Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

America Under Attack: People Across America Helping in New York

Aired September 14, 2001 - 07:59   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 ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We wanted to quickly bring you up to date on what is happening in New York City at this hour. Rescue efforts under way. The rain kind of a double edged sword here. In some ways it is helping to keep down the dust, but the water is making the ash and debris very slippery. The New York City sanitation crews have been making a big push to clean the Wall Street area for Monday's reopening of the stock market. There, of course, will be limited bond trading, or limited bond trading resumed yesterday. Most of the major markets expected to open on Monday.

One of the things we continue to see in New York City is the outpouring of support of New Yorkers who want to help in any way they can.

Joining us right now is Michael Okwu, one of our CNN correspondents who is down at the Jacob Javitz Center, where I understand many, many hundreds of people are lined up to do what they can to pitch in -- tell us about that, Michael.

MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Paula. It's amazing. Day number four and the nightmare continues. And one of the things that makes it a little bit more (AUDIO GAP) to digest, if you can even use those words, is the fact that throughout the course of the last several days you see that there are small heroes everywhere, and they're not just from New York. They're from Philadelphia and they're from Boston and they're from far off places like Missouri.

And as you mentioned, right outside at the Jacob Javitz Center, which has been turned into essentially been grounded with some of these people it deployed. They have been waiting here in the rain, as you can see, some of them waiting as early as 3:30 this morning. They're construction workers and they're electricians and they are metal and steel workers. A lot of these people needed to essentially shore up some of the very insecure ground near ground zero and to construct -- and to get some of the electrical equipment working and to get the electricity working, which in much of lower Manhattan is not working at this point -- Paula.

ZAHN: All right, Michael. What can you tell us about what you've heard from paramedics this morning and the impact this storm overnight had on what they're able to do?

OKWU: I haven't heard anything about, I haven't spoken directly to any paramedics, but what I can tell you is that some of the rescue workers say that the rain, while it is cooling down some of the smoke there and spreading the smoke and clearing off some of the dust, makes a lot of equipment a lot heavier.

Some of the guys that we spoke to this morning say they don't care whether it's raining, they don't care whether they're in the sunshine. They just want to help people. There's still some hope among many of the people here that there are people alive and they're willing to work as long as it takes to find and save those lives -- Paula.

ZAHN: Michael Okwu, thank you very much for that report. We'll come back to you throughout the morning for an update.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com