Scripting News on 9/11/2001.

All of us who lived through 9/11 are re-experiencing it right now. The local fire department just ran its alarm, everyone in this small mountain hamlet heard it and it took a moment to realize this was the exact time the first plane hit the tower. I was at my computer in Woodside, California — hearing about it from friends in Manhattan, and blogging about it as it happened. I didn’t have a TV, I had turned my cable subscription off after I became so obsessed with coverage of the 2000 election. So what I reported came exclusively through the web.

New York-based journalists were off the air, they had the same tools as we did, but their lives were upturned by the events. Everything was outwardly calm at my workstation in Calif.But there were people in NYC with digital cameras, and first-hand stories of survival. My own father was caught up in the catastrophe, his office was across from City Hall, a few blocks from ground zero. He walked home from ground zero to Queens and for hours we had no idea if he had lived or died. All forms of transportation and communication were offline.

Cell coverage was spotty, and phone lines in NYC were unreliable. But there was a webcam in the Empire State Building that could be pointed at the World Trade Center, so we had a constant update of what was happening visually.

The full text of my interview with Amy Harmon of the NYT is on the 9/11/2001 page. We didn’t have post-level permalinks in 2001 yet.

Mayor Mamdami’s remembrance of 9/11.

New header image for this event.

NYT on 9/12/2001: “The world’s changed.”

Link to Scripting News for 9/11/2001.

Screen shot of webcam on the Empire State Bulding.