Author’s Note: This is a personal account written by our Director of Client Services and Content George Sells. George was a television reporter on September 11, 2001, these are his memories and perspectives of that day.
Hearing 9/11 Unfold on the Radio
For me, September 11, 2001 was largely a radio event. That doesn’t happen much with colossal news stories these days, but there were reasons, both professional and technological, that it played out that way for me.
I was a reporter at WHAS-TV in Louisville, KY. The morning of the attacks, I was about to leave for work when ABC’s Good Morning America cut in at the very end of their program saying a plane had hit the World Trade Center. At that moment, they were assuming (just like me, quite frankly) that a novice pilot flying in the complex New York City airspace had made a fatal error and hit the building. I turned off the TV and left for work.
As I was making my ten-minute commute downtown, they were reporting about it on the radio. An eyewitness on the street was being interviewed live and suddenly started screaming. As he was describing the smoke pouring from one tower, a second jet crashed into the other. The terror in this man’s voice will stay with me forever.
I tore into the newsroom to find everyone scrambling. How were we going to cover this? Who was doing what? Do we even go on the air locally or leave it with ABC? I was sent with a photographer across the street to the federal building, which was being evacuated. Every federal facility in the country was put on lockdown within minutes of the second plane hitting. There was no social media at this time. No texting of video. No portable live units beyond a van with a microwave or satellite transmitter. Our option on this day was to physically rush our tape (yes tape) back to the station.
The Personal Side of a National Tragedy
When we arrived, Pete Longton (the photographer I would spend the next week with) and I were told to get to our homes, throw some clothes in a bag, and head for the airport. Tickets were being arranged, and we would be on the next flight out.
Before we could go, I had to go a block over to my wife Julie’s place of employment and tell her I was leaving. Anyone who remembers 9/11 can probably gather that this news, delivered within minutes of the south tower collapsing and another plane crashing in Pennsylvania, was not easy to deliver. The unknown we were facing was terrifying. Everyone was scared. So were we.
Before we reached our homes to get our bags, all air travel had been stopped. The nation was grounded. We would be driving roughly 12 hours to Manhattan. This is why 9/11 became a radio experience for me. This is the opposite of what so many remember. My wife’s workplace, a group of radio stations, pulled in TVs for everyone to gather around and watch. Most schools did the same thing. Others sent people home, who in turn watched the world change forever from their living rooms.
We had the car radio.The second tower collapsed as we were getting our bags. As we drove, we would find a station carrying the non-stop coverage (not difficult that day since nearly everyone picked up news) and when the signal would fade, we would go searching again for another. Sirius XM was not yet “a thing.”
Imagining 9/11 with Today’s Technology
I have often thought of what this day would have been like with 2025 technology. We would still have been driving, but we would have had the video up on a phone and been watching the TV coverage with everyone else.
The sheer volume of video would have been horrifying. Phones didn’t have cameras yet in 2001. I can only imagine how much more traumatic the access to witness videos by the thousands would have made this. Social media would have been an unmitigated disaster. Think of all the conspiracy theories, false reports, and stoking of fear and anger there would have been. I have to think it would have been crippling.
We listened to the President’s address to the nation while pumping gas somewhere in Pennsylvania. We watched the traffic die down to almost nonexistent levels as we approached the New Jersey state line. I will never forget the big light up construction sign that simply said, “Avoid New York City.” As we came up the New Jersey Turnpike the first sign of something happening was Giants Stadium in East Rutherford. All the lights were on and there was an incredible amount of activity in the parking lot. It was being turned into a staging ground for rescue operations.
The First Sight of Ground Zero
Then, we rounded a bend where Manhattan came into view. There was a glow from the southern tip. Ground Zero was still ablaze. The flames lit up the smoke that was billowing from the area where the towers had stood. The smoke would remain for the entire week we were there.
Another thing we would have been doing with today’s technology would have been booking a place to stay. While we had cell phones, the simple act of a Google search for hotels was not available to us in the car in 2001. We stopped at a few hotels and found “no room at the inn.” All those people evacuating lower Manhattan had scooped up every hotel room in the area.
We ended up driving to the hotel where a Louisville resident who had witnessed the whole thing would be meeting us at 6am for an interview. We opened the windows of the car, put our seats back, and tried to sleep. It was nearly impossible due to the fighter jets that were patrolling overhead. The noise was deafening every time they passed.
The days ahead would be some of the most challenging of my professional life. The lack of social media or internet use to the level we have it today left families of missing victims making flyers normally reserved for lost pets. “Last seen 82nd Floor, South Tower,” it might read, with a photo from a birthday party or family wedding. They covered walls and lamp posts. As we moved about the city with a TV camera, people would approach us, pressing these pieces of paper into our hands. It was heartbreaking because you knew it was almost certainly a lost cause. They were not finding survivors.
Cell signals were almost impossible to find. We used a company called Cingular at the time. All of their lines had been taken for emergency use. My personal cell was like a paperweight. We had a couple of Nextel phones that worked periodically but were not dependable. We had to get the phone company to run a physical line to our satellite truck from the building next to where we were parked.
Another thing that didn’t exist yet were those portable live units that could be carried anywhere. We were stuck with the satellite truck across the Hudson River. The view was great, but logistically, we had to take a ferry across the river (subways and bridges were closed) then walk over three miles from the 39th Street Ferry station to the area around Ground Zero. When we shot our story, we walked back to edit and get on the air. We made this trip two or three times a day. I would have given anything for Zoom or Facetime!
How Communications Have Changed Since 2001
The memories have blurred over the years. So have the images. The camera I had was not digital. It shot good, old-fashioned film. There are a few prints somewhere, but I haven’t found them. (We’ve moved three times since then) Today’s technology that makes us all walking historians wasn’t there, and now many of the things that seemed so jarring at the time have faded. That is how technology today has changed us all. For better or for worse, we have access to the pictures. The videos. The things that rekindle the thoughts and feelings we had at the time. In some cases that’s a blessing. Other times, it is trauma.
Our minds are designed to allow memories, particularly difficult ones, to fade. It’s a defense mechanism built into our DNA. Our cell phones and laptops are preventing that mechanism from initiating. Meanwhile, a historic day being a “radio event” is something we will never see again.
