NBC News Transcripts
September 11, 2001 Tuesday
SHOW: NBC News Special Report: Attack on America (9:00 PM ET) - NBC
Attack on America, 9:00 PM
ANCHORS: TOM BROKAW
BYLINE: ROBERT HAGER; PAT DAWSON; JANE PAULEY; EDIE MAGNUS; RON INSANA; DAVID FABER; DAWNA FRIESEN; LEA THOMPSON
LENGTH: 10973 words
TOM BROKAW, anchor:
Let's go to NBC's Robert Hager now who covers the aviation beat for us. And, of course, today we did have a fully unexpected and shocking development of these terrorists hijacking four airliners simultaneously, two American airlines, two United Airlines' jetliners bound for California from Boston, New--Newark and Washington-Dulles, two of them going into the World Trade Center, one going into the Pentagon, and another crash landing and killing everyone on board outside of Pittsburgh.
This was a well-planned, very cold-blooded, extremely well-executed terrorist attack, Robert. And we have been talking tonight about whether we'll have a resumption of air flight in this country anytime tomorrow. This is one more of the exceptional developments, no airplanes were flying after about noon today.
ROBERT HAGER reporting:
They were talking about resuming flights at noon tomorrow. They say at least that they'll reassess it at that point. And meantime, there's also some new information now that--that maybe the weapon of choice here seems to have been knives. We know now that there were knives involved on at least three of the four aircraft that were hijacked and brought down. And there's been no mention yet of anything about guns being used. But first, let's look at the facts of these crashes today.
The string of events that results in these four horrific crashes begins at Boston's Logan Airport, 7:45 AM. American Flight 11, 767, with 92 on board, supposed to fly Boston to Los Angeles, but over New York state it's diverted, forced to fly south, directly into the north tower of the World Trade Center. A long day of carnage is under way. Back in Boston, United Flight 175, another 767, with 65 aboard, is already in the air, also bound for Los Angeles, 15 minutes behind the first flight, when it, too, is hijacked. This, the actual plane as it hits the south tower of the World Trade Center.
Eight-ten AM, American Flight 77, a 757 with 64 aboard, has taken off from Washington's Dulles airport, also bound for Los Angeles. It, too, taken over and loops back into the Pentagon. It slices in at an angle leading a deadly and ugly gash in the nation's military nerve center. And finally, 8 AM out of Newark airport, United's Flight 93, a 757 with 45 aboard, bound Newark to San Francisco, hijacked, as well, but crashes short of whatever its intended target is, comes down in rural western Pennsylvania. Eyewitnesses there:
Unidentified Man #1: And I heard a loud noise, and I happened to look up, and it was a plane. It was real low to me. It sounded like it was running fine to me. And I just kept watching it and I watched it nose dive straight into the ground.
Unidentified Man #2: You could see where the plane made initial impact in the ground, and it was still on fire. It made a crater probably 30 feet by 30 feet. And it's probably 15 or 20 feet deep. And there's just debris scattered within probably a half a mile radius.
HAGER: There are only two ways terrorists can sneak themselves or their weapons aboard planes: Either through passenger screening or by going unscreened through locked doors into off-limits areas or onto the tarmac. Periodic FAA tests have found plenty of flaws, found when government agents tried to sneak into secure areas, they were successful more than two-thirds of the time. Found testers also often able to sneak fake guns and explosives by X-ray screening. Once aboard, many speculate the hijackers must have disabled crews and taken over the plane's controls. More likely that than forcing a pilot with a gun at his head to fly right into the World Trade Center, for instance. Former American Airlines pilot Jim Tillman:
Mr. JIM TILLMAN: It is inconceivable to me that any airline pilot would allow anyone to force him to fly into an inhabited building. I cannot imagine how any pilot could be conscious or capable of doing anything to control that airplane at the time that it was directed at one of these buildings.
HAGER: Terrorism specialist Neil Livingstone:
Mr. NEIL LIVINGSTONE (Aviation/Terrorism Expert): I suspect that what we are going to find is that the pilots were overwhelmed, perhaps dead already, and that trained pilots from the hijacker camp were in charge of those aircraft and were willing to die for their beliefs.
HAGER: If there was time, if there was, the crews may have been able to press a button in the cockpit and send out a coded warning to controllers that there was a hijack in progress. Controllers may then have radioed back inquiries. But if the crews were disabled, the controllers would have been left in the dark for real information. Whatever else, controllers must have been surprised, in disbelief. There hadn't been a commercial plane hijacked in the US for 10 years, since 1991, and now this.
And tonight we're getting reports of cell phone calls from at least three of those four flights. One from a flight attendant and two from passengers that were on board the flights. And they all talk about knives, as again, no mention of guns. In the first case, it was that flight that came out of Boston. And that was an American Airlines flight and it was a flight attendant who apparently got a cell phone call off. I've heard, variously, it was to American Airlines operations, or maybe somewhere else. But she reported that her fellow attendants had been stabbed in the back of the plane and that the cabin had been taken over and the--up front, the crew of the plane had been taken over and that the plane was going down in New York, was the quote that we heard. Then, on the second flight that came out of Boston, that was the second flight of the day, there was 17 minutes behind that first flight, and also went into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
There was a businessman who got off two cell phone calls to his father. In the first call he told his father that a flight attendant had been stabbed and the plane had been hijacked. Then the phone went dead. Then he got another call off to his father and said the plane was going down. So that, again, is the plane that went into the second twin tower of the World Trade Center. On the third flight of the day to be hijacked, the one that left from Dulles airport was supposed to go to San Francisco, instead was taken over, looped around, brought back to the Pentagon. It was Barbara Olson, the CNN commentator and Washington lawyer and the wife of Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who called her husband Theodore twice from the plane before it went down. I'm sorry, I think she called once. But she talked about a knife-like instruments being used by the hijackers in the back of the plane and said that passengers had been forced to the back of the plane.
Anyhow, all this talk about knives might suggest that something managed to get through X-rays since maybe it was thought by the terrorists that it would be easier to get knives through the X-ray machines and not be caught at it than to get guns through it. At any rate we may hear differently later, but so far there has been no mention of guns. Tom:
BROKAW: All right, thank you very much. NBC's Robert Hager tonight with that complete wrap-up of the aviation component of all of this. No one could have anticipated that the hijacked planes would be used, in effect, as guided missiles, although Tom Clancey in one of his very popular books did have a hijacked plane crashed into the US Capitol. There have been other attempts in the past by other terrorists. You'll remember that there was an attempt to take some planes out of the Philippines and blow them up over the Pacific after the capture of the terrorists who were responsible for the original bombing of the World Trade Center. And there have been other planes as well. An Air India flight was blown-up in mid-air, to say nothing of Pan Am 103 which was blown-up over Lockerby Scotland by terrorists. Why do they believe that they were from Libya and they have gone on trial, obviously, and that killed a great many Americans on that flight as well. So, it's not the first time that this has happened, but it's never been used in quite this fashion before.
