America Under Attack: Terrorists Attacks in Both Washington D.C.
and New York
Aired September 11, 2001 - 10:00 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. (CONTINUING BREAKING NEWS)
UNIDENTIFIED CNN
ANCHOR: That's as frighten a scene as you will ever
see.
Again, this is going on now in two cities. We have
a report that there's a fire at the State Department as well
and that is being evacuated.
So we've got fires at the
Pentagon, evacuated, the State Department, evacuated, the
White House evacuated, on the basis of what the Secret Service
describes as a terrorist threat.
We have two
explosions, two planes hitting the World Trade Center here in
New York.
And what this second explosion was, it took
place about -- part of the south -- that would be the south
tower has apparently collapsed.
We don't know if that
was from the impact of this first plane that hit it or whether
something else has happened there. We'll work on that.
Our Washington bureau chief Frank Sesno is on the
phone.
Frank, what are you hearing?.
FRANK
SESNO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron (ph), I just drove past the
Pentagon across the 14th Street Bridge which is now choked
with traffic. We're beginning to hear emergency sirens and
rescue personnel standing out across Washington.
There
is a gigantic black billowing cloud of smoke that is rising
over the Pentagon.
You heard Jamie McIntyre a moment
ago describe where that was coming from. I can also tell you
that local radio and addition to talking about evacuations as
we've heard at the Pentagon, the White House is reporting that
the Capitol building has been evacuated and the Treasury
Department has been evacuated.
Washington, DC, the
nation's capital is exceptionally tense and clearly taking
steps as if it is virtually under siege here. We don't know
specifically, as you said, what has taken place at the
Pentagon, but this is very serious, striking at heart of the
national government. And as John King was explaining...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Frank, it's Aaron, I need to
interrupt you for a second.
Again, there has been a
second explosion here in Manhattan at the Trade Center. We are
getting reports that a part of the tower -- the second tower,
the one a bit further to the south of us has collapsed. We are
checking on that.
We are also told that the Sears
Tower in Chicago has been evacuated, and what I can't tell you
on that is whether there was something specific that happened
there, whether there was an attack on that building, yet, or
whether there was a warning or whether there was a threat of
some sort or whether that's simply precautionary.
What
we can tell you is that just in the last several minutes here,
two or three minutes, a second or a third -- I guess,
technically, extraordinary event has happened here in lower
Manhattan.
You can see this extraordinary plume of
smoke that is -- or was at least the second tower the World
Trade Center. Or perhaps three, four minutes ago you could
from where we were standing see the second building that is
just a bit to the south of the first building, but you can't
see it anymore, it is covered with smoke. A large plume of
smoke also coming still from the first tower, where the first
plane hit at about 8:45.
We can, by the way, if we can
cue the tape, we can show you the second attack, or at least
the second explosion in the Trade Center that occurred at
about 9:15 Eastern time.
As you can imagine -- there
you can see to the right of your screen a plane coming in. We
do have a report of a hijacked American Airlines plane.
It comes into the south side and then boom. You can
see the fire coming out the front or the north side of the
building, I guess that would be the northeast side of the
building.
And then just in the last several minutes
there has been a second explosion or at least -- perhaps not
an explosion perhaps part of building simply collapsed, and
that's what we saw and that's what we're look at as smoke now
just covers lower Manhattan.
Almost as far to the end
of Manhattan island as you can get is where the Trade Centers
are.
The Sears Tower in Chicago has been evacuated and
we continue to check on the circumstances there.
The
Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House have been
evacuated in Washington as well. The president has -- we can
show you now what happened just a few moments ago at the Trade
Center. Watch the building to the left, to the back of those
two building. This is just a few minutes ago. We don't know if
something happened, another explosion, or if the building was
so weakened it just collapsed.
But -- we have a -- one
of our producers on the phone, and I didn't get the name, so
why don't we just go ahead.
Are you there?
ROSE ARCE, REPORTER: Yes. This is Rose Arce calling
from New York.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rose, tell me what
you know.
ARCE: Just a few minutes ago we saw --
there's a portion of the building where the first plane struck
and it seemed to be buckling inside itself, almost as if the
top of the building was going to fall. Shortly after that, to
people, it's hard to tell whether they were being pushed or
they physically approached themselves, the sort of the river
side of the building, would be the west side of the building,
and appeared to jump from the top floors, just under where you
see the smoke and fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is
extraordinary. The South Tower, the World Trade Center has
collapsed.
