And now i just have random facts scribbled in margins and underlined repeatedly. All of Disney’s Florida complexes were evacuated. There was and is a discussion of a “change in military status” in the United States. The Navy is on alert, and the C2 aircraft carriers JFK and George Washington were deployed to locations in the Atlantic adjacent to NYC and DC, respectively. The Kennedy Space Center shut down and brought its shuttles indoors.
Bertie has three incredible pictures from her New York commute to work. More in a moment…
news
As a result of the extensive damage to both World Trade Center buildings, they both collapsed some time before noon. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was briefly trapped in an adjacent building during the collapse. MSNBC reporter Ashleigh Banfield and her crew forcibly entered an apartment building along with emergency personnel to escape the cloud of debris that was quickly expanding from the collapse. Ashley has said repeatedly that the force of the dust cloud was such that she couldn’t even breathe through her clothing, and that it was difficult to breathe even when she was inside of the building.
At 9:49am for the first time in US history all flights were grounded by the FAA. 50 domestic flights remained in the air, although at this time they have all landed. 18 international flights were being redirected at the time. As of right now there will be no commercial air traffic in the United States until after noon tomorrow.
President Bush had been in Florida at the beginning of the day but he soon took the air in AirForce1 and landed around 12:30pm at a military base in Barksdale, Louisiana. The first lady had been set to make her policy debut before Congress today, but was quickly whisked away to an undisclosed location this morning when news of the attacks reached Washington. At some point in Louisiana President Bush spoke to cameras, but to my knowledge this footage has not been made available nationally; so far we have only seen his first address from this morning.
I’m attempting to construct a timeline.
This morning at least four commercial airline flights were hijacked, though it remains unclear at what point in their itinerary their paths were diverted. The flights were American Airlines #11 (Boston to LA) and #77 (Dulles to LA) as well as United Airlines #93 (Newark to SF) and #175 (Douglas in VA to LA). The contact numbers for the airlines are 1-800-245-0999 and 1-800-932-8555, respectively. Flight #11 was on it’s regular flight path until it took a sharp turn in upstate New York. A flight path indicator shows that it made a beeline for New York City. Despite initial reports that may have been to the contrary, three of the planes were Boeing 757 and 767’s.
At 8:42 AM there was an explosion that was the result of a plane colliding with one of the World Trade Center Towers. Immediately people were told to evacuate, but in the unaffected building the evacuation order was rescinded and people returned to their offices. Under a half hour later (roughly 18 minutes) a second passenger airplane appeared on the skyline and collided with the second largely unevacuated tower. This was broadcast nationally on live network television.
Shortly thereafter (before 10:15am) a third airplane slammed into the Pentagon, entering in it’s E-ring, and penetrating into the 4th and 5th corridors of the C & D rings. Debris spread as far as the E ring. No specific office in the Pentagon appears to have been targeted. There have been scattered reports of a car bomb at the State Building and an attack on Camp David, but to this point they remain unconfirmed. However, a plane carrying 38 passengers, 2 pilots, and 5 flight attendants crashed in midstate Pennsylvania outside of Pittsburgh. My local Fox affiliate reported that someone inside the plane called local county dispatchers and claimed that they had been hijacked shortly before the crash. There is still little speculation on where this flight had been headed or if the unplanned grounded was a result of a herioc act by the crew. There are no reported survivors.
All told the plain crashes themselves involved over 260 casualties.
Over three hours later and the news media has done a wholly terrible job in reporting this national tragedy. Save for a few poignant reports from Diane Sawyer in Times Square and MSNBC reporter on the scene Ashley Banfield (?) i have seen everything from threats of war to incorrect facts restated repeatedly to Peter Jennings at a loss for words. I’m going to make an effort to type up my current notes now, and then surf through the national news sites.
Whoa, we just got dismissed from work. I’m jogging home to continue this… with some teevees at my disposal. Expect intermittent updates.