Subject:
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Re: We all came together
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.people
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Date:
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Thu, 13 Sep 2001 07:09:50 GMT
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Viewed:
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932 times
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Eric,
Thanks for uploading the pics your associate sent you. This is the
true power of the web, small communities efficiently sharing information.
For much of the day of the 11th the only way to get information online
was mailing lists, email, community message boards. The first pictures
I saw of the disaster were uploaded to brickshelf. I couldn't get to
any of the news sites. Various mailing lists provided links to
private pages with more pictures.
FWIW, Here are my personal experiences during the tragedy:
I work less than 1/2 mile south of Dulles Airport, directly in the
path of runway 1L. I had no idea what was going on until I started
my brief commute from Bull Run Mountain (just west of IAD).
I turned on my scanner and heard some brass talking on their frequency
about motorcycle escorts from Quantico and "tell EOC to take (bomb threats)
more seriously than usual today)." Then they said the state police
had opened up the HOV lanes on 395 so they could get everyone out of
downtown.
Woah! You don't hear that every day. At that point I turned on
WTOP (news radio) and the first thing I heard was that "FEMA has
activated a national emergency plan". I was just
about to turn around and go home since the only thing I could
imagine at that point was inbound nukes or a biological attack.
I continued and they mentioned a car bomb outside the State Department, a
plane into the pentagon and two planes into the WTC and that
one tower had collapsed. Some time before I arrived at work
the second tower collapsed.
After arriving at work I got as much information as I could as
described above. When we heard jet fighters fly right over our
building, I ran out to see. At this point there was a rumor
that another hijacked plane was circling Dulles.
I went to my car (which is heavily fortified with communications
equipment) and immediately started scanning the Civilian and Military
Air communications frequencies. Almost immediately I had found the
few active frequencies which had the most amazing traffic.
National Airport was coordinating the airspace around Washington with
some AWACS plane as final command. F16 and other fighters were patrolling
the area. Periodically they would lock on a target, and let me be clear,
*literally* lock on a target and follow it until it was determined
friendly. One single engine aircraft was followed and had passed up
several airfields and was not responding to attempted radio contact.
From listening to the traffic it sounded like they were about to blow
it out of the sky.
By this time several people from the building had gathered around my
car to listen to this amazing radio traffic. A Fairfax County police
car drove buy and asked us if we knew Mr. (arab sounding name) because
his car was parked in the middle of the street by the building.
We looked over and sure enough was this old corolla or something right
in the middle of the road. It turned out that it was a false alarm
and after about 45 minutes the car was driven away.
The next 24 hours (+) with no air traffic was very bizarre.
The DC area and around Dulles in particular is an extremely
busy airspace every day. It is not unusual to see constant streams
of airplanes landing two at a time on paralell runways from the middle
of the day on. It was very odd to see no airplanes and no jettrails
for a whole two days. The only Airplanes I heard was Air Force One
returning on Tuesday with escort and some F16's during a shift change
Wednesday morning.
After work I taped about 8 hours straight of news coverage from the DSS.
I am still taping intermittently as things happen and we bought a dozen
new tapes in preparation for the immenent WWIII.
Somewhere I have the first 6 (or is it 18?) hours of CNN coverage
from the Gulf War starting at the very beginning with the satellite phone
reports.
KL
In lugnet.people, Eric Sophie writes:
> Folks, during all of this and admist this terrible tragity, we here at
> Lugnet came together. I found information not avail. to me otherwise, as
> well as a place for general support and a place to talk about the shock we
> all experienced. We also shared concerend about people in the area as well
> as recving support from Suz and Todd to use this forum in part to
> communicate to each other as regular routes were somtimes unavailable.
>
> I was also happy to report the efforts of my Company (Voicestream Wireless)
> in our frantic push to provide Cell service to those in need.
>
> I would also like to let all of you know that we are trying to use what's
> called a Microwave shot technique to bring up Cell Site service to those
> locations where the public land line interface has been either wiped out or
> rerouted by Verizon to serve areas presumable needed by rescue officials.
>
> In any case I am proud to be a part of this community and I know we are all
> deeply concerened about all of this.
>
> I would ask that we try to refrain from in depth convos on why what and how.
> I know this is a chat forum and these types of convos are going to happen.
> It's just impossible to make sense of a senseless act. Let's keep our heads
> straight and focus on promoting a healing attitude.
>
> Bless all of you.
>
> Eric Sophie
> Lugnet Member
> NY Switch Technician
> Mecha dude
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | We all came together
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| Folks, during all of this and admist this terrible tragity, we here at Lugnet came together. I found information not avail. to me otherwise, as well as a place for general support and a place to talk about the shock we all experienced. We also (...) (23 years ago, 12-Sep-01, to lugnet.people)
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