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CNN Live At Daybreak

The Personal Toll of Flight 587's Crash

Aired November 13, 2001 - 05:41   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.
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Outside of the Alianza Dominicana, a community service organization, the sign says "estamos de luto," -- "we are in mourning."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A wife with two kids and pregnant.

HINOJOSA: Inside, social workers rushed to gather information...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don't know if your brother was on the plane?

HINOJOSA: ... and help the grieving. The morning escaped words. Now, only the guttural sounds of pain and overwhelming anguish. A mother who lost her daughter, a son who lost his mother, a sister who lost a sister, Evalisa Cueveras (ph) to all of them.

"I was working in the beauty salon when I heard the news," she says, "and then, just no, no, no."

Eleven-year-old Pablo Cueveras can barely muster up a whisper about his mother.

PABLO CUEVERAS, SON OF VICTIM: She was nice and (UNINTELLIGIBLE), she was going to buy me a ball.

HINOJOSA: Another young woman's father was flying back to his homeland.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was going to the cemetery to visit his father that had died a long time ago.

HINOJOSA: And in a small apartment, a woman cries for her younger sister, Gloria.

"We lost the baby of the family," she cries, "with her own baby as well." Gloria was five months pregnant and traveling with her little four-year-old boy, Christopher. It was only her second time on a plane.

"The president is dropping bombs on the desert. That man isn't there," she says, convinced there was a connection with the war. But for now, the only sure connection here is the grief.

MOISES PEREZ, ALIANZA DOMINICANA: We're still in a state of shock. We certainly didn't expect to wake up this morning and confront the tragedy of this magnitude for our community.

HINOJOSA: Forty-one Dominican immigrants died at the World Trade Center, and on Flight 587, at least 176 of the 255 passengers had Dominican backgrounds.

Maria Hinojosa, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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