Again, tell me how long ago was it that you
saw this?
ARCE: This must have been about five minutes
ago, and prior to that, you could see heads popping out of
windows right beneath where that big, gaping whole is, so
there appeared to be people alive right below where the crash
point was and were trying to find some way out of there. And
just as the thing started buckle you saw them plummeting from
that top floor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right, and perhaps
this is stating the obvious, we apologize for that, but
obviously people were already at work here at the Trade Center
when this happened. We don't know how many people have been
hurt in all of this. We have no idea at this point, as you
look at an aerial shot coming from -- I guess that would be
coming from the south of the Trade Center, or what is at least
the Trade Center behind those huge plumes of smoke.
All
airports across the country, every airports in the United
States has been shut down as the FAA and the government tries
to figure out exactly what has happened, what is at risk, what
is not, who is behind it, are there more explosions, more
attacks yet to come.
Here in New York, trading on the
New York Stock Exchange has been suspended, at least for now.
All bridges and tunnels coming into the city have been shut
down as the police try to clear the way.
We can tell
you, as we were coming in, perhaps an hour ago, there was a
convoy -- I can't think of a better word -- a convoy of fire
and police trucks racing down the west side highway, and this
is in the middle of rush hour. Obviously, every available fire
unit here in Manhattan has been brought to the Trade Center.
Outside of the White House, John King, our senior
White House correspondent -- John?
JOHN KING, CNN
CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Aaron.
They have pushed us even
further back away from the White House now and there are more
than a half dozen fire trucks. Some of the Secret Service now
patrolling the perimeter in Lafayette Park, which is directly
across from the White House have automatic rifles drawn to
keep people away from the park, and they're policing back and
forth. You can probably here additional fire apparatus
arriving on the scene.
Senior White House staffers who
were evacuated, all they could tell us is that they were told
that there was a credible threat on the White House as well,
and that they were told to evacuate the premises.
What
we do not know is whether or not the vice president and the
national security team have stayed inside of the White House
situation room.
We know that they were directing and
monitoring operations from there, as of just about 15 minutes
-- 15, 20 minutes ago. But the White House staff, the
executive office building staff, and all of the office
buildings around, including the Treasury Department and some
government and some non-government office buildings, people
have been evacuated out into the street, and again, the secret
service now putting up yellow police line tape, and some of
them patrolling Lafayette Park with automatic rifles, which is
a scene quite extraordinary here across from the White House.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John, tell us as best as you can,
what the government's national security apparatus will do
right now? I mean, what do you guess is happening and where is
it happening?
KING: Well, I don't want to guess at
all, but from the White House situation room, a president or a
vice president can direct a war, can direct a full scale world
war.
The White House situation room is where all
information, it's acceptable to all information from the
United States military, from the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, from the Federal Aviation Administration in this case.
The White House situation room is prepared just for situation
like this, unfortunately, to be prepared in a time of crisis
for the president to monitor incoming information and to
direct any U.S. military or nonmilitary emergency response.
The White House situation room is a bomb shelter for
that matter. That part of the White House is a bomb shelter.
Whether or not they have stayed in there is unclear. We know
in the past that would be the routine. We just do not have the
direct answer as yet because most of the staff, if not all of
the staff, has been evacuated from the premises. UNIDENTIFIED
MALE: So I gather you're just not being able to get any calls
into the building right now, or at least not getting them
answered at this point?
KING: Calls you get into the
building are not answered at this point. And more fire
apparatus showing up now as we speak. We saw most of the
senior staff come out. We have not seen the national security
staff that we would recognize, anyway, but I should note there
are other gates from the White House.
We are on the
north side...
(SIRENS)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John,
you are being drawn out by the sirens.
Allan Dodds
Frank of our bureau here in New York joins us on the phone.
Allan, where are you?
ALLAN DODDS FRANK: Hi,
Aaron.
Our colleague Jennifer Westhoven also arrived.
She was closer to the building. I am just south of Canal
Street, about 10 blocks north of the World Trade Center.
