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CNN Live Today

America Under Attack: Surviving the Wreckage

Aired September 12, 2001 - 12:47   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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: We have to take another personal up- close look, of this tragedy from which so many are trying to recover.

Our producer Rose Arce made her way down, yesterday to ground- zero at the World Trade Center. And she took her camera with her. And she kept this notebook, she wants to show you now exactly what she saw.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROSE ARCE, CNN PRODUCER: We took a walk towards ground zero.

There's Hundreds of fire trucks coming this way.

(voice-over): The skies were filled with fine pieces of glass, and acrid smoke. Cars were covered with dust. The street had a thick coat of debris.

(on camera): There's like four inches of dust back there right by that building. And down on the ground, there was peoples' resumes lying, office supplies. There was these pictures from people's desks that have been just singed. They've blown up -- the building had blown up and the stuff just come down like confetti.

(voice-over): There were doctors rushing to help people, emergency workers were moving cautiously toward the building.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you hear that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's coming down.

ARCE: This firefighter was trying to rescue people from two World Trade Center.

What did it feel like?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very hot. Pitch-dark, I couldn't see almost anything. Almost the color that you see. A lot of debris everywhere going. A lot of rebar, a lot of broken glass, a lot of bricks, not a lot of smoke at the time but a lot of debris.

ARCE: What about people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's people in there. ARCE: Another firefighter watched debris crush everyone on his truck, but him.

What was it like when it collapsed?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nightmare, total blindness, choking feeling, you know. You are covered in dust, rubble, smoke, everything and all over your truck.

ARCE: Closer to the building almost like nighttime, what was left of the building was a fiery fault. The firefighters thought it might collapse, pieces of the building kept falling. Rescue workers pushed people away from the scene.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are walking back, the building is about is about to blow up. Flames and debris coming down.

ARCE: Everyone moved back leaving debris and silence.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. I'm back on the CNN platform, where you have a commanding view of what the New York skyline looks today, absent what once were the two tallest buildings in this city, the World Trade Center buildings, tower one, tower two. The north and south towers of course collapsing in hour and a half of the time the hijack jets crashed into them.

Now it seems quite remarkable to many of us would have lived here that it is indeed the Empire State Building that stands the tallest in our proud but decimated city today.

I'm going to check in with Aaron Brown, who had this identical vantage point that I've today for many, many hours yesterday. He finds himself closer to ground-zero than most of us have been able to get to. Aaron, can you describe for me what you've seen. I know you had some difficulty getting down there. All the streets we described earlier today from 14th street south have been closed.

What have you seen?

AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Paula, getting here was an experience. There's very little traffic as you know, the West Side highway which is normally teaming with cars is essentially a staging area. You see everything in the highway from utility vehicles, ConEdison vehicles, electric generators, night lights so that when it's night they have lights to work with 24-hours a day, truck after truck of portable toilets. There are sanitation trucks with snowplows on them. They'll be brought in to clear the wreckage.

As you get closer to the area of course and you look behind you, what I guess about five blocks from where building 7 once stood, it continues, they continue to pour water on the smoldering building. Building 7 was the last of the buildings to collapse. Tower number 1 essentially collapsed on it. This is granted an over oversimplification but the weight of that crushed the building. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com