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New York Looks at 9/11 Response Report

Aired August 19, 2002 - 14:43   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: As the nation approaches the one-year anniversary of September 11, a new report is evaluating the response of New York emergency officials the day of the attacks.
CNN's Hillary Lane joins us live from New York with more details on this report -- Hillary, they made a big point of saying that this wasn't about blame, and that they celebrated the courage of these police officers and firefighters, but still, lessons to be learned.

HILLARY LANE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that is absolutely right. The response on September 11 was full of successes, and it was also full of shortcomings. The successes, especially, they rescued 25,000 people from those buildings. They saved a lot of lives, though a lot many more were lost.

The number of shortcomings as well, too many personnel responding to the scene, especially too many leaders from the fire department and the New York Police Department. They might have directed better from a command center. Also, communications giving them a real problem, especially at the fire department, and that is one point where we are likely to see more coordination between the two agencies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VINCENT SCOPPETTA, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT: The fire department and the police department will be talking to each other about how we might use their extensive infrastructure to better communications in the fire department. That is key.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LANE: Now, there are still many areas of communications to work on, how to communicate from subways and tunnels is technology that the police department has working for it today, but the fire department does not as of yet. It also is very likely that we will be seeing fire department personnel flying in police choppers and sending feedback to the fire department so that they can monitor any sort of event from the command headquarters. Network mayor saying that all of the reassessment that is going on will really help overcome more problems should another event of this magnitude occur.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, MAYOR, NEW YORK CITY: All of the things that we are studying apply no matter what the catastrophe is. How do you deploy your resources, how do they communicate, how do you get supplies to them, how do you know what is going on, and post the public as to what they should do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LANE: As I said earlier, both the fire department and the police department have done their own internal studies, so a lot of this work is already underway, but some of the changes that have been announced today, the recommendations will be incorporated immediately -- Carol, back to you.

LIN: All right. Hillary Lane in New York, thank you.

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