Just Before 10:00, parts of the building began peeling
away. People started screaming -- Jennifer tells me, because
she was a little closer to the building -- that the police
began yelling, run, run, and thousands of people started
running away from the buildings as they were falling. That
was, of course, followed by an onrush of ambulances and
special police vehicles. Some people have told us -- though I
can't confirm this -- that dozens of stories of the building
have fallen away, maybe down as low as the 30th floor.
AARON (ph): And again, just because we lost a little
bit of the beginning, where are you physically now.
FRANKS: I am just out of the Holland Tunnel in
downtown Manhattan, perhaps 10 to or 15 blocks north of the
World Trade Center.
AARON: Got it.
The
pictures that our viewers are looking at was that collapse of
the south tower a few minutes ago.
FRANKS: Correct.
AARON: Here in New York.
FRANKS: Yes, and
moments after that, people began running towards us. Jennifer
Westhoven, who is normally at the stock exchange, was only
about five blocks away, and she saw the same thing.
AARON: Allan, thank you. Let me go to one of New
York's deputy mayors.
RANDY MASTRO, FORMER DEPUTY
MAYOR, NEW YORK: Former deputy mayor.
AARON: What are
you hearing, Randy.
MASTRO: I only know what I have
seen on television. I have tried to talk to some
friends...
AARON: Hand me -- there we go. Hand me the
microphone. There we go.
MASTRO: I only know what I
have heard on television and tried to speak to some friends,
and obviously, phone lines, communication is difficult. You
know, nothing prepares you in life for a senseless tragedy
like this one. But there is no city better prepared to deal
with such emergency situations than New York
City.
AARON: Tell me, based on the plan, what is
happening 30 blocks away.
MASTRO: Sure. Mayor Giuliani
established early on an Office of Emergency Management to
coordinate all of the government agencies involved, so you
have coordinated leadership of police, fire, health, all of
the city agencies responding to that emergency. They have
planned for this kind of event. Unfortunately, this is not a
unique concerns in the life of New York City or our country.
Tragedies like this...
AARON: It may not be a unique
occurrence, but it is a very rare and extraordinary one.
MASTRO: It is extraordinary, and therefore, in New
York City, we have coordinated response, and they're
responding now and providing every help that they can under
these extraordinary circumstances.
AARON: Hang on one
second. We have a report now of an explosion on Capitol Hill,
and we are checking that out. We have a report of a plane
crashing at the Pentagon, the Pentagon being evacuated. Fire
on the Mall in Washington, the State Department evacuated, and
we have all flights shut down across the county as officials
sort out what is happening here.
Randy, back to you
for a second.
If I recall this correctly, there is
what was called a bunker, the mayor's bunker, for these sorts
of events, in the Trade Center, correct?
MASTRO: There
is an Emergency Management Center at the Trade
Center.
AARON: Clearly, the mayor is not there.
MASTRO: I have not spoken with the mayor, so I don't
know his physical location, but I do know that that
coordinated emergency response started immediately. It's
something that the city prepares for, and it's something that
under these tragic circumstances, the city is doing everything
it can do to respond.
AARON: How much of the plan
changed after the World Trade Center bombing, in '93.
MASTRO: There was no coordinated city response. There
was no Mayor's Office of Emergency Management. Rudy Giuliani
established that. It's been one of the hallmarks of his
tenure. And unfortunately, there are circumstances like this
one where that coordinated effort has to come into play and is
coming into play now.
AARON: If you can, stay with us
for a little bit.
MASTRO: Sure.
AARON: I
suspect other questions are going to come up.
I want
to go through again what we know here at this point and also
point some things that are not insignificant that we don't
know. And one of the things we don't know is we do not now
know how many fatalities there have been, and how many
injuries there are. We can only surmise that this has been
catastrophic, a catastrophic event here in New York, both
Trade Center towers hit. One of them appears to have
collapsed. How much of it collapsed? These are very large --
in any case, we cannot tell you how many injuries, how many
fatalities there have been. This is one of those situations
that is extraordinary chaotic. Even in the best of planning, I
think it's fair to say that it is chaotic. And officials are
trying to do many things at one time.
We have on the
phone a pilot who witnessed these planes crashing into the
World Trade Center.
Sir, can you tell me your name?
John, can you hear me?
PILOT: Yes, I can.
AARON: John, tell me what you saw.
