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CNN Live At Daybreak

America's New War: Progress in New York is Steady but Slow

Aired September 24, 2001 - 07:03   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: And at the ruins of the World Trade Center here in New York, the toll of missing and presumed dead, as I just reported, keeps on climbing.

CNN's Bill Hemmer is there -- good morning, Bill.

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Paula, good morning to you on a Monday morning.

We are measuring progress on a daily basis, sometimes on an hourly basis. We can tell you the progress here is steady. But again, it is slow. If you can see the site of ground zero, as we're looking down on the aerial camera here in lower Manhattan, you can see West Street is covered in dirt and dust. But what we have seen on a daily basis, that street gets wider and wider to allow construction workers and firefighters, police officers to help get them through that area.

But this, what we're watching here is just the first step in a massive project. We've got some videotape we can show you from Staten Island. It's an area called Fresh Kills. This is the area where the tons and tons of debris has been taken on a daily basis, said to be well over 100,000 tons at this point. It ids here where the FBI and investigators continue to search through the massive piles of steel and metal. We're also told police cars and fire department trucks have also been taken after they were smashed back on the 11 of September.

On a more sobering note, we're also told that articles of clothing have been found out there, jewelry, pairs of jeans stripped off of people back in the terrible day of September 11 here in New York City.

Also, we came across another picture over the weekend. We want to take you back to 1969 during the construction of the World Trade Center, a very interesting photo here. This is in Battery Park City where the landfill was just being put in and the towers were just being constructed. What struck us about this photo is the massive amount of exposed steel you can see before the exterior was placed on the twin towers. It is that steel that so many people, the rescuers, have had to contend with throughout this operation.

We've talked to you about the big cranes, those large cranes that can lift 700 tons at one time. They are being used to help clear the massive amount of steel that came down in these 210 story buildings.

Also in Battery Park City today, two more buildings opening up again, allowing residents to come back to their homes and sleep in their beds for the first time in so many days, 13 days, in fact. We do expect the weather to turn, possibly later today, tonight. Rain is expected in the area going through tomorrow morning on Tuesday. But the work continues 24 hours a day, seven days a week in an area known by many now simply as the ruins -- Paula.

ZAHN: Bill, do we have a good estimate on exactly how many workers remain on that site?

HEMMER: We can tell you at least a couple thousand at one time. The estimate we got over the weekend, on Saturday I believe it was, 2,000 at one point. That number can ebb and flow at different points of the operation. But as you know, it is a daunting task, Paula, and what they say also, though, is many times to viewers watching the operation at home, it looks like a mass of confusion. But it is quite organized.

In fact, for the first couple of days, if one can imagine, it was very chaotic. But they've measured, they've been able to take that down to a bit of degree and they divided again into four different sections and given a number of people different assignments, different duties.

Supervisors are in charge of certain areas. And although it may appear to be chaotic, it is quite organized, and getting more and more so with each passing day.

ZAHN: All right, thanks so much for that update, Bill. See you throughout the morning.

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