And if you have been impatient with airlines and airplane security in the past, wait until there is a resumption of flight. There is going to be a great change in this country. If you fly in the Middle East or through many parts of Europe, you're often several times questioned before you can get on the flight as well as all of the electronic security that you have to go through. You have to get to the airflight--airport well in advance of the scheduled departure time of the plane. And those will be some of the new procedures that are bound to be put into effect in this country. El Al, in fact, has undercover people on board, armed, trained sharp-shooters who fly on all of their international flights. It could come to that in America. One former state department official was saying today, we may even have to have some form of air cover in America, hard as that is to believe. But as you look at these scenes, you know the consequences of not having very tight security at our airports.
Let's go to Pat Dawson now who has been keeping track for us of the rescue efforts downtown and of the fires that continue to burn in lower Manhattan. Pat:
PAT DAWSON reporting:
Tom, we are getting to the point of, I guess, what is described as an unofficial shift change. We have seen for about the past half-hour a number of New York City firefighters, principally, leaving here, leaving the scene, moving out along with their vehicles. In many cases those vehicles in total disarray, seriously damaged. We were able to grab one of them to speak to us. This is firefighter Anthony Pascorelli--Am I getting that right?--from engine 204?
Mr. ANTHONY PASCORELLI (Firefighter): Yes.
DAWSON: Can you tell us, first of all, when you got here.
Mr. PASCORELLI: Approximately 12:00. And, like I said, there's no words to describe what happened. There's numerous companies that are still in there and, you know.
DAWSON: Now, have you heard the reports--we have heard a report from the New York City firefighters union that perhaps as many as half of the original firefighters who responded, perhaps as many as 10 or 11 companies, perhaps 200 men have been lost.
Mr. PASCORELLI: That's--I mean, we operate inside the building, you know. So it's a possibility. Nobody--nobody wants to hope--I'm hoping everybody pulls through, you know. That, hopefully, God's with us, so.
DAWSON: Is that--is that word making its way through amongst the rescue workers through the afternoon?
Mr. PASCORELLI: No. Nobody--nobody's going to say anything until they have a definite answer. Like I said, everybody--everybody hopes that everyone pulls through. Nobody wants to come up with a number yet. We're still hopeful.
DAWSON: Tell me what--tell me what is going on in there over the last two or three hours. Are you still fighting fires in there?
Mr. PASCORELLI: Yeah. There's numerous high rises that are still on fire that we're trying to battle. And we can't get close to it because of rubble piled up to as much as 100 feet. So, it's just a tremendous effort with all the agencies in the city.
DAWSON: How many firefighters would you say, and other rescue workers, are in there working on these fires?
Mr. PASCORELLI: Like I said, it's hard to say. There's probably three quarters of the city here, you know. They were pulling people off vacation, who ever wasn't working, so.
DAWSON: The fires still burning in there. Have you heard of any buildings that may still be in danger.
Mr. PASCORELLI: No, none at this time. The last one, I believe, was 7 World Trade, over here. And nothing at this time, no.
DAWSON: Any--you said the rubble. If you'd give me some idea of the rubble, how big it is, how much there is. I mean, the thought of the 100 and...
Mr. PASCORELLI: Blocks. Blocks. There's three--a 40-story building and both World Trade Centers and all the little buildings that were surrounding, it's just blocks of rubble. There's not--there's no way to describe it unless you're actually up there looking at it. They're sending everybody back to get rest because, like I said, there's--the city's hurting for members and they're going to need everyone fresh, you know, for the rest of the city. God forbid, something happens anywhere else, so, they're returning companies to get rested, wash up at the firehouse. But we have to stay at the firehouse, you know, in case anything happens.
DAWSON: Firefighter Anthony Pascorelli, thank you so much. We know it's been a very difficult day for you. Thank you.
Firefighter Anthony Pascorelli of the New York Fire Department, Engine 204, who, as he said, has been here, Tom, since about noon this afternoon. He relays the information that is not terribly optimistic in the fact that they are still fighting fires in there and they are having a very, very difficult time getting to them because of the enormous amount of debris. As he described, a 40-story skyscraper and two 110 story towers coming down. The debris, obviously, extraordinarily difficult to work your way through. Tom:
BROKAW: All right, thank you very much. Pat Dawson still on the scene in midtown Manhattan. We want to share with you just some of the president's speech that he made to the nation tonight at 8:31 from the Oval Office after a day in which he flew from Florida to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, and then on to the Strategic Air Command Headquarters in Omaha, where in a secure bunker he conducted a national security meeting and then flew back to Washington because he felt that it was important to address this nation, on this night, from the Oval Office, the symbol of power and presidential authority. Here is some of what the president had to say tonight.
President GEORGE W. BUSH: This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down any--enemies before and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world.
BROKAW: And the president also said that we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. I've asked former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to join us once again. He was the principle architect, of course, of the Dayton Peace Accords. And I think, Richard, for a lot of Americans, there must be a great deal of confusion tonight about the Islamic radicals around the world and then Islamic fundamentalists and other people who have this--the fastest growing faith in the world after all, and who do feel, if not strongly allied with America, they feel strongly that this act of terrorism that has been visited upon this country today is intolerable and unacceptable.
Mr. RICHARD HOLBROOKE (Former UN Ambassador): Well, that's right, Tom. And as you said earlier in the--this program, is--most of the overwhelming majority of people of Islamic faith, including the seven million Islamic-Americans, do not share this philosophy or advocate these acts. And it is vitally important to recognize that to be a member of that faith is not to be associated with this horrible deed.
To your point, there has been a growing fundamentalism in the world for many years, which you have covered in many areas of the world. Now we face its consequences at home at a level that is without precedented American history. I have no doubt that the United States government will, when it decides how to respond, respond. But--and I think it's very important, as you just pointed out, that President Bush, tonight said that they would make no distinction between the people who committed the act and those who harbor it. And I think for your viewers it's important to underscore, that if, in fact, it's Osama bin Laden, as you have reported, seems likely, then the Taliban and other governments in Afghanistan and the region who have harbored these people are going to face the same consequences. I think the rules of the game are going to shift because of this.
One last point on this, Tom, and that is the international side of it. We cannot do this alone. We need the support of our allies. We need the support of Russia, which has often played both sides; of China, which has stayed much to much to the sidelines; and finally, we need to work with the moderate Arab states, who must be as upset as we are in some ways at what happened, but don't like to show any break in the solidarity at times with the fundamentalists. And this is going to be very tricky, particularly for countries like Jordan and Egypt.