PILOT: This
morning, we were at midtown Manhattan in a 31st floor of a
building facing south. We saw a 767 flying low down the center
of Manhattan Island, heading towards downtown Manhattan. At
about maybe 20 blocks north of the World Trade Center, we saw
the plane veer to the left and fly directly into the north
side of the south tower.
AARON: So, this was the
second plane that hit the tower, correct?
PILOT: No,
this was the first plane.
AARON: Got it.
PILOT: This was the 767. AARON: John -- got it -- hang
on.
Kate Snow's on Capitol Hill.
Kate, what
can you tell us about the events there.
KATE SNOW, CNN
CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I am a couple blocks away from
the Capitol right now. I can tell you about a half hour ago,
the Capitol building itself was evacuated. It was a little bit
chaotic. Everyone was running out of the building. People ran
a couple of blocks away. Now have now been pushed back by
security. We're within two blocks of the Capitol.
I
did see a plane, about a half hour ago, circling over the
Capitol. Now whether that may have been a Air Force plane,
it's unclear. But that seemed to be the reason, according to
security guards that I talked with, towards the evacuation of
the Capitol. They had seen something or heard something
suspicious. They evacuated the Capitol and the surrounding
buildings, the office buildings -- at least on the House side,
where I am standing. There are three office buildings. Those
have also been evacuated. We're seeing members of Congress who
are walking by us here on the sidewalk.
AARON: Kate.
SNOW: Go ahead.
AARON: Kate, I am sorry, and
if you said this, I apologize, and I apologize to viewers too
-- was there, to your knowledge, an explosion at the Capitol?
SNOW: No, sir, there was not. I can see the Capitol
from here, and everything looks to be fine. There was,
however, Aaron, a sound about five minutes ago that sounded
like some sort of explosion, and everything is in close
proximity here in Washington. It could be that that may have
been something that happened at the Pentagon. We're not very
clear on that. But we did hear a sound. We heard something
that sounded like a loud boom about five minutes ago.
AARON: And Kate, you are, again, about how far away
from the Capitol building itself?
SNOW: I am standing
on Pennsylvania Avenue, which is the main artery in
Washington, D.C., and I'm about two blocks away from the
Capitol. I did just see a spokesperson, by the way, for the
speaker of the House, Mr. Dennis Hastert, who tells me that
Mr. Hastert and others leaders have been evacuated into what
he called the secure location. It's not clear where exactly
they are, but they have been put somewhere secure.
AARON: Because we can't see it at this point, give me
a sense of what is looks like there? Are there many, many
people on the street?
SNOW: Yes, the sidewalks --
people are calm. I think most people really don't really know
what is going on. Most people haven't been watching the news.
But the sidewalks are definitely full of people, where,
normally, at this time of the morning, there wouldn't be that
many people out here. And as I say, I have been passed by
numerous members of Congress and staff who I know well have
been coming past me, asking me what has been going to.
AARON: Kate, why don't you hang around here and
continue to report on that.
For those viewers who are
joining us, at about 10:20 Eastern Daylight Time -- let me
just briefly recap -- attacks on two American cities: New York
and the capitol, in Washington. It began at about 8:45 Eastern
time, when a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. That
building -- that was the building hit first -- and then about
a half an hour later, a second plane -- and I a not sure if we
have the tape available -- if we do, we will show it to you --
you can see the second plane coming in from the right side of
your screen going into the tower itself. This is an
extraordinary and troubling piece of tape.
The Justice
Department is now being evacuated. The second attack on the
Trade Center occurred about a half an hour or so after the
first one. We have a report, CNN has been told, that an
American Airlines 767 jet was hijacked out of Boston today. We
don't know which of those two planes hit the tower the second
time. Within the last 10 minutes or so, the south tower, or at
least a portion of the south tower, has collapsed.
CNN's David Ensor joins us from Washington.
David, where in the Capitol are you now?
DAVID
ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Aaron, I'm in our bureau, but
I have on the telephone with me Barbara, who is the wife a
friend of mine and who is an eyewitness to exactly what
happened at the Pentagon.
Barbara, can you hear me all
right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I can hear you.
