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CNN Live Today

America Under Attack: Another Building Ready to Collapse

Aired September 13, 2001 - 14:01   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.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Back to this possibility that a building has collapsed or maybe about to collapse.

Adam Reese is a CNN producer who's in the area.

And, Adam, I believe you are on the phone, aren't you?

ADAM REESE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Aaron. I am reporting to you from the office of emergency management just a block north of where the World Trade Center was, and we are hearing from police officers here on site that they are being instructed to leave the area. The building just south of World Financial Center, we believe, is the American Express, Merrill Lynch building, and we believe that is possibly going to collapse very soon.

And just let me preface that with, we believe it may. We are seeing smoke come from windows about mid building and this (OFF-MIKE) believes to be emanating from the window; it is going from floor to floor, higher and higher.

I don't know why they believe this building is about to collapse. They have had warnings when previous building were going to collapse, and that's just the situation here. They have been pulled back. Emergency workers have been pulled back from that area. And that's where it stands -- Aaron.

BROWN: Adam, you -- if you could see the building, I assume you can, you can see the smoke, how big a building are we talking about?

REESE: I am looking at it from the rear. Again, we are just outside the building where (OFF-MIKE) business inside the building a makeshift hospital, makeshift IVs, stretchers, beds, also a bed for all the workers (OFF-MIKE) of that building, just to give you an idea of number of people involved in this rescue effort.

And, again, regarding the building we that believe may collapse, it's still standing, I see smoke emanating from the windows, and that's about all I can tell you. I have just a narrow view of the side of the building from my location.

BROWN: Is it a large skyscraper, I think what I'm trying to figure out here? Are we talking 60, 70 stories?

REESE: I'm hoping that you can see it at some point, soon. These are the two building that are equal in height, just west of where the World Trade Center was standing. This is what's called the World Financial Center, and, again, headquarters to American Express and Merrill Lynch. Fairly new buildings in regards to the World Trade Center. I don't know exactly when they were build, but they are much newer than the World Trade Center was.

BROWN: And do you have any sense of -- can you see people moving out of the area? Are they rushing out of the area? Is it a fairly calm evacuation? Just give me what you can see, here.

REESE: Some of the rescue workers are calm. I did see several officer who are a bit nervous and you can clearly see their anxiety. These officers where the ones that most likely closest to that building who were asked to evacuate, and they are describing to fellow officers there high concern about the building and the fact that they were so close to it before they got this warning.

BROWN: And just, again, for me, Adam, can you tell me the building proximity to the trade center itself?

REESE: Literally across the street from where it was, just a bit south on the West Side Highway. It is basically towards the southern- most end of Manhattan, what we here call the "battery." And we are looking north from Saint Liberty Island, where the Statue of Liberty is, or Ellis Island, you would clearly be able to see it. It is one of the southern-most buildings on the island of Manhattan.

BROWN: Adam, stay on the phone, don't go away here.

Many of you may remember late yesterday afternoon there was a concern about another building in the area just a bit north of where collapsed building number seven was. We were down there at the time. We could see windows or pieces of glass, facing the building coming off; that was One Liberty Plaza. That's on the right side of your screen. And they moved people out at that time.

There are a couple of points to make here, and forgive me if they are frighteningly obvious that there -- the problems here, number one, are safety issues, you got to get people, all the people, all the rescue workers away from there every time one of the buildings seems to be maybe ready to come down.

And the other problem is if these buildings don't come down and yet they are so unstable that they might, at what point is it safe to move people back in? So -- and you have to bring the building down yourself, is that an operation that will have be to be undertaken?

So there are a multitude of problems that are -- that exist down there, and the end result of all of it is it slows down, it doesn't stop it, but it slows down the effort to get in there and find whoever may still be in one of the air pockets or, as we learn today, in an SUV with the five firefighters that were pulled out. It slows the effort to get to the survivors, if in fact there are survivors left. So the situation down by the trade center and the blocks around it -- and Gary Tuchman yesterday reported that the damage, extensive damage extends 10 blocks from the trade center; some of the building destroyed, many of them just damaged. Tremendous amount of structural instability, and all of that is causing problems.

Adam, are you still on the phone? Adam?

OK, for the moment we've lost Adam. We will try to get him back and see if he can update us on that.

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