BROKAW: And, Richard, the president has a fairly full agenda this fall. He is, after all, scheduled to go to China. Would you expect that they'll keep that agenda in place?
Mr. HOLBROOKE: I have no doubt he'll continue his trip to China. That is a summit of all Pacific nations. Presidential leadership requires his rallying other countries. He's got a very important first appearance at the United Nations coming up in 15 days. I assume he will go ahead with that, although having spoken to un--to Secretary General Kofi Annan a few hours ago, I can tell you that he is already concerned about both the security and political aspects of the big meetings coming up in New York. But I assume he'll go ahead to China, and it's a good place to continue to rally international opinion in order to take concerted action so that this kind of thing is not permitted to succeed.
BROKAW: All right. Richard Holbrooke, our former ambassador to the United Nations, former Ambassador to Germany, high-ranking official in the state department in the Jimmy Carter administration as well, and as I said earlier, the principle architect of the Dayton Peace Accords in which the United States took, in that case, the side of Muslims who were under assault in Bosnia.
Now let's go to, now, to General Norman Schwarzkoff, who is going to join me now in a kind of video tour that is going to be painful for him and for all Americans. We're going to look at the military headquarters of the United States that was attacked today. General, we're going to take you inside, via video camera, to show you the extent of the damage that was done there as fires continue to burn in the Pentagon tonight.
These are the outer rings of the Pentagon on the heliport side. Across that very large and substantial building where Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has his office and the Joint Chiefs, Hugh Shelton and others, have their offices. When you look at that, General Schwarzkoff, as a career military man, what goes through your mind?
General NORMAN SCHWARZKOFF (Retired, US Army): Well, you know, Tom, I spent three tours in the Pentagon and I know exactly where that spot is. The interesting part about that is, right across the highway, on the other side, is Arlington National Cemetery where an awful lot of great Americans who have served their country are laid to rest. I--hearing about the rings, the fact that it went in--you know there are five rings there, and the fact that it hit on the outside. First of all, it's amazing that the pilot could have come in to the level that he did and hit it without hitting something ahead of time. It was obviously a very experienced pilot. But then the fact that the fire has continued to go in through five different layers. You have five layers of offices that have just been taken out on all four sides and down the middle. Just blows your mind.
BROKAW: General, the military around the world is in highest possible alert. How long can we sustain that kind of an alert?
Gen. SCHWARZKOFF: Oh we can sustain it for a good deal of time. They're used to being in a high state of alert. I--it just means that they take a lot more security precautions, a lot of the aircraft, for instance, are loaded up with weapons so that they can respond immediately. But--but it's not--it's not something that wears you out right away. I mean, you can stay at that state of alert for quite sometime.
BROKAW: You know, the president, tonight, promised that we would seek out and attack, not just the terrorists, but any nation that harbored them as well. That is--and I'm not belittling what he had to say here--but that is easier said than done. There has still been not brought to justice the terrorists who were responsible for the attack on the USS Cole, and there was a pretty big fingerprint on that one.
Gen. SCHWARZKOFF: Yeah. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. It--as I said earlier, finding them is part of the problem. You can identify the organization clearly, but it's an awful big world out there and an awful lot of places to hide. And you've got to know exactly where they are before you're going to be able to hit them. So that's a really, really tough intelligence problem.
You know, no terrorist operation can survive without a support base. There's no doubt in my mind that there's some place within our country right now where some people who supported those peo--terrorists part of the time they went and got in those airplanes. And those are the people, too, that you have to find.
BROKAW: Was there anything, when you were commander of southern command and based in Florida that made you more anxious than the possibility of a terrorist attack on this country, even though you were responsible for American military forces in another part of the world?
Gen. SCHWARZKOFF: Well, I--I think I was more concerned for the military forces in the other parts of the world. At that time, you know, again, we all had the mentality that nobody was going to come over here and hit one of our major headquarters in this country. There were a lot of targets, Khobar--Khobar towers is a typical example of a type of target that was over there that could have been hit by terrorists--was hit by terrorists. And--and you really concerned yourself more with those forces over there than you--I never worried about my own headquarters, you know, it wasn't--it was just something that wasn't going to happen.
BROKAW: All right. General, we have trained generations of military leaders to adapt to the changing times. We now have the military leaders who are coming out of our service academies who are so familiar with modern warfare that is conducted by computer and technology and laser-guided missiles and that kind of thing. Are we going to have to develop new courses and new disciplines at the service academy for fighting terrorism?
Gen. SCHWARZKOFF: Tom, we've got some outstanding military units out there that are fully prepared to take on the terrorists on the ground in--in any kind of fighting they want to fight the battle. Yeah, there's an awful lot of technology involved in the business of war fighting, but there's an awful lot of the warrior spirit that is involved too. And we--we've got special operations forces, we've got ranger forces. We've got special operations forces in all of our services that are very, very capable of taking on the terrorists that will--by their rules or ours. So--so, once we find them, and I--you know, we'll be ready to deal with them. There's absolutely no question in my mind about that.
BROKAW: If you were back in the Pentagon and someone said, 'We're going to have to put a military component into a--a commercial airline's security in this country, either in the skies or on the ground,' would you be for or against that?
Gen. SCHWARZKOFF: Well, you know, it's sort of a pre--it's sort of a--it--it--it rubs me the wrong way. A lot of people said that about the drug war, you know, we ought to have a soldier with a bayonet standing on every street corner of the United States of America. And I'm very uncomfortable with that from a constitutional standpoint. On the other hand, we do have some people--some very, very highly trained people who could perform that role very, very well, if indeed we decided to put somebody like that in each of our aircraft.
BROKAW: All right, thank you very much. General Norman Schwarzkoff.
Gen. SCHWARZKOFF: Tom?
BROKAW: Yes.
Gen. SCHWARZKOFF: Can I give you one more observation which I think is very pertinent?
BROKAW: Absolutely, General.
Gen. SCHWARZKOFF: You know, in the Gulf War--in the Gulf War we--some of the people today criticized what we did in Iraq. We went to extraordinary, extraordinary ends in the Gulf War, even endangering our own forces more so to avoid attacking innocent civilians. And yet, what these bastards have done is deliberately attacked innocent civilians. And that's the difference between them and us.
BROKAW: Well put, General Schwarzkoff, as usual. And of course, a lot of people have been talking today about the comparison between Pearl Harbor and this attack. It is the most serious attack since Pearl Harbor. But that was a military attack on a military installation and we knew exactly who was responsible for it at that time. So this is a whole different order of magnitude, and I'm afraid that this is going to be a very dark day in America for a long, long time. And the consequences are yet to be resolved for all of us.
