WSB-TV staff recalls where they were on 9/11

We turned on our TV's in the truck and couldn't get over what we were seeing. We didn't have time to watch. We were sent to Hartsfield, then re-routed to Charlie Brown Airport. When we realized we couldn't get fly out, Andy sent us to the Varsity to watch the horror unfold with other Atlantans. There was such a feeling of uneasiness. I heard from my Mom who was watching at home in Augusta. Like any Mom, she wanted to know I was safe and to be careful. My Dad had been up to the World Trade Center site on numerous occasions for meetings. I can remember on his return home from those trips describing to me how huge the buildings were – that the entire population of Augusta could fit inside those two buildings. It was tough to imagine.

The Varsity was crowded but eerily silent except for the TV monitors. Our eyes were glued. A man sitting next to me had a relative high up in the intelligence community so I was getting updates before the networks would even report there were two planes still missing. I found out about United Airlines Flight 93 crashing in Pennsylvania a good 10 minutes before the networks relayed the information.

I remember watching the first tower go down but Peter Jennings saying there was some type of bomb that went off. Reporter Don Dahler immediately told the audience, no, the tower just collapsed. We watched in disbelief and you could hear the gasps at the Varsity. I remember talking to another fellow Atlantan who had a daughter attending college in NYC. He was frantically trying to reach her but couldn't get through because the lines were all busy. I kept watching the monitors and then when I looked up to see the Pentagon in flames, I couldn't help but feel this lump in my throat and tried to hold back the tears. At the time, we didn't know that was the final plane. We were all thinking, when would this end?

The stories that followed now seem like such a blur. We knew as the world's busiest airport, Hartsfield would be greatly impacted. The next few days I was stationed there. We went into neighboring communities where for the first time ever, they could not hear the planes overhead. It was so strange to hear the birds chirping and absolute silence.

I remember our assignment desk found a home with a listing of Muhammad Atta – the name of one of the 911 hijackers. They sent me to the home. If I remember correctly, it was in Gwinnett County. It would later come out that some of the hijackers had pilot training at Briscoe Field. My photographer at the time, Don Franklin, and I chuckled later about the fact that he told me he'd stay in the truck while I went up to the house. Fortunately, WSB-AM's Richard Sangster came along behind us. He and I approached the door and thankfully, this time, no one was home.

Day in and day out, our reporting told the story of how nothing would ever be the same here in the U.S. The stories of 9/11 would be endless. Who could ever forget the images of the victims' families in New York carrying and posting pictures of missing loved ones in the hopes they would soon be found.

I visited the World Trade Center site about a year later. I was struck by an eery calm there as construction equipment moved in and out of the area. It was only fitting a man who sat in front of the steel gates pulled out his saxophone and started to play "Amazing Grace." The tears returned. Carol Sbarge I had Monday and Tuesdays off when 9/11 happened. I was watching the end of Good Morning America in my family room when the first airplane struck. I grew up outside NYC. My immediate reaction was I was surprised what I thought at first was a small plane would hit a skyscraper in the city. I couldn't remember something like that happening. It wasn't long before the awful events of that day unfolded live to viewers like myself everywhere.

As the reality was sinking in I called different family members and friends to wonder" how could this really be happening? " I called the station to see if I needed to come in but they were covered. You may remember ABC News had continual coverage all day. I sat glued to the TV the rest of the day. My daughter was in high school then, my son in elementary school. They sent all the kids home from school and it was a day where you just wanted to be close to family.

The next day I covered one of the saddest stories I have ever done. Two lovely people, the Whites, of Buckhead, had lost their young son who was just starting his career in the World Trade Center. It was heartbreaking to sit on their back porch with them and see the pain and loss they were just beginning to experience. I think of them often to this day and all the other families around the country who had to deal with such sudden and traumatic loss. Diana Davis

I was driving into the WSB-TV parking garage when my colleague at the time, Gulstan Dart, was running into the building. He shouted to me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

At the time, I assumed it was a light single engine plane. I rushed into the newsroom and was watching a bank of TV monitors with my co-workers. It was at that point that the second plane hit. I will never forget the screams in the newsroom, then the horrified silence and the looks on my co-workers faces.

Immediately, we launched a plan to send crews to New York City. Then, the airspace was shut down. An hour or so later, as we watched the twin towers burn, I remarked to a co-worker that it was a testament to the strength of the towers that they had not collapsed. Almost at that instant, the south tower collapsed.

I was sent to Peachtree Presbyterian Church to cover services on that day. I was trying to keep my emotions together, but it was losing battle.

Two or three days later, my photographer and I flew to New York City from DeKalb Peachtree Airport with a team from the Red Cross. We were on a private jet, the