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CNN Live Sunday

Families Gather at World Trade Center Site for Memorial Service

Aired October 28, 2001 - 17:20   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Thousands of people who lost loved ones in the World Trade Center attack gathered at the site of the disaster today, some for the first time. CNN's national correspondent Gary Tuchman spoke with many of the families there, and he joins us for a report from New York. Hi, Gary.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello to you, Donna.

Thousands of grieving relatives came to sacred ground today. The memorial service was held right next to the rooms of the World Trade Center complex, which is the final resting place for many of their loved ones.

The 55-minute service was simple yet eloquent. Clergymen delivered their prayers, and artists came and sang songs. It was therapeutic for many of the mourners, but very trying emotionally. While the service went on, smoke billowed from the wreckage. Mourners worn mask in their chairs, and always present the knowledge that as many as 4,100 bodies are still missing.

One of the men killed in the World Trade Center disaster was a gentleman by the name of Frank Pershep. After the service, we talked to his daughter and his wife.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STACEY PERSHEP, LOST FATHER IN WTC: They haven't recovered anything of my father yet. And just to look at the destruction and to know that he is somewhere in there is very difficult.

ESTELLE PERSHEP, LOST HUSBAND IN WTC: I had to be here. I had to be close. I had to breathe that air in and fill my lungs up with him and everybody else that is lost.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TUCHMAN: Some of the most vivid memories I will have of today's service was before and after. Before, because as you said, Donna, most of these people hadn't been to ground zero yet.

And I stood at a street corner, the first point when they got off buses where they could see the wreckage, and I just watched their faces as they came by, and there was so much pain and so many tears. They almost looked as if they been punched in the stomach when they first saw it. It just knocked the wind out of them, seeing this wreckage.

And then, after the ceremony, a lot of people wanted private time, and we saw entire families with their arms around each other, tears streaming down their cheeks, not talking at all and just staring at the wreckage. And then, many of them walked as close as they could where firemen were standing, and the firemen were taking the small pieces of the building, the wreckage, and handing it to those family members.

Donna, back to you.

KELLEY: Mightily painful. Gary Tuchman in New York, thanks very much.

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