We want to share with you now just what kind of a surrealistic day this was over lower Manhattan. After the--there is the plane that comes in for the second attack on the south tower. It appears to have gone all the way through, we don't know whether it was just the fireball that did that. It was fully loaded with fuel for a transcontinental flight. And that plane, which also had it's origin, as I remember now, in Boston, flew right into the south tower of the World Trade Center about 20 minutes after the first plane flew into the tower that you see just before you. And then, of course, what was unexpected to many of us in terms of how swiftly it happened, they came down.
(Film footage of the collapse of the towers)
BROKAW: There are some haunting and poignant stories of people on cell phones calling to friends of loved ones in the World Trade Center when all that was going on. One woman, a nurse at Robert Bazell, I talked to at St. Vincents Hospital, was online with her husband who was in the first building on the top floor when it was hit, and they had an exchange and then the line went dead. There were other indications of people saying, 'I love you,' and the line going dead. And perhaps, for me at least, the most unsettling thought of the day of all, was one man who described going down to the darkened and very wet stairwell because of the sprinklers that had gone off and seeing people who were trapped in their wheelchairs. The large, mobilized wheelchairs that couldn't fit into the stairwell, and certainly the elevators were not working. He got out and shortly after that, that building came down. It was that kind of a day and there are going to be so many more of those stories in untold number at this hour, hundreds, perhaps thousands.
"Dateline"'s Jane Pauley takes it through some of the horror of this day and what happened at the World Trade Center.
JANE PAULEY reporting:
The mighty World Trade Center tumbling down. Everyday, New Yorkers had to run for their lives. How fragile the city seemed today. We deployed a team of "Dateline" staffers to bring us images of a city under siege on hand-held digital cameras.
Unidentified Woman #1: What I saw today on the streets of Manhattan really were--were the extremes of New York. It's the best and the worst of people.
Unidentified Man #3: I got 20 blocks away when the smell and the taste really hit me, way in the distance the huge clouds on the horizon. But I could taste and smell something that was like the worst electrical fire ever imaginable.
PAULEY: They brought us a startling glimpse of what it was like to be at ground zero of a major terrorist attack.
Unidentified Reporter #1: What's it like down there?
Unidentified Man #4: It's people. I tried to keep track--I tried my best to try to save everybody, but I couldn't.
PAULEY: First, get away, then get home. Businesses were closed and buildings evacuated. Thousands upon thousands were left to negotiate a maze of closed streets and suspended services.
Unidentified Woman #2: Little kids and parents and everybody starts running. I didn't get hurt, there was a terrible sound. I don't have my husband anymore.
Man #3: There's a real sense of panic on the streets among the tens of thousands of pedestrians. And it was easy to see why. Look to the horizon on the south and you see an enormous, gray-black cloud from the explosions.
PAULEY: As they moved towards safety uptown, people tried to keep up with the flurry of events anyway they could. Even the wounded walked. This woman was on the 19th floor of the World Trade Center when the first explosion hit. Hurt, but lucky to get out before the building collapsed. We found her 30 blocks north, heading to Bellevue Medical Center.
Unidentified Woman #3: This huge cloud of gray--huge cloud of gray came, and everyone started running and stampeding and everyone was falling on the ground. And, I don't know, like, when I met--I don't know if it was a person or just the force of the wind, but I felt that and I just covered my head. I prayed that nothing would fall on me. And I really thought I was going to die.
PAULEY: Doctors and medical students lined up like extras on the set of a disaster movie.
Almost immediately after the attack, along with all three major airports, the cities subways, bridges, tunnels and major highways were all closed. The FDR Drive, normally a winding snarl of congested traffic, empty. Thousands of commuters from New York's outer boroughs were left stranded in Manhattan. By mid-afternoon, a police officer on the scene estimated that more than 20 thousand people had crossed the 59th Street bridge on foot.
Meanwhile, Grand Central Station was jammed. But the trains were running until noon.
Woman #1: I remember standing in Grand Central and was watching a man and a woman just scream and embrace each other and feel relief. I felt their relief to see each other again. After people had managed to get out for about 15 minutes, all of a sudden they announced that they were evacuating the building and people were ordered to get out immediately and workers in their orange vests were running for the exits. And we didn't know what was going on, we just ran with them.
PAULEY: Confused passengers poured out of the building after a bomb threat.
Woman #1: It hit me that the building could really blow up and I--I was scared. I was afraid that the building could blow up underneath my feet.
PAULEY: All around the city it was a mass migration of hundreds of thousands of people, but uncannily quiet. Perhaps it was the unspeakable horrors many had seen.
Man #3: It was orderly, but it was chaotic. People were shocked, everyone was dazed. People didn't really want to look each other in the eye. I think for fear of breaking down. Fresh on everybody's lips seemed to be what was going on as though more of it was going to come.
PAULEY: This was supposed to be election day in New York, as if anyone took note, it was officially called off. Everything was. What was opened was tightly locked down.
Unidentified Soldier: You can't be filming no pictures.
Unidentified Reporter #2: OK. It's NBC News.
Soldier: What part don't you understand?
Reporter #2: It's NBC News.
Soldier: I don't care who it is.
PAULEY: Security at all buildings that might be targets was extremely tight. Our own building, the famous tourist destination at Rockefeller Plaza was evacuated, but for NBC's News operations to bring you this story.
And all over Manhattan there was this strange sort of gridlock.
Unidentified Man #5: The uptown avenues in Manhattan have been turned into virtual parking lots, as everyone tries to flee northward. Meanwhile, the downtown avenues have all been sealed off but for emergency vehicles.
PAULEY: Cell phone service came and went. Anxious people called their loved ones the old-fashioned way. Sometimes that didn't work either.
Woman #1: We were forced to use pay phones, which is kind of a joke in Manhattan because it's hard to find a pay phone that works.
PAULEY: The only thing that was easy today was getting lost in the scramble.
Mr. DAVID DOUGLAS: She didn't have a cell phone. They don't work anyway. She--she is not mobile, because she's got emphysema and she can't walk very fast.
PAULEY: David Douglas' 64-year-old mother lives in an apartment building just four blocks from the World Trade Center. Soon after the attack she had chest pains. So he flagged a passing car and the driver headed for the nearest hospital.
Mr. DOUGLAS: Could I get some assistance please? My mom can't walk, please--please just take her north as much as you can, because she can't breathe well.
PAULEY: He tried to follow her on his Rollerblades, but lost track of the car and spent the rest of the day searching hospitals.