ENSOR: Well, what exactly did you see? Let's look at
the Pentagon now, as you describe what exactly happened at the
Pentagon this morning?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As we were
driving into town on 395, there was an exit. We were trying to
get off of the exit for the Memorial Bridge. On the left-hand
side, there was a commercial plane coming in, and was coming
in too fast and the too low, and the next thing we saw was a
go-down below the side of the road, and we just saw the fire
that came up after that.
ENSOR: How large was the
explosion.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was large.
ENSOR: Was there a sound as well.
UNIDENTIFIED
FEMALE: We -- that I can't verify, because the windows were up
in the vehicle.
ENSOR: Was it clear to you what had
happened?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, definitely.
ENSOR: So you believe it was a commercial airliner
that was hitting the Pentagon?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:
Yes, and I'm not sure exactly where the Pentagon, where it was
in relationship top where the plane went down. You know, but
it was relatively close to one another. Whether it hit any of
the Pentagon, I am not sure.
ENSOR: How low was the
plane?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When it was coming down?
ENSOR: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was coming
on less than a 45 degree angle, and coming down towards the
side of the -- of 395. And when it came down, it just missed
395 and went down below us, and then you saw the boom -- the
fire come up from it.
ENSOR: Were you able to see what
kind of plane, or what airline it belonged to?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I did not see what kind of an
airline. I just assumed because we were so close to the
airport, that it was coming in to land.
ENSOR: But it
seemed awfully low to you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes,
and fast.
ENSOR: How big was the
fireball?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm spatially challenged
at times, and it was pretty big.
ENSOR: What did you
think was happening?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know that
that hit the ground and exploded.
ENSOR: Were you
frightened yourself?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes,
everybody stopped the cars, and we all got (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
and so forth.
ENSOR: All right, well, thank you very
much. I appreciate you talking to us.
Aaron, back to
you.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: David, thank you.
CNN's David Ensor in Washington.
CNN's Brian Palmer
joins us on the phone from here in Manhattan.
Brian,
why don't you begin by telling me where you are.
BRIAN
PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are in front of the criminal
courthouse after being pushed north slightly. We watched one
of the towers of the World Trade Center disappear from the
skyline. It basically folded into itself into a plume of gray
smoke. A crowd of thousands of people dashed up Broadway,
followed by emergency services personnel. That's what we know.
We are watching the plume of smoke and debris just sort of
lost across lower Manhattan, and people are lining up at this
pay phone behind me, trying to find out whether their
relatives are safe.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT:
Let me just briefly go to Randy. Randy, just look out there
and tell me what you are thinking, when you see what now
appears that at least part of one of the landmark buildings in
this city, one of the most recognizable buildings in the
country is gone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the kind of
moment you hope will never come. When you have been in
government, when you care as much about this city and this
country, as a mayor like Rudy Giuliani does, it's a moment you
pray will never come, and you pray for the families of anyone
affected by this tragedy. But as a city, you know, we come
together, and our emergency services provide every support
they can in the face of such a senseless tragedy.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's -- it is an
unbelievable scene as you...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE:
Incredible.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: ... look
down. I mean, we stand here at some point every day looking
out at this city this time of year. It's extraordinarily
pretty, and we see those two buildings high above lower
Manhattan, and you look out there today, and you see this
gaping hole in one of them. This plumes of smoke that continue
to pore from the scene, and you know, that there is nothing
behind, that second tower, or at least parts of it gone. We
are joined now, one of our affiliates, WYNW, in their coverage
here in New York.
Well, we will -- we'll try and make
that connection again. In two cities now, and there are a lot
of pieces of information floating around. We need to try to
button up some of this. We had a report earlier that we now --
we believe that we can tell you it was not correct, that there
was an explosion at capitol. There was none as we now believe.
There was no explosion at the Capitol. There -- air travel
routed to Canada has been -- international flights going into
the United States or into Canada, guys, into the United
States, international flights headed for the United States are
being sent to Canada now to airports there, as all air traffic
in the United States has come to a halt. The FAA has shut down
every airport in the country. And to our knowledge, and we're
-- this is to the best of our memory, that has never happened
before. We're starting to get some pictures of the scene from
the ground here in Manhattan.
