Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Ground Zero Clean Up Efforts to Be Finished Ahead of Schedule

Aired April 08, 2002 - 09:20   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.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We have some good news to report. People say we never report good news. We've got some good news and it's about the site where the war on terror began, Ground Zero. Where the soaring towers of the World Trade Center once stood until September 11th, it looks now like the clean up efforts will be finished as much as four months ahead of schedule. We're taking May to wrap it all up down there. So for the workers who have gone 24/7 since September 11th, the end of the job is in sight. But their own job of recovering may be just beginning. CNN's Michael Okwu has the report from Ground Zero.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL OKWU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In the months following 9-11, Ground Zero has offered studies in contrast. September's fire, November's smoke, a mountain of debris, a pit of dust. And as recovery workers run out of dust to sift, now 70 feet below street level, it is becoming hauntingly clear, come May their work will be done. And that is at once liberating and depressing.

UNIDENTIFIED: I don't know how I'm going to react when that day comes. But you know there is going to be a day when it is over. And we'll just take it one day at a time.

UNIDENTIFIED: Where do you think your brother is?

ROB CARLO (ph): Well, we've been looking in the South Tower over here.

UNIDENTIFIED: For five months after regular shifts with Ladder 23, Rob Carlo head to Ground Zero in search of his brother Michael, one of the 172 firefighters still missing.

CARLO: It is some sort of relief that I don't have to actually see my brother in that shape. And then there's a lot of disappointment also for my family that we can't bring him home yet.

UNIDENTIFIED: Part of what has held workers together all this time has been their work. When that is gone, that may be the time when they start really feeling the pain or really feeling the sense of loss.

BRIAN LIONS (ph): Well I think that today is the 202nd day. OKWU: Brian Lions has been searching too. His brother, Michael and Michael's squad brothers presumed dead. Today he tells me a story about a box of ID cards unearthed from what he believes was a security office in the South Tower.

LIONS: One of them flipped out and went in midair and I caught that one. All right? When I caught that one, I read the name on it, and, the name on it was Michael Lions.

OKWU: Not his brother, Michael Lions but still, the beginnings of Ground Zero lure, mystical offerings that help strong men make sense of loss.

Did you take that to be some kind of an omen at the time?

LIONS: So I said I knew that they were there, then.

OKWU: As a foreman, Lions oversees recovery teams, lately using this 58-ton steel beam, the last standing visage of the South Tower as a beacon to the buried.

LIONS: We just kept saying you know go by the beam, 10 feet north, 10 feet east.

OKWU: Recently here, dozens of recoveries. Part of the reason this flag-topped beam will be the last structure removed on the last day, followed by a funeral-like procession of workers. Over 2,000 people are still missing as grapplers hoist potentially precious cargo, men comb the dirt, occasionally finding solus in the broken steel they've transformed into symbols of hope.

UNIDENTIFIED: I realized the fact that maybe we won't find my brother and you know we will deal with that when the time comes. It's not going to change the outcome one way or another and you know, one day we will see each other again.

OKWU: Michael Okwu, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com