Mr. DOUGLAS: So I just want to know, is there any system of finding people on a list?
Unidentified Woman #4: Sir, we're doing the best we can, it's pretty chaotic.
PAULEY: He searched family reunion centers.
Mr. DOUGLAS: Lucille Abato.
Woman #4: Can you spell it for me.
Mr. DOUGLAS: A-B-A-T-O.
PAULEY: And even public schools, desperate to find his mother.
Mr. DOUGLAS: Are there any people being kept here?
PAULEY: Finally, after four hours of futile searching, he called home. There was a message on his answering machine.
Mr. DOUGLAS: It's my mom.
PAULEY: She was safe, staying with a friend in his very own apartment building.
Mr. DOUGLAS: She's in my building.
PAULEY: For two New Yorkers, a small moment of comfort in a day when so many others would find none.
BROKAW: We could all use a little good news and that is so typical of New York. It's the tough guy city in terms of reputation, but, of course, it's got a tender heart. Chris Colin, one of my colleagues, told me tonight there are reports as well of very long lines outside all the blood banks in the city because the line has gone out that they do need blood and, in fact, they've turned them away in some instances. And I had here a moment ago, let me find it, there's been a call that has gone out for medical personnel, particularly for physicians. Doctors in and near New York City, contact (518) 431-7600 if you can offer assistance. Medical personnel are needed. The number is, see if we can get this on the screen later, 1 (800) 628-0193. As you might expect with all the medical facilities in New York City, the doctors and the medical personnel are overtaxed, to say the very least. So they're looking for physicians in the city, many of them who are not emergency room physicians, have their own private practices are asked to respond to the hospitals of their choice, as well. MSNBC's Edie Magnus is in Pennsylvania now, about 80 miles from Pittsburgh where one of those planes went into the ground today. It did not hit a target of any kind and she has the latest for us now. Edie:
EDIE MAGNUS reporting:
Tom, I'm on a country road that goes between the towns of Lambertsville and Shanksville in Pennsylvania and beyond all of these lights you see, the glare of the media satellite trucks, it is a very dark night here in the country, but it is very busy. About a half a mile to a mile or so beyond, just over my shoulder, sort of where you see all those trucks headed down in an open field of an old strip mine is where lies the wreckage of United Flight 93, which, of course, as you all have been reporting, took off from Newark, destined for San Francisco, never got there. Thirty-eight passengers, 7 crew, no survivors. The debris here is spread over a three-to-four-mile radius which has now been completely sealed off and is being treated, according to the FBI, as a crime scene. Governor Tom Ridge made some remarks earlier at a press conference. He had flown over this site. He said the emergency response here was immediate. He also said, and I don't know whether or not you all are able to see pictures of this, but this is one of those cases where the pictures really do tell the story, that sort of the most horrifying aspect of this particular crash scene is how little debris is visible. There is a large crater in the ground, and I'm hoping that you all are seeing it, as I'm talking about it. But that's really all you see is a large crater in the ground and just tiny, tiny bits of debris. There's been at least one report that the investigators out there, and there are hundreds of them, as I said tonight, have found nothing larger than a phone book.
You spoke a little bit ago, Tom, about the haunting cell phone conversations, the most tantalizing story to emerge from this particular crash is coming not from here, but from elsewhere, and it is a story of a cell con--phone conversation. A passenger on United Flight 93 apparently locked himself in a bathroom and called 911 and got an emergency dispatch operator and told them the plane had been hijacked. The FBI here is not talking about it at all. They will merely say they were--they are aware of that conversation and they are trying to gather evidence about it, which presumably means that there may well be a tape, and somebody hopefully is listening to it. What else is happening here tonight? Forensic archaeologists, according to the FBI, are gridding out the scene. Their main thrust, of course, is just to protect it, and they're trying to secure buildings in the area here, where tomorrow they can begin to remove evidence and look at it and, of course, remove the bodies. Tom:
BROKAW: All right, thanks very much. "Dateline"'s Edie Magnus, who is in Pennsylvania tonight, outside of the crash of that plane that went into the ground. United had simply lost track of it for a time. It was a flight that left Newark. It was bound for San Francisco. As Edie reported to us, at one point one of the passengers on board, locked in the bathroom said, 'We're being hijacked, we're being hijacked. This is not a joke,' and the plane disappeared shortly after that. Financial markets have opened in Asia and they're taking a hammering, as you might expect. They're--we are already in a very difficult global economy. Japan has not been doing well. Now America's financial markets have been closed and will remain closed tomorrow. And the Nikkei index is getting, as I say, hammered, in the opening hours. CNBC's Ron Insana, who had a perilous day today, just barely escaping from the collapse of that building in lower Manhattan, is with us now, and he's wearing his financial reporter's hat.
Can we expect this around the world for the next several days, Ron?
RON INSANA reporting:
Well, certainly for the next several hours, Tom, after a half-hour delay in Tokyo. The Nikkei there has fallen in excess of 600 points. At one juncture, tonight, Tom, the Nikkei was below the Dow. That is the first time that has happened since 1957, a roughly six percent decline right now. Markets from Australia to Tokyo to Shanghai, all down roughly six percent . Monetary officials and other economic officials throughout the region saying they will do what is necessary to restore stability to the markets. That usually means pumping cash into the economy to make sure this decline doesn't get fully out of control.
BROKAW: And what about tomorrow, the markets will be closed here, as well, but what about other financial institutions like banks and communities across America. Most of them were open today, would we expect they'll be open tomorrow as well?
INSANA: I suspect so, Tom. With--with respect to the financial markets, there is this one-day closure, something we have not seen, actually, since the end of World War II. But it would appear that federal reserve officials would like to see the banks fully functioning. It is not the type of event where you would want necessarily to take a bank holiday and create a sense of panic among consumers who are already clearly uncertain about the economic outlook in the wake of today's tragedy. So the banks as we understand will likely be open, but the financial markets, as you say, will be closed. Now, how the financial markets do in Europe will also be a key test for what happens here when they do reopen on Wall Street one, two, or three days from now.
BROKAW: One of your colleagues at the other end of the day is David Faber of CNBC. He's on "Squawk Box," of course, which plays before the markets open most mornings. Big problem in this county, as you know better than I do, with consumer confidence. A lot of CEOs tonight and their principal officers and a lot of boards of directors, I would think, are having emergency meetings about how they're going to deal with this dislocation in the American economy, David.
