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CNN Live Event/Special

9/11: America Remembers: Shanksville Reading Of Names

Aired September 11, 2002 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Brittany's father died when the south tower collapsed. It was in that moment, for me, I suspect for many of you, when the magnitude of this tragedy became so apparent that these buildings were coming down and these names you are listening to, that these numbers would be in the thousands.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And of course what we didn't know at that time that the north tower, too, would ultimately go.

BROWN: Well I'll say this that when that first tower came down, standing up here, I think there was a sense that it was only a matter of time. It's -- as we listen to this, this 2,800 hundred names, there is in some way a sense we have of how much worse it might have been, how blessed we are that we are talking about 2,800 and not tens of thousands. And believe me that could have happened -- very easily could have happened. Fifty thousand people were in those buildings. So in our grief, we also understand that we were somewhat fortunate on that awful day.

ZAHN: It is true, had those planes hit anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour later, the toll would have been much, much bigger.

BROWN: In any case, it is...

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

(READING OF NAMES)

BROWN: This is Shanksville and the bell will ring for each of the 40 passengers who died, the heroes of Flight 93. And who knows what they saved us from. We may never know exactly, but we do know that they gave their lives in a historic struggle and we thank them.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

(READING OF NAMES)

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