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CNN Saturday Morning News
Some Inner City Residents are Anxious About Terrorism
Aired October 13, 2001 - 08:56 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.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: On September 11, terrorism came home to the upscale neighborhood of lower Manhattan, and as the song says, if it could happen there, it could happen anywhere.
That's what some inner city residents are afraid of, as Candy Crowley reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): East St. Louis, Illinois is poor and crime ridden. Property values have bottomed out. Unemployment is twice the national average.
MAYOR DEBRA POWELL, EAST ST. LOUIS, ILLINOIS: And I thought my days would be spent with trying to get these buildings down here downtown demolished, trying to get the sanitary sewer separated from the storm sewers, trying to lower the property taxes.
CROWLEY: Until September 11, Debra Powell heard the same questions East St. Louis mayors have confronted for decades -- can you stop the roof from leaking, crack down on crime, clean up the abandoned properties, improve the schools and find me a job? Now this.
UNIDENTIFIED RESIDENT: I don't know about terrorism. I can't even deal with the rest, but you know it's just like a thief in the night. You don't know where they gonna come from.
POWELL: Their main focus has been if it happens here, are we ready, Mayor? What are you doing in the event that something happens here to make sure that we're safe? And that's on their minds and I couldn't stand there and tell them oh, everything is fine, because it's not.
CROWLEY: It is not fine because East St. Louis police and fire forces are bare bones. The hospital is hurting. And the mayor fears those avenues she once pushed as ways to bring commerce into the city now might bring something else.
POWELL: Location, location, location. We have the railways. We have the waterways. We have the highways. We have two airports at Lambert and Mid America where we're right in the center. We have a metro link coming through. The very attributes that we touted and said hey, we have them, we're ready, can be those very same mechanisms to be used to really do some damage.
CROWLEY: And living just across the Mississippi from the gateway to the west, Her Honor worries that her city might be both in the line of fire as well as last in line.
POWELL: And we're right across from St. Louis and the focus is over there and it's like hey, excuse us, we're here.
CROWLEY: The problem now is figuring out how to address new fears and meet old needs. City services to the poor, the sick, the elderly and the children are heavily dependent on state and local money.
POWELL: The greatest fear is that there will be an economic dry up for us, that the well will not be there for us. But the people will still come down complaining, wanting help and wanting assistance.
CROWLEY: But in the end, the mayor of East St. Louis says whatever her city's problems, she will not begrudge whatever money the federal government spends to pursue terrorists.
POWELL: We're talking about preservation of life as we know it. What's happening in the airports and the downsides in the travel, the economic impact of what has happened, we're going to bounce back, but it bothers me that they even thought they could get away with this. So as the kids say, bring it on, because we're ready.
CROWLEY: Candy Crowley, CNN, East St. Louis, Illinois.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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