DAVID FABER reporting:
There's no doubt about that, Tom. In fact, there is a lot of concern overall about corporate confidence and consumer confidence, something we've all been focused on in terms of where this economy stands right now. As we pointed out many times, the consumer has sort of kept us out of recession potentially. But the question is what will be the reaction to this tragedy today on the consumer front. And, of course, the confidence of CEOs and corporations is also going to be sorely tested. I've spoken to a number of the senior executives at a few of the big investment banks, the big commercial banks, and they're certainly worried. They aren't concerned about the financial system suffering over the long term, but they do admit that there are going to be some fairly significant short-term disruptions in the financial systems from things such as just check processing and the fact that a lot of that went on down in lower Manhattan. People who want their money in other parts of the country may have to wait. Securities processing and things of that nature, the settlement of trades, all of these things, the guts of our financial system in a way were involved in this area. Many of them, unfortunately, in the very buildings that collapsed and others around them, as well.
BROKAW: And we don't know yet, do we, for sure, how much damage may have been done to some of the circuitry of the market?
FABER: We don't, Tom. And--and that's a good point. We simply won't know as we've heard from so many of the reports from people on site. They can't get that close to many of the structures that are still burning. There is a concern about the telecommunications network in the area and whether that, in fact, could be impacted to a large extent. Many institutions, both foreign and domestic, rely on the ability to transfer funds in and out of that area, as well. Hard to say at this point where that stands. And--and, as well, the back office, the keeping track of all of the processing that goes on that a lot of firms had in the World Trade Center, other firms that were even headquartered there, also. Questions about all of those kinds of things, certainly they pale in comparison to the human tragedy here, but they will be things that have to be dealt with in the days and weeks ahead.
BROKAW: Thank you, David Faber of CNBC and Ron Insana, our colleague, as well, and that was very well put at the end. The economy at some point will come back. Money can be replaced. The human loss today, however, and we still do not know the full proportions of that human loss, that's a tragedy that will be with us for some time. The New York City Firefighters Union still saying that at least 200 members of that union, 200 of New York's finest, who were down there on emergency and rescue details right after the initial planes went into the World Trade Center, they are missing and presumed to be dead tonight. We do not know how many people are still trapped in the rubble of those two 110-story buildings that came down, nor do we know the exact death toll, for that matter, in the Pentagon, where the fires continue to burn.
I just want to repeat, in New York City, for those of you who are listening to us here or in New Jersey, please contact (518) 431-7600 if you can offer assistance. This is the Health Care Association of New York State, a trade group which has volunteered to forward this information to emergency officials. The number rings and rings, but it will go through. The information that they collect is given to the city's Department of Health. That's 1 (800) number is 628-0193. You'll probably get a busy signal, so the number to call is (518) 431-7600 if you can be of some assistance, either as a physician or as a trained medical technician or trained in the area of medical assistance of some kind. Let's go to Tel Aviv now to Donna Freisen. That is an area, of course, that has gotten a lot of attention today. Palestinian youngsters were in the streets on the West Bank celebrating this attack on America, while Yasser Arafat was condemning it.
Tell us--it's now late there, obviously--what the evening was like in the Middle East, Donna.
DAWNA FRIESEN reporting:
Well, Tom, people here in Israel and in the Palestinian territories were glued to their television sets through the course of this day, stunned by events. TV stations with wall-to-wall coverage. This is, sadly, a place that is accustomed to almost daily terror attacks, but nothing, of course, on the scale, the magnitude of what we saw today in the United States. Leaders from throughout the region, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Libyan leader Moammar al-Qaddafi have condemned the attacks. Among the first to voice his horror was Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. However, as you said, there is a great deal of anti-American sentiment in this part of the world, and some of that was expressed here within hours of the attack.
Unidentified Man #6: They are helping the Jews to kill the Palestinian people.
Unidentified Reporter #3: How do you comment on the bombings in the United States?
Mr. YASSER ARAFAT: We are completely shocked. Completely shocked.
FRIESEN: (Network difficulties)...Osama Bin Laden's homeland. Bin Laden, now prime suspect in the attacks, has called on his followers to fight until all Americans are driven out of Islamic countries. There's long been fear the conflict in Israel could drag neighboring Arab countries into a wider war. Now this attack may further embolden enemies of Israel.
Unidentified Man #7: The ambitions of terrorist groups that fight against Israel will rise.
FRIESEN: The leader of Hamas, the Islamic extremist group responsible for many suicide bombings inside Israel, says he doesn't support attacks against innocent people, but says the US must reassess its position. It's the cause of injustice in many parts of the world, he says. Tonight, Israel's prime minister calling for an international war on terrorism.
Prime Minister ARIEL SHARON: I believe that together we can defeat these forces of evil.
FRIESEN: At the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, flowers of sympathy.
Unidentified Man #8: I think very few Americans now don't understand how Israelis feel.
FRIESEN: And Israeli airspace closed tonight, as are the borders with--with Lebanon, with Egypt and with Jordan. All the checkpoints in and out of the West Bank and the Gaza strip are closed as well, as a precaution in case a terrorist tries to take advantage of the situation. Several US embassies in the Middle East have been closed indefinitely, in Yemen and Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. Israel has also declared tomorrow a day of mourning in solidarity with the United States. And just one more note, Tom, Israel has sent rescue teams, experts in extricating people from rubble of buildings, to New York to assist in the search and recovery efforts, Tom:
BROKAW: Thank you very much. Donna Freisen who is in Tel Aviv tonight with a wrap-up of what's going on in that troubled and volatile part of the world. It goes without saying that the terrorists were not just a ragtag group of people who acted in some kind of spontaneous or ad hoc fashion. It was a very carefully planned and very efficient operation from their point of view. They must be thinking tonight, wherever they are, that they have succeeded in this first stage of this terrorist war against the United States. But it is far, far from over. The price has been very heavy for the United States in so many ways, and we still do not know the full cost of this terrorist attack today. But the president of the United States tonight pledged to the American people that, in fact, that there would be justice visited upon the terrorists and any nation that may harbor them. And he then also praised the American people as they came together to help heal the wounds of this long and difficult day.
Let's go back to NBC's Robert Hager, now who is at the FAA, and talk about where we go from here with the National Transportation Safety Board and the investigations that are already under way. I would guess that one of the first orders of business would be to recover the black boxes, the cockpit voice recording devices to find out what, in fact, happened in those cockpits, Robert.
