just to confirm, Staten Island has been the site of repository for much of the rubble from the collapse of the World Trade Center. Is there some linkage there?

LANE: I cannot tell you this. At this point, the only thing that they are telling US, is that they are moving emergency personnel in. There was a good deal of police activity at the outer bridge crossing, where we tried to enter from the southern tip. Our producer, Vito Magiolo (ph), is trying to make it on from Magopols (ph) Bridge from the New Jersey side. He has been shut off as well, and is saying it does not look like they are letting anybody off. Earlier today, he thought there was one lane of one bridge opened, and that they were letting cars go by one by one. But apparently, that has been stopped as well.

O'BRIEN: Have you been told to evacuate the area or stay put then, Hillary? LANE: We were not allowed to go on to the island at all. They were moving all cars out of the way. So they said they could move in police personnel from the New Jersey police and from the Port Authority police. But, like I said, nobody's allowed to go onto Staten Island at this point, and it does not appear like they are letting anybody exit the island as well.

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary and Miles, I would like to jump in here, because this brings to mind something that happened at the 10:00 hour of our broadcast last night, when we were told that the Empire State Building was being evacuated and Penn Station was being evacuated. It turns out there was nothing to whatever threats were made there. So, Hillary, I guess one of the thing that we're going to have to continue to live with, perhaps, is you know, fake threats in some of these areas. I know that we don't know enough at this point to say that. I just wanted to intersect that, because that's scary for a number of us last night.

LANE: I think that that's right. I think there's a case to take every precaution at this point, don't let anything go by, and in the case of a borough like Staten Island, which is accessible by the bridge at this point, and it's easy to cordon it off, but IO think that the police have moved in this morning and working on whatever information they are and taking every precaution that they can. And in this case, they are able to walk off and entirely cordon off of the island.

ZAHN: OK, Miles, I don't know if you want to carry on here.

O'BRIEN: All right, thank you very much, Paula.

As a matter of fact, we are going to keep it in New York. Let's move along to the hospitals, a scene of real wrenching emotion, as medical personnel try to care for tremendous numbers of severely- wounded people.

Brian Palmer has been at St. Vincent's Hospital, along with the fatigued staff there, trying to keep us updated.

What do you know, Brian.

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly. Well we have seen a trickle of ambulances arrive here at St. Vincent's Hospital Medical Center. Actually under a dozen volunteered. There is a volunteer police officer that was just treated, and emergency services vehicle going past. This is one of the main arteries south to the blast site, but as Paula said before, a largely typical scene in New York, but that's largely above 14th Street. Below 14th Street, where we are, there's a state of emergency. The streets have been shut down to anything other than authorized vehicles, emergency services vehicles, which is kind of eerie. This is one of the most vibrant parts in New York, with New York university, and the Parson school design in Greenwich Village and the legendary jazz clubs. People are waking up, but the scene here is a bit subdued.

Here at St. Vincent's, they have set up the treatment center outside of the hospital. They have taken that down and moved things back outside, sort of a sign of thing are returning to normalcy, and also a sign that they are not receiving the numbers that they had expected -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Brian, if you would, would you sort of take off the electronic blinders, if you will, and pan the camera around, and describe what you are seeing there as you stand in the midst of all of this.

PALMER: Well, what we are seeing now outside of St. Vincent's is really a press vigil, and we've seen the family members to talk to the press, family members of people who are still missing. But you see a scrum of press waiting for the latest information from the St. Vincent's Hospital. They were holding regularly scheduled press conferences. What they have told us is that they are going to try to set up a Web site which would have patients names. The catch there is, they need to get the permission from all of these patients, over 400 patients, before they can post that. But they're working in cooperation with the city's Office of Emergency Management to do that.

O'BRIEN: Brian, we have heard these tragic stories about family members looking for missing relatives who might or might not be in hospitals, might or might not be identified. How many of those have you seen? Are there quite a few in numbers?

PALMER: We haven't seen too many of those here yet. We have been here about two or three hours, but we have seen some people here who have taken their case directly to the media. And they're talking to people here, and trying to get their stories out -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Brian Palmer maintaining a vigil at St. Vincent's Hospital.

Let's go back to Paula.

ZAHN: You know, Miles, I would love to stay with you for a second. The one thing that none of us have addressed, I think because the markets are continued to be closed, is what the impact of this horrible tragedy is going to have on markets. We know all the major brokerage houses are closed. We don't know how that will affect people's individual accounts. And right now, I'm going to check in with a man, Michael Farr, who I think can give us all a better sense of what -- broader picture of what all of this impact may have on the complete economy.

Mr. Michael Farr, thank you for joining us today. Let me see if I have this correct, you are with Farr, Miller and Washington. What is that?

