story10230.xml
Title
story10230.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2003-12-03
911DA Story: Story
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I learned about the attack some two-and-a-half hours after most people did--and I was working in radio! I'd just finished the morning drive at WGAM in Greenfield, Massachusetts, where I was program director at the time. Almost all the news WGAM carried was local and regional--we didn't have a network feed or a wire of any kind--and promptly after I finished the 9am news (farm news, school committee meeting reports, announcements of church suppers etc.), I went out the door and down to my home office, where I spent the morning writing ad copy. I was by myself and didn't have the radio or television on in the office. Somewhere around 11:30 I went back uptown, as I had to do the noon news and the program immediately following it. I noticed people standing in groups on street corners; something was weird. I saw a guy I knew and I asked him "What in the hell is going on?" He said, in a monotone, "Somebody blew up the World Trade Center and they flew a plane into the Pentagon".
I was forty-two years old at the time and a Cold War child. My first reaction upon hearing the news was "Armageddon might happen within the next ten minutes". My second reaction was "I have to do the news within the next fifteen minutes". Up to the studio I went, knowing good and well I couldn't just give reports on dairy prices in western New England. I clicked on a monitor-receiver and dialed in a public radio station in the area, got the barebones facts of the tragedy and quickly wrote a summary of them for broadcast. At 11:55 I had the presence of mind to try to ring a friend of mine in Washington, DC, as I thought I might put him on the air to describe what was going on in the Nation's capital. By some twist of fate I actually managed to get through to him (the phone lines on the East Coast were almost completely jammed, or seemed to be). My friend has just gotten home, having had to walk some miles from where he worked as the Washington subways had been shut down earlier that morning. I went on the air, feeling as if I were underwater, gave the details of the tragedy as I knew them and then put my friend on live. He reported the gridlock on Washington streets and the bizarre quiet on the sidewalks--it was an interesting if chilling report, that I can tell you. I finished the news, cancelled the regularly scheduled program and put on the station's emergency automation. I then spent the next hour or so taking phone calls, primarily from frightened elderly listeners (the lion's share of WGAM's audience) as well as civic and church groups planning vigils and other events. I recorded announcements of the vigils onto the automation, finished around 4 PM and went out on the street to have a cigarette and to try to wind down a bit. Main Street was virtually deserted but I heard a man yelling that he "...wanted to kill 'fucking Arabs'" with his bare hands.
I went home and collapsed. To this day I've seen footage of the attacks exactly once and I don't EVER want to see such footage again.
I was forty-two years old at the time and a Cold War child. My first reaction upon hearing the news was "Armageddon might happen within the next ten minutes". My second reaction was "I have to do the news within the next fifteen minutes". Up to the studio I went, knowing good and well I couldn't just give reports on dairy prices in western New England. I clicked on a monitor-receiver and dialed in a public radio station in the area, got the barebones facts of the tragedy and quickly wrote a summary of them for broadcast. At 11:55 I had the presence of mind to try to ring a friend of mine in Washington, DC, as I thought I might put him on the air to describe what was going on in the Nation's capital. By some twist of fate I actually managed to get through to him (the phone lines on the East Coast were almost completely jammed, or seemed to be). My friend has just gotten home, having had to walk some miles from where he worked as the Washington subways had been shut down earlier that morning. I went on the air, feeling as if I were underwater, gave the details of the tragedy as I knew them and then put my friend on live. He reported the gridlock on Washington streets and the bizarre quiet on the sidewalks--it was an interesting if chilling report, that I can tell you. I finished the news, cancelled the regularly scheduled program and put on the station's emergency automation. I then spent the next hour or so taking phone calls, primarily from frightened elderly listeners (the lion's share of WGAM's audience) as well as civic and church groups planning vigils and other events. I recorded announcements of the vigils onto the automation, finished around 4 PM and went out on the street to have a cigarette and to try to wind down a bit. Main Street was virtually deserted but I heard a man yelling that he "...wanted to kill 'fucking Arabs'" with his bare hands.
I went home and collapsed. To this day I've seen footage of the attacks exactly once and I don't EVER want to see such footage again.
Collection
Citation
“story10230.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed May 2, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/19783.