HAGER: Absolutely. Now, normally the National Transportation Safety Board doesn't get involved in incidents that are obvious acts of terrorism like this, because they investigate the things that more--more often cause crashes, pilot error and mechanical errors, things like that. So usually they just turn it over to the FBI. But in this case, those black boxes could be crucial, particularly the cockpit voice recorder because that picks up all the sounds in the cockpit. So we're told that NTSB experts are already on scene now working very much in cooperation with the FBI in search of those black boxes, particularly the cockpit voice recorders. Now, you know, those boxes are designed to withstand tremendous forces. These were, indeed, tremendous forces, the way these planes went in. Nothing--sometimes a plane goes in prior to hitting a airport runway and goes in at kind of an angle and the forces aren't nearly what these are. But smacking right into that Trade Center Building like that, or in the case of Pittsburgh, nosing in at a steep angle into the ground, that's a lot to expect of that box, but it may very well be that the cockpit voice recorders have survived that. So now we've--I've been told that NTSB investigators are on site in Pennsylvania and in New York City around the World Trade Center and right here in their back yard in Washington around the Pentagon to see if they can find that cockpit voice recorder.
BROKAW: And Robert, I think the--I think you were the one who told us earlier today that an air traffic controller in New Hampshire did pick up a fragment of a radio transmission from the first flight, the American Airlines Flight 11 that left Boston.
HAGER: It's--it's an unconfirmed report, but that report says that the pilot had his microphone keyed, it's called, in other words, he left his thumb down on the microphone so that it was on and it picked up the voice of a terrorist in English saying, 'Do this and you won't get hurt. Don't expect any trouble,' or something like that and then the microphone went dead. And then the transponders, I think the transponders in all these planes were turned off, so obviously these people knew a lot about what they were doing, and the transponder sends a signal to the radar in the far-off air traffic control centers and tells them what--what plane a particular blip represents and what altitudes it's at. So, without that transponder, the primary transponder, the controllers would have been able to see a blip, but they no longer would have known what altitude the planes were at. So they're watching this blip, they're seeing the plane off course, they have an idea that it's been hijacked, but there's nothing they can do about it.
BROKAW: Thanks very much, NBC's Robert Hager.
Well, security officials at Logan Airport in Boston will be getting a thorough shakedown tomorrow because two of the planes originated from there. Those are the planes that went into the World Trade Center, and the--apparently the terrorists were able to board those planes with whatever weapons they had. There's one report that some of them may have been armed with knives. But they--two of the flights did originate in Boston. They were able to divert those California-bound flights, turning left shortly after takeoff and coming directly down to the World Trade Center. One left from Newark, that went into the ground outside of Pittsburgh and, of course, the other one left from Dulles Airport in Washington DC. It was headed for Los Angeles, as well. It was turned around, and flew low over the capital city and then it went like a bullet into the side of the Pentagon, about 40 minutes after the original attack on the World Trade Center. We've asked--we've asked "Dateline"'s Lee Thompson to take us through the current state of airline and airport security and where it may go from here.
LEA THOMPSON reporting:
For years now, one of the primary focuses of aviation security has been to prevent terrorists from smuggling bombs onto our planes. But what was never fully anticipated was that the planes themselves would become the bombs. Guided missiles in the hands of the terrorists.
Unidentified Woman #5: It was a jet. I couldn't believe my eyes.
THOMPSON: The agency charged with spearheading airport security and safeguarding the skies: the Federal Aviation Administration. Now, after the most devastating terrorist attack in US history, the FAA, often criticized for lax enforcement and bureaucratic bungling, is itself under siege.
Mr. MICHAEL BOYD: The FAA has blood on its hands because it's not doing its job and hasn't been.
THOMPSON: Michael Boyd is an independent aviation consultant with commercial airlines among his clients.
Mr. BOYD: We have a major security problem, obviously, and the FAA is the middle of it. We've known this for years. I've said it for years, that to a trained terrorist, our airports look like a laundromat. You can get in and get out.
THOMPSON: Along with each commercial airline disaster have come new revelations of serious failures by the FAA. Perhaps none more frightening than the multitude of security lapses.
Mr. BOYD: Asking grandma whether she's packed her own bag isn't security when a--whole perimeters of airports look like sieves.
THOMPSON: 1988, Lockerbie, Scotland, a terrorist bomb blows Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky. The aftermath brought both recriminations and recommendations. Our government assured us airport security would be beefed up. Additional security personnel were hired. Metal detectors, x-ray machines and most recently, bomb detection technology, all were deployed to combat the threat of terrorism.
But time and time again, in the 12 years since Lockerbie, gaping holes in security have been exposed. Holes the FAA pledged to fix. Holes that government reports warned still remained. Holes that were likely exploited by these terrorists today.
There appears to have been a total breakdown at least three airports in this country. Give us the scenario of what might have happened.
Mr.
LIVINGSTONE : Well, there are two plausible scenarios. Either someone was able to get through the security site at those airports, or maybe even more likely, people working on the ground crews had been compromised.
THOMPSON: How easy is it, and tell us the plain truth, to get a gun or a bomb on an airplane?
Mr.
LIVINGSTONE : There are always some airports that failed when we tried to get a gun or a knife on an air--on an aircraft.
THOMPSON: How easy is it to get a job as a security screener?
Mr.
LIVINGSTONE : It is as easy as falling off the proverbial turnip truck to get a job as a security screener. We have people that would be flipping hamburgers if they weren't working in the security function. They're not very well skilled, there's very high turnover, and I'm not sure they're up to the job.
THOMPSON: But inadequate screening of passengers and baggage is not the only threat to security.
Mr.
LIVINGSTONE : We don't screen the people who work at airports properly. Tests that have been done at airports around the United States, we found a large percentage of--or a certainly large number of illegal immigrants, people whose background that we really couldn't check out.
THOMPSON: In fact, as Dateline reported in 1996, our producers applied for and were given jobs at two of the biggest airports in the country. At Newark Airport, in New Jersey, where one of the hijacked planes departed this morning, our undercover producer was hired on the spot, no questions asked, and no job references checked to drive this electric car. But within two days, he was working security checking carry-on bags. He was given no training. And watch how our undercover producer wanders along tarmacs and throughout airplanes without the ID to be there. And he passes some ten other airport employees without being stopped. At Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta, our producer was hired as a baggage handler without the required background check. Again, he was free to roam on airliners like this one. After Dateline's broadcast, the FAA did change policy to try to prevent these types of security breaches, but recent government reports indicate problems persist. This year, the General Accounting Office warned security screeners at US airports continued to miss as many as 20 percent of weapons smuggled in carry-on luggage during FAA-sponsored tests and that the FAA plans to improve hiring and training of supervision of screeners, including the companies that provide them, are woefully behind, in some cases up to two years. It's too early to say whether the terrorists gained access to the planes today because of poor security checks, or someone working on the inside. But this much is clear: the hijackings were well planned, and the terrorists highly trained. Once on board, they knew exactly what to do. Experts say once airborne, there was little the crew could have done to fend off the attackers.
Mr. GARY SCHIFF: Once on board the aircraft, it would not at all be difficult to gain access to the cockpit. The cockpit door is not like the vault door in a bank, for example. They're rather fragile, you can kick them in if you had to.
THOMPSON: Gary Schiff is a retired commercial pilot for a major airline who flew both Boeing 757s and Boeing 767s , the same kinds of jets involved in today's attack.
Mr. SCHIFF: The pilots go in and out of the cockpit as they need to go to the restrooms and the coffee is brought to them. So the door is opening every once in a while, anyway. And even if the cockpit door were locked and nobody were going in or out, it would not be difficult to threaten a flight attendant such that she would get the pilots to open the door because of fear of her life.
THOMPSON: Though pilots are trained to handle hijackings, Schiff says historically they don't usually result in fatalities, much less the downing of an airliner.
Mr. SCHIFF: In most cases a hijacking is not a dangerous situation. Most hijackings are easily resolved. There's very little a pilot can do if an armed hijacker comes into the cockpit. In most cases, he'll believe that a hijacking is going to end peacefully. In most cases, they normally do. He would have no idea that his aircraft were going to be used as a missile.
THOMPSON: Commercial pilots do have the ability to push a button to communicate to air traffic controllers that their plane has been hijacked. But apparently none of the pilots this morning even had a chance to send the signal.
Mr. SCHIFF: If one had to speculate, I would say that terrorists were flying the aircraft, not the airline pilots who should have been flying the airplane. Mainly because I don't believe any airline pilot would intentionally fly into the World Trade Center, even with a gun at his head.
THOMPSON: We may never know exactly what happened in the cockpits, but both the FAA and the airlines had to have known that something was terribly amiss as each of the planes veered inexplicably off their flight paths. What you are looking at is the actual radar tracking of the two flights that left Boston's Logan Airport this morning. American Flight number 11, shown here is the blue plane, takes off first. United Flight 175 takes off next. Both proceed west toward Los Angeles. They are fully fueled for a transcontinental trip. Then, somewhere near New York state, the planes abruptly changed direction, now flying southeast to ground zero, the tip of Manhattan. American Flight 11 finds its target first. Tower number one. Twenty-one minutes later, American Flight 175, in red, flies south of Manhattan then makes a sharp turn to the north where its final chilling moments aloft were captured on videotape. Meanwhile, United Airlines Flight 183 leaves Newark Airport in New Jersey, for San Francisco. The radar shows that somewhere near Cleveland the plane makes a sudden U-turn, then disappears. It crashed in this field near Pittsburgh. Its final destination unknown, but experts suspect that it was likely headed to a target in Washington D.C.
Mr. SCHIFF: Since the airplane crashed in a rural area, that there might have been a struggle on board that aircraft between the crew and the hijackers. And that the crew somehow managed to thwart the hijackers' intent of crashing that airplane into something else.
THOMPSON: If that's true, the crew probably saved hundreds, maybe thousands of lives, on the ground. Unfortunately, even their heroics will not be enough to save the aviation system upon which America relies so heavily.
Mr. BOYD: A linchpins of our economy is our air transportation system. We can't do without it. It's not an accessory. As of today, that linchpins has been shut down. In the coming months what we're going to find is an air transportation system that's totally different than we've known. It is going to be one where airports are going to be basically armed camps.
THOMPSON: Providing safe and secure passage for these 640 million passengers passing through 1,000 screening check points traveling with more than 2.5 billion pieces of carry-on and checked luggage, flying on 97 air carriers is a monumental task that will likely take years to manage.
BROKAW: That's DATELINE's Lee Thompson tonight on the state of airport security in this country and airline security. Some very sharp critics in there. It will get much tougher in the days immediately following this terrorist attack and for months and probably for years to come, as well. The mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, has appeared to give us an update on the toll of casualties in the World Trade Center attack and the collapse of those 110-story skyscrapers and also 7 World Trade Center, the 40-story building that came down later. Here is some of what he had to say this evening.
Mayor RUDY GIULIANI (New York City): At the scene, it's a horrific site, but there are thousands and thousands of emergency workers down there. We've gotten a tremendous amount of help and assistance. In fact, we actually probably have more equipment than we need at this point. We're very grateful for it, and it'll be stored in areas and probably, over the next two or three days, we will need it. And we'll do everything we can to support the efforts of the people who are trying to recover people from the--from the debris and the horror that's taken place down there. The number to call if you have questions--I'm not sure we can answer all of your questions, but at least we can try to answer--is 1 (212) 560-2730. That's 1 (212) 560-2730. If you have questions throughout the night and tomorrow, that's the number to call rather than 911, which you should just call if--if there is an emergency.
We had over 1,100 emergency room visits today that we know of. So far we have six fatalities that we know of, five at St. Vincent's. Obviously, and tragically, there are going to be a lot more than that, but that--that's what we know of at this point. We had over 300 patients that were treated at St. Vincent's, over 160 at Bellevue, 250 at Beekman Downtown Hospital, and the hospital of--these hospitals are probably the ones under the most stress, but they were able to get through. I want to thank all the people that helped St. Vincent's getting the--the water that they needed and the support that the needed.
Also I would--I'd like to say to people that might consider doing this that services should be made available in New York City tomorrow on a fair and equitable basis. Anybody that thinks that they're going to gouge consumers or ask for extra amounts of money for food or anything else, we're going to have the police and Consumer Affairs Department out there, so just be careful. This is a time in which we all have to cooperate and help each other.
Alternate side street parking is suspended. Sanitation services will take place in most of the city, except obviously in the lower part of Manhattan, where the Sanitation Department will be working to remove debris, which has already started. And the schools, again, will be closed tomorrow. And hopefully, we'll get them open as soon as possible.
Tomorrow, the effort will be at trying to recover as many people as possible and trying to clean up the horrible mess that was created by all of this. And I would ask people to cooperate as much as possible in that effort. If you have to come into Manhattan because your business is essential, then obviously do it. The upper part of Manhattan will be open. But if tomorrow is a day in which you want to stay home and stay with your family and give comfort and support maybe to other people that have been affected by this, it would--it would be a good day to do that.
BROKAW: Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Ironically, this was to be the day in which there was going to be a mayoral primary to try to determine the candidates who would be replacing him. His term limits are up. He's been at once an extraordinarily popular, and effective, and controversial mayor in New York City, and obviously he is on top of the job here tonight. And he is saying, an exceptional statement, stay home tomorrow, stay out of New York City, the busiest city in the world. But it's a day that the city's going to need to be directing all of its efforts on rescue efforts that are downtown in the World Trade Center area and a lot of the services simply will not be available. All schools are closed here tomorrow. The financial markets are closed as well.
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