Again, this all started
almost about an hour and a half ago, I guess, a little more
than that. This is a live picture of the scene now. We have
crews on the ground, and they've been trying to get tape back,
so we can show you the situation on the ground. As you can
imagine, literally, thousands of police, fire, rescue
officials have converged on the scene. There are, and we don't
know how many injured to be tended to, to be taken to
hospitals, and we continue to check hospitals to find out how
many, the extend of injuries. We do not yet know how many
fatalities.
There is the scene. This is taped now from
WABC here in New York. Their crews shot this picture, as you
see, fire trucks, and firefighters, rescue personnel at the
Trade Center about 30 blocks from where we are right now. And
you can see these huge columns of smoke coming off of the
front tower, and then a bit from the back. As you see, again,
the crews working their way towards the tower themselves.
It was 1993 that I suspect many of these same
firefighters converged on these very same towers after the
bombing in the garage level. Help me with this. But I am
pretty sure it was in the garage, right, when a Ryder truck
came in and blew up in the garage. I am not sure if it was A
Ryder truck, but a truck came in and blew up in the garage and
that was in 1993.
(BEGIN VIDEO
CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We heard a big bang, and
then we saw smoke coming out, everybody started running out,
and we saw the plane on the other side of the building, and
there was smoke everywhere, and people are jumping out of the
windows over there. They're jumping out of the windows, I
guess, because they are trying to save themselves. I don't
know. And -- I don't know. Everybody just doesn't know where
to go. They won't let -- everything is blocked out. They are
telling us to get out, but there is nowhere to go, and then I
heard another plane was hit. And if you go by there, you can
see the people jumping out of the window. They are jumping out
of the window right now. Oh, my God.
UNIDENTIFIED
REPORTER: All right. Ma'am, thank you.
(END VIDEO
CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED CNN ANCHOR: That is one of the
witnesses to this extraordinary. These extraordinary events
this morning here in New York. Again, and I know that for many
of you, you have heard this a lot. But I think it's important,
as people join us, as they do, in moments like this. They are
coming in all of the time, that there had been attacks in two
American cities, New York and in Washington. The trade centers
here in New York have been hit by airplanes. In Washington,
there is a large fire at the Pentagon. The Pentagon has been
evacuated. And there as you can see, perhaps the second tower,
the front tower, the top portion of which is collapsing.
Good Lord. There are no words. You can see large
pieces of the building falling. You can see the smoke rising.
You can see a portion of this -- the side of the building now
just being covered on the right side as I look at it, covered
in smoke. This is just a horrific scene and a horrific moment.
The president, who is in Florida today, is en route
back to the White House. He took off a short time ago. The
White house itself has been evacuated on the basis of what the
Secret Service says was a credible threat on the mansion
itself. We believe now that we can say that both -- that
portions of both towers of the World Trade Center have
collapsed.
Whether there were second explosions, that
is to say, explosions other than the planes hitting them that
caused this to happen, we cannot tell you.
Rose Arce,
one of our CNN producers, is on the phone with us.
Rose, what do you got.
ROSE ARCE, CNN
PRODUCER: I'm about a block away, and there were several
people that were hanging out of the windows right below where
the plane crashed, when suddenly you saw the top of the
building start to shake, and people began leaping from the
windows in the north side of the window. You saw two people at
first plummet, and then a third one, and then the entire top
of the building just blew up, and splinters of debris are
falling on the street.
Where I am right now there's a
thick plume of smoke and you can see crowds of people,
including emergency workers and police officers. running from
the scene screaming. And there's a school nearby, where there
were kids in the school yard. That has been emptied out and
they're running up the street now too.
The whole sort
of the neighborhood, I would say, several blocks up, is
covered by this almost powdery smoke, little tiny pieces of
building you can see just floating in the wind around it. It's
almost like a huge cloud had kind of enveloped that part of
lower Manhattan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. It is
just one of those awful moments that you need to look at for a
minute or two to absorb exactly what has happened.
Two
of the most recognizable buildings in the city of New York
have been attacked and both of them appear to have collapsed,
at least in part. The second of the two collapses taking place
just a moment or so ago, perhaps two or three minutes ago.
There are also, apparently, coordinated attacks that
have taken place in Washington on the Pentagon, the State
Department has been evacuateed.
Just a few moments
ago, as we said, and perhaps 20 minutes after the first tower
collapsed, we turned around and saw what looked like sparks
falling, and then the top part of tower number one collapsing.
These are shots from the ground of that scene.
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