MICHAEL FARR, FARR, MILLER & WASHINGTON: We're a money- management firm here in Washington D.C. We manage individual accounts and institutional accounts.

ZAHN: All right, I think almost everyone that we have talked to or seen as quoted would acknowledge that this is going to certainly add instability to an already weakening economy. How much unstability -- instability?

FARR: Well, that's the big question, we really don't know. We do know that Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said that he and the Federal Reserve are ready to supply whatever liquidity is necessary to maintain order and stability in the financial markets. We have also seen G-7 leaders come up with the same pledge of liquidity, and in fact, a great deal of liquidity was applied yesterday. So when we have seen periods like this in our nation's history of catastrophe, including Pearl Harbor, including the attack in 1993 at the World Trade Center, Gulf, Desert Storm and the Gulf War, there is a period of instability, and then some six months later on average, we see markets trading higher by about 11 percent and 12 months out, markets are some 18 percent higher.

The American markets are some of the, of course, best and finest in the world, largest in the world, and bringing them back to order so that we can begin to back to some sort of business again will happen. This time, the amount of time that it takes to happen is really what's in question. And I think that so much of the infrastructure of the markets at the various firms in the World Trade Center. So many of our friends, Wall Street's a place with relationships, and we all know people that were there, and we are trying -- we are grieving for them, all walking around a little bit numb, knowing how important and the vitals to the get back to America's business.

ZAHN: Michael, you brought up a couple of those other crises, how critical or relevant is it that this, the first crises, other than the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that has happened in the financial heart of a city?

FARR: Well, I think that it is certainly significant, again, because Wall Street is a place of relationships. Businesses is done still just by a person's word, frequently over the telephone, based on relationships that we built. Now, the data, the real backbone of what happened in the World Trade Center in terms of records, and papers and that sort of thing, are all held in off site -- replicated in off-site storage centers, data storage centers, away from Manhattan. So the skeleton and the architecture of the markets is still there, ready to come back in place. The minds, the experience, the expertise that one has in those buildings, the relationships that were so essential of getting business done have tragically been lost, and we need to rebuild ways to add some meat back on the infrastructure to get business resumed on Wall Street.

ZAHN: Michael, need a real brief answer to this one. We are talking -- there's talk of a spending bill of some $20 billion wind up on the president's desk today. Is that that a drop in the bucket, or is that something that also at a time when people are worried about Social Security and some of the budget resolutions might also have an impact on the economy?

FARR: I think that certainly it's a drop in the bucket, but also it's an indicator of the support that's at the ready, and it won't be the last bit of support at the ready. I think that everyone's focused, everyone is joining together to get back to some normalcy, and to make sure that America shows its resolve to move forward from this sort of great disaster. Though, our hearts are certainly heavy, we forge ahead.

ZAHN: OK, Michael Farr, thanks for your insights this morning. Back to Atlanta, and Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you very much, Paula.

In New York, after all they invented the ticker-tape parade. This is the city that is used to cheering on what it deems to be heroes.

Through all of this terrible tragedy, a new kind of hero has emerged, and Jeanne Moos tells us about that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We've seen the bad news over and over, from above, from below.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope I live. It's coming down on me.

MOOS: The doctor holding his camera did live, and now New Yorkers are saying, we will survive.

(CHEERING)

MOOS: Guys driving bulldozers are getting the red carpet treatment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you!

MOOS: New Yorkers, who sometimes treat camouflage as a fashion statement are cheering the military.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, guys.

(APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was so touched, when I first came around the corner and saw what was happening, I know, you know, I kept having to fight baiters.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have been mesmerized by watching this on TV, and I wanted to come out and the show my support.

MOOS: This woman used to have a view of the Twin Towers from her apartment. Now the skyline has too much sky.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It reminds me of when someone loses their two front teeth or something and there's this void, and you feel like something should be there, but it's not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I woke up this morning, and I made this T- shirt, and I thought, this is just not enough; what else can I do?

MOOS: Lou ended up make a big thank you sign. Soon, others joined in. Firemen tend to be favorites. (APPLAUSE)

MOOS: But folks even cheered, ConEd, a utility.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Probably the only time to see ConEd trucks applauded.

MOOS: The crowd applauded trucks full of debris and ash.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see these flowers? That's for every truck that goes by that has ashes it, because in those ashes is someone's family family.

MOOS: Some folks choked back tears; others vented their anger.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am mad, that's what I am. I am a Vietnam veteran. Mr. Bush, put the bombers in the air. Get him, just him! Get him, get him, get him!

MOOS: Some would like to get the towers rebuilt.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can hurt us, you can keep us down, but you can't keep us down forever, and I think that the rebuild will be a symbol to the world that the human spirit is alive and well here. The spirits of this involved in the rescue effort seemed raised by the reception.

(APPLAUSE)

MOOS: I think the people are great. A moving reception for those who move here.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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