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CNN Live At Daybreak

America Under Attack: Firefighters Describe Whether as Problematic on Ground Zero

Aired September 14, 2001 - 08:45   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.
PAULA ZAUN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's go to Martin Savidge, who now is what we are all taking to calling ground zero to give us some insights as to exactly what is going on in that search-and-rescue area.

Good morning, Martin

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Paula, we are in the area of Reid (ph) and Greenwich (ph) Street, it's a couple of blocks north of the World Trade Center site. The rain has been falling steadily here.

Overnight, though, it came down quite heavily at times, especially around 2:00 in the morning. And there is reported to be some in brief flooding in the area...

ZAUN: All right, I'm just being given indication that we are having problems with this audio. You can expect this weather is not helping things.

Todd, you know exactly as we look at these pictures of this horrendous weather what these rescue workers are up against. You be how the debris fell. What is the biggest challenge now? I know that they had moved out, I guess, the mayor confirming, a thousand tons of this stuff so far, but there is a lot of work to get done.

TODD RITTENHOUSE, STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: Right, you have building down there that the debris pile is unstable. You have several thing. You want to be careful as you remove certain pieces that don't cause another mini collapse in a localized area, possibly killing people that they are near to rescuing or injuring the rescue workers themselves.

Now, this rain has been terrible on it because it makes all those surfaces slippery, all that dust and the debris that's been around is becoming muddy and very slippery. So the rescue workers are now in danger themselves.

ZAUN: Todd, if would, please stand by. We're going to try to bring Martin Savidge back up.

Martin, we couldn't hear you earlier. We think we can now. Fire away.

SAVIDGE: Paula, you do hear us now from down here? ZAUN: Yes, I do, indeed. Yes. Please go ahead.

SAVIDGE: We wanted to let you know, obviously, the weather has been extremely problematic for the rescue effort that continues to be underway. A steady rainfall has been falling all night. At time though last night very stormy, the winds have been gusty down here.

We are at the checkpoint. It's about one of the closest points, several blocks north of the World Trade Center area talking to volunteers, talking to three firefighters that have come in from Maryland, Accokeek, and the fire department there, and it's chief Gene Gordan (ph).

Chief, thank you for being with us. Thanks to your firefighters.

What impact has this weather been for the effort?

GENE GORDON (ph), FIGHERFIGHTER: It's hampered it a lot. It's made it a lot more difficult to get into the area that we needed to get into it. And last night they had to pull us all out when the it started getting bad. We went back in late last night and left there about 4:00 this morning, and we're just getting ready to go back in as soon as they let us.

SAVIDGE: You are up against so much already and then mother nature turns on you. What does that do to the emotions and morale?

GORDON: Well, it lowers the morale, of course, because everyone was i there -- as long as it was dry and everything it was a lot easier to work with, so of course that was making the efforts a lot easier for us. But it may have knocked down the dust, but it made it a lot worse, everything's heavier now. Getting the dust out and everything and dirt and debris is going to be a lot heavier.

SAVIDGE: One of the things you cannot see so obviously now is the cloud, but it really is still there. There is still fire.

GORDON: Yes, yes, there is still fire. There's still fire in some adjacent buildings, small fires, and there's a lot of fires, they are going way deep into the structure. I mean, 40, 50, 60 feet, I am sure.

SAVIDGE: So the rain hasn't reached down there yet?.

GORDON: I wouldn't think it's reached down there a lot, no.

SAVIDGE: OK. Well, the key question here is survivors. Have you heard anything, have you heard of reports of noise, any indication?

GORDON: Yesterday morning they heard tapping on the beams that were, I guess, two beams that they heard different taps on, and they did concentrate efforts on that. We heard later on the that they did rescue one person. I don't know everything behind that, but I know they did rescue one.

SAVIDGE: There's a lot of confusion at the site.

GORDON: Yeah.

SAVIDGE: Katherine (ph) and Tim (ph), I want to bring you in.

One of the dramatic scenes that we have witnessed down there, you've got hundreds, sometimes thousands of people working and the call for quiet. Describe for us what happens when all of this takes place.

UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: If somebody thinks they hear something they start yelling, raising their hands up in the air, and within a matter of seconds everything's dead silence, people shut off the tools, the machines shut off, and it's just like a wave going across a thousand people.

SAVIDGE: This is shouted across the crowd and it's passed from unit to unit and everyone goes silent.

UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: Yes, totally silent.

UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: Within a matter of minutes everything is shut down. Within one matter -- within a minute everything is shut down. I mean, there's thousands of rescue workers over there and within one minute, because everyone knows what we need to hear, it's dead silence.

SAVIDGE: And at that moment, Tim, what goes through your hearts and minds?

UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: Hoping that we'll get a response where we'll hear something, because we are sending out voice calls to them, and if they respond back to us, that's what we are hoping for.

SAVIDGE: Why were you here?

UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: Our hearts are here. Our hearts are here to help. We just want to help. There are hundreds of people buried underneath this disaster and we want to help get them out hopefully alive.

SAVIDGE: Katharine, I know you're going to have to leave soon eventually. What will you take away?

UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: Hopefully the memory of saving people. I don't want to think about leaving people behind. It's nice to know that we have already pulled out people alive, and that's what I want to take with me, that we have saved lives.

SAVIDGE: Chief, when you leave, obviously as a firefighter you have seen many disasters.

GORDON: Yes.

SAVIDGE: Nothing like this. GORDON: Nothing like this. This is the most horrific site I have ever seen. I've got 21 years on the job and this is the worst I have ever seen.

SAVIDGE: Well, we want to thank all three of you for being here, and we really appreciate your efforts.

UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: Thank you.

SAVIDGE: Thank you very much. Good luck to you and your further work.

UNIDENTIFIED FIREFIGHTER: All right, thank you.

SAVIDGE: So, there are many volunteers that have come from all over. They refer to the firefighters here in New York City traditionally as New York's bravest. Now they refer to all of the firefighters from wherever they have come as New York's bravest -- Paula?

ZAUN: Martin, thank you so much.

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