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CNN Live At Daybreak

America Recovers: Clean Up Costs

Aired October 05, 2001 - 08:41   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: Live pictures now from the site of what was the World Trade Center, as the efforts continue to clean up the pile, as it is called, and recover some of the bodies that lie underneath the rubble.

$105 billion, that's what New York City officials estimate the terrorist attacks will cost the city over the next two years.

CNN's Michael Okwu is near the Trade Center site with the latest. Good morning, Michael

MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles. A very unusual development in the past 24 hours here. The city has hired four private companies, all run by former federal prosecutors, to actually monitor their contractors and the subcontractors who are working this site. Specifically, they are going to be conducting background checks. They are going to be tracking personnel equipment, and specifically, the debris that is being removed from this site.

Now this announcement comes just as a grand jury is investigating whether some of the debris removed from here was diverted to scrap yards run by the mob. Now more than 171,000 tons of debris have been removed from this site. All of it is supposed to go to a landfill in Staten Island where investigators can sift through it, looking for evidence and for DNA.

Of course, Miles, as you mentioned, the attack is taking its toll on the local economy. It will cost New York, you mentioned, more than -- almost $105 billion over the next two years. 115,000 jobs will be lost this year alone.

Restaurants are losing 4/5 of their revenue since the attack took place on September 11th. To give you a sense of the wide ranging physical damage, 13 million square feet of space was destroyed. That is the equivalent of the entire office space inventory of Atlanta or Miami.

A touching memorial service yesterday. Rescue workers gathered by an 18x12 foot steel beams that had been found in the shape of a cross. A rescue workers saw it and others like it, he said, a couple days after the attack, just after pulling several bodies from the wreckage.

In the meantime, ground zero still smolders. To see it is to believe it. If this getting old hat to you, it is stills haunting after three weeks. The confirmed dead has risen to 380, of course 4986 people are still missing and presumed dead.

Even though the World Trade Center was obviously a huge office space, workers are not finding any desks. They not finding any telephones. They are not finding any equipment of any kind; just steel beams, concrete, the occasional body, and acres and acres of dust. Miles?

O'BRIEN: CNN's Michael Okwu in Lower Manhattan.

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