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American Morning

America Under Attack: What it's Like at Ground Zero

Aired September 13, 2001 - 09:44   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 ZAUN, CNN ANCHOR: I need to tell you that here in New York City, as you can see from this shot, the smoke plume continues to hang over the city. The EPA telling us now they have tested for levels of various dangerous particles in the air, they don't exist. Nevertheless, a lot of folks working in that horrible destruction area are walking around with masks among them.

Michael Okwu, who has gotten very close to where these rescue operations are underway, and he is wearing this mask for good reason.

Describe what you've seen this morning.

MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula, of course, I'm wearing this mask because I am just a few blocks north of ground zero, what of course used to be the 12 twin towers of the World Trade Center, and we're essentially standing right underneath this recognizable -- what's become a very recognizable plume of smoke that has come to symbolize the aftermath of this disaster. It smells almost as if you're standing in the middle of the burning embers of a bonfire.

And what caused this bonfire? What are the effects of the bonfire? You can see it throughout the streets of lower Manhattan this morning. Cars like this, which were essentially pulled out of ground zero, away from the site. You can see just behind this car there the words inscripted, somebody wrote in the words "God Bless," obviously for inspiration for those who survived and for many of the families who also lost some loved ones.

And yet, at the same time, somebody wrote just here in the front window, the word "war."

And you can understand why people's emotions run so high when you are down here. This car covered in debris is absolutely -- pales in comparison to what's just north of it. These two stacked cars were pulled from ground zero, from some place very near the World Trade Center, by rescue workers, by crews to make it easier for them to do their job, to get to what they hope might be some surviving life and to find whatever else they might be able to find there.

But you can see just the devastation and the force of this blast by looking at these two cars. You can see here the front of the car, what used to be an engine. And if you look down at this tire, these were obviously steel-belted tires, this is what remains of them, just rods.

And the back of this car, I want to show you this because this is what struck me as well. For some odd reason I looked at the back of this car and I thought, my goodness, you know, somebody was getting married, then I realized of course not; these are actually ribbons of steel, charreds of somebody's previous possession. And what happened to the person who owned this car we can only speculate, you know. We don't know.

Just north of here another car. I'm going to put my mask on from time to time. Just over here another car, again, blasted, completely gutted. You might be able to see inside what was once somebody's comfortable vehicle, completely looks like it was at the center of a war zone, and in fact, in many ways it is the center of war zone.

And just across the street -- William, if you can pan over to the left here. Just across the street you can see a Con Ed (ph) van, or what used to be Con Ed van. Now, Con Anderson (ph) is the local utility company that services a great part of New York and New York state. And the people who work for Con Anderson often respond to emergencies just like this one. You can only imagine what might have happened to the people in the car. Now, we don't know whether anyone was in that car, that car may very well have been here before the emergency, before the disaster occurred. But when you look at vehicles like this one that belong to people who respond to emergencies like this you can only think of the firefighter and the police officers who responded to this scene.

Mayor Giuliani has already said that there are 350, maybe more than 350, firefighters and police who have been unaccounted for. What happened to their vehicles? Did they arrive here moments after the scene, hoping to help people and were caught in the blast or caught when the rubble came down? You can only speculate -- Paula.

ZAUN: Michael, I think we would all feel a lot more comfortable if you leave that mask on. You know, we're two miles north of there and even we are beginning to feel the sting of the smoke.

Once again, you are only how many blocks from where the trade centers went down?

OKWU: I'm about less than about eight blocks from where the World Trade Center went down. And you can see I'm on a very busy street, they're using this as sort of an artery to go back and forth supplying equipment; firefighters, obviously, still responding to the scene and to other scenes around the World Trade Center.

Just moments ago -- William, I'm going to ask you to pan back over again. Just moments ago we saw this truck with what looks like a lot of plywood and other kinds of materials on the back of it. And I am told that they could be using this wood for a variety of reasons. They might be using it to support some of the buildings, some of the existing areas where they are trying to work, to give themselves a little bit more support. And on a more sort of ghastly side, and yet the grim reality of what we are facing here, they might be using some of this wood to essentially build boxes, because they've run out of some stretchers in some areas. So some of this material might be used to actually build what they call "litter boxes" for some of the bodies that will remove from the rubble -- Paula.

ZAUN: I'll tell you one thing, Michael, I can only gauge a reaction based on how my crew is reacting to these pictures. They are absolutely sickening. I think you're the first person who has given us an idea of just how tremendous the impact was. I mean, you have shown us the car, with how someone wrote "war" on the windshield, how someone wrote "God bless." On an apparently human level, what are you thinking as you look at the stuff?

OKWU: You can't help but look at this. And the first thing you think of is: I'm in the middle of war zone. And that's an adjustment, of course, as we've mentioned before, that many New Yorkers have had to make. We feel very much like we're in the middle of a war zone.

The second thing that you have to think about is the fact that there were people there. Oftentimes, you look at these pictures and you think, my, goodness, we've lost the World Trade Center. We'll, we lost a lot of lives in that World Trade Center as well.

And when you look at the cars and you look at just how severe the damage was, one can only imagine what must it have been like to be there.

And then thirdly, I think, what must it have been like to be there? Well, how miraculous it is that they actually found some people alive. Sometimes God is smiling (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

ZAUN: All right, Michael, we're going to leave it there and come back to you later on in the day. Put that mask back on. You need it down there. The EPA is telling us we don't need up here. Once, again, for the first time many New Yorkers are actually smelling the sting of this smoke because the winds have changed a little bit. And I know last night, from standing up here, it's a little bit better today. But it is a stinging, acrid kind of smell.

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