story1616.xml

story1616.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-31

I am a broadcast journalist. After four grueling days and sleepless nights, I wrote down my thoughts about what I had experienced. As a journalist, sometimes your personal feelings are put aside so you can better focus on the story. But these feelings would not stay put aside and it wasn't until I wrote them down that I was finally able to come to grips with the tragedy. The following is my personal not professional account...

I am having a hard time trying to understand my feelings. At moments I am torn between sadness and rage?loss and hope?fear and joy!

Tuesday?September 11, 2001?it started just like any other day. I had been away from the office for a few days but was feeling pretty good. Suzanne and I have begun the process of refinancing our mortgage in the hopes of saving money and after a number of meetings and calls over those five days we seemed to have a pretty good handle on where we going and how well we were going to do. So?getting back to work with that knowledge on my mind?I was feeling pretty good. The moment I saw the pictures of Tower One on fire this knot in my gut tightened. Something didn?t feel right. My god?it was a perfectly clear day?visibility for miles. How could a jetliner with sophisticated navigation equipment go so far off course? Barring a catastrophic failure how could this happen? Immediately we shifted gears from our Washington focus to begin planning how to cover what we believed to be a tragic accident. On the phone to staff?I began alerting everybody what was ahead. And then the unthinkable happened! Another jetliner?this one clearly visible to the world thanks to the countless numbers of television cameras trained on Tower One banked toward Tower Two?in a deliberate act of destruction. The explosion and fireball reminded me of all those Bruce Willis ?Die Hard? movies where I marveled at how the special effects could make such a ludicrous concept look so real?only this time it was. I stood there stunned?unable to move?unable to speak?with numbness settling in and in an instant I realized this was no tragic accident. I have seen death before?and have covered tragic accidents. This was more than that. I just watched hundreds of people perish and only now in my clarity of hindsight do I realize the real tragedy was just beginning. I came to and regained my sense of where I was and what I had to do. Everybody and everything was in play now. All of our crews were being sent to New York to cover for the broadcast group. Our New York affiliate was in way over its head and normally where it would be obliged to cover for the group?the pictures on the monitors told us there was no way.

At this moment?we had a chance to assess our decisions. People were being sent home to pack for travel to New York. Freelancers were being hired?satellite trucks were being ordered to locations from other affiliates in nearby cities. This is the mundane side of broadcast journalism. These are the moves that have to be made in order to cover a major story. It never occurred to any of us that this story was not over yet?we didn?t think about the possibility that other planes were in the air and targeting the very institutions we work in daily. We proceeded on the assumption that New York was the story and we were on our way. And then it all changed. In a second?life in the city we have come to love became very different?forever altered.

The Pentagon was hit! Broadcast reports said a jetliner had slammed into the side of the building and a fire was raging. People were running out of the building for their lives?many had been badly burned?some dazed?others untouched but confused and still others devoted to their training staying to help those who couldn?t help themselves. Now what do we do? In life there comes a defining moment where you have to choose. This was one of those. The pictures said go to New York?but my instincts screamed NO! Yes the World Trade Center had been savagely attacked?but in the coldness of my thinking?these were civilians. Now our government institutions were under attack?our nation was vulnerable and at risk and in a split second I realized how my parents must have felt when they heard the first words about Pearl Harbor. Reports of threats to the White House and the Capitol came pouring in. I grabbed a photographer and headed to the Capitol?but not before diverting one of our New York crews to the Pentagon. The President was in Florida?so for the moment the White House was not a major concern. When the Pentagon was hit?the President ordered all commercial planes to land?yet there was still one more flying bomb in the sky and it was headed for Washington. The White House was evacuated. The Capitol too. Members of Congress were huddled together and shipped to a secure bunker?this was the frenzy of the aftermath. We did not know when or if another attack was coming but from what we had witnessed already?it seemed likely. Federal workers were sent home. Schools were ordered closed and kids dismissed. Parents went home too?leaving jobs that suddenly seemed unimportant. The streets filled with cars and people going in every direction. Few had any idea what was happening. Many saw or heard about New York?but few in Washington knew about the Pentagon or the threats elsewhere. As the streets clogged?people panicked?but some were mystifyingly oblivious to what was going on around them. Gridlock! We are not moving. I work ten blocks from the Capitol but in an hour I hadn?t traveled but halfway. My phone wasn?t working well. I kept trying to call staff that I hadn?t reached. I called the office. I called numbers at the Capitol. The calls wouldn?t go through. I called home and got through. I left messages on the machine. A woman in a car next to me heard me get through to my home. Her phone wasn?t working. She asked me to call her husband?Frank was his name. He was just home from surgery and would be worried about her. I got a hold of Frank and told him his wife was fine and trying to make her way through the traffic. Frank was grateful. He thanked me for the call. Frank it seems is in law enforcement and was beside himself in frustration because this is what he does. Frank asked me what I do and I told him. His last words to me were ?be careful.?

We aborted our mission to the Capitol. It was safe?locked down?a perimeter set up that kept people and vehicles including us more than two blocks away. Now we needed to be someplace where we could tell our story. My photographer and I got out of the city because travel through it was impossible. We made our way to Georgetown via the beltway. In Georgetown?our DC broadcast affiliate has its studios on a hill overlooking the Potomac River. It was the perfect location to see the entire area of action. We began broadcasting from the roof?the flames and smoke billowing out of the Pentagon just over my shoulder. The smell of soot and water soaked construction debris filled the air. The fire burned all day and into the night. The reports kept coming to me in my ear. Horrible stories of desperate people leaping to their deaths because they had no hope of rescue. The fourth plane down in Pennsylvania?perhaps due to some heroics by passengers who knew the death and destruction that had already occurred?the collapse of both towers?the entombment of hundreds of firefighters trying to get to the floors above?the twisted metal and ash and body parts. I have seen death before but not like this.

My days have been long and exhausting. Adrenaline gets you through most of them. But there is something it can?t do. It can?t wash away the memories?it can?t erase the fear I have about what is ahead. I feel a great sense of loss?perhaps innocence lost. The things I took for granted have different meanings now. On Friday evening?I took great comfort in a seemingly innocuous event?spotting the first airplane in the sky that wasn?t a military fighter jet. I watched it silently for minutes?pleased that things were getting back to normal but also fixated on the plane?wondering where it was going and if it would get there?.