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CNN Live At Daybreak

Twelve stories of Scaffolding Collapse in New York City

Aired October 25, 2001 - 07:20   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: Back here in New York, we have another deadly structure collapse to talk about this morning. A scaffold at least 12 stories high came down behind an office building on Park Avenue. At least five people are dead, several more injured. The accident happened just about a mile and a half from the World Trade Center site and some rescuers actually rushed from ground zero to the scene of the latest New York disaster to try to help out.

Jason Carroll is standing by at that site in lower Manhattan with the latest details -- Jason, what can you tell us? Good morning.

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, definitely it's -- good morning to you, Paula.

Definitely some frightening moments for the people who live in this Gramercy Park section of Manhattan. The accident happened in an interior courtyard of the building that you see behind me. Yesterday when we were out here, we spoke to a construction worker. He was standing on top of the scaffolding when everything happened. He said it was at about four o'clock, again, standing on the top of the scaffolding. He said everything started to shake and then he says it just went down.

Five workers, as you said, were killed. Fourteen were hurt, many with broken bones and internal injuries. Also, as you said, rescue workers rushed to the scene of this accident here. Many of them came from ground zero to help.

There was 14 stories of scaffolding down here which collapsed and panicked into three stories of debris. Now, when the rescuers came down here several of them were hurt when they were trying to pull those who were trapped out of the debris. Many of them had to use their bare hands because using the heavy equipment at that point just would have been too risky.

Also, many of these workers have been pulling a lot of hours, as you can imagine, Paula, working down at World Trade Center. And yesterday New York City's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, came down here to tour the site. And he said that he wanted to come down here to offer his support. He also praised the workers for continuing to do a good job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI (R), MAYOR OF NEW YORK: If anybody has any questions about their morale, their enthusiasm, their ability to work under the kind of situation that happened back on September 11, all they have to do is watch them doing this work and it's absolutely remarkable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: It is still unclear why the scaffolding collapsed to begin with. There have been reports that perhaps it was overloaded. There have also been reports that the brick facade of the building that the workers were working, perhaps that it gave way. In fact, we're also learning that a building inspector had cited the landlord of the office building for having problems with that brick facade before all this happened.

In terms of what's happening with the rescue operation, it is over and all of the workers have been accounted for -- Paula.

ZAHN: So, Jason, when might we actually have a better idea of exactly what went wrong?

CARROLL: Well, I know that building inspectors will be down here today. They're going to have to look at all the variables in terms of what was involved with this accident, perhaps by the end of the day, perhaps by the end of the week. But as you can imagine, with a lot of the resources are being taxed with what's going on down at the World Trade Center, so it might actually take a little longer than normal -- Paula.

ZAHN: Yes, well, certainly resources very strained in the city at this hour.

Thanks so much, Jason. Appreciate it.

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