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CNN Live Event/Special

America Under Attack: New Yorkers Speak About Attack

Aired September 13, 2001 - 04:21   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.
JONATHAN MANN, CNN ANCHOR: The scene inside the pentagon is one of dueling emotions. Relatives have expressed anguish and hope as they keep vigil. And emergency crews search for between 100 and 200 people missing.

Sheilah Kast has been speaking to some of those people waiting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): The second terrorist attack was a direct hit on the office space of Morgan Stanley. The firm had 3500 hundred in 22 floors almost exactly in the area where the second plane hit. But incredibly most of those employees had already fled the tower minutes before the explosion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miraculously I'd say, we had 2500 people in World Trade Center two --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MANN: Our apologies. That was not the report that Sheilah Kast prepared, but we do have that for you now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHEILAH KAST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tracy Roenhorst (ph) stands vigil as close as they scan to the spot where the jet slammed into the Pentagon. She looks for any movement, any relevant detail. On Tuesday her husband Edward, an accountant for the army was working near that spot.

TRACY ROENHORST: I feel I need to be hear with him. If he's alive then he'll definitely need me when he comes out.

KAST: It is a frustrating but not lonely vigil. Eddie's parents and the best friends and neighbors who knew him even before he married Tracy 10 years and two kids ago, keep each others hopes up with wise cracks and jokes. That's what Eddie would do if he were with them they say.

ROENHORST: I'm trying to be incredibly focussed. If I don't then I would be hysterical. And right now I don't need to be there. I need to be hear watching, waiting. KAST (on camera): Officials say the best prospects for finding survivors are at the edges of the impact zone where the smoke and the heat may not have been as intense.

(voice-over): The husband of one who had survived keeps his own vigil at a hospital across town.

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: You can still smoke wafting up from the Pentagon.

KAST: As soon as the first pictures flashed on the television, even though it was only Louise Kurtz's second day on the job, her husband Michael started to worry. Hours later, the hospital phoned.

MICHAEL KURTZ, HUSBAND OF VICTIM: I came in teary eyed. I didn't recognize my wife of 31 years. She's doing better. She's got 70 percent burns on her body.

KAST: Back at what Tracy Roenhorst calls ground zero, touched by an occasional prayer she intends to keep her vigil.

ROENHORST: We're just sitting in limbo until they start bring bodies out I guess. Either way dead or alive. And we'll be here until the very - if he's the last one out we'll be here until he comes out.

KAST: Sheilah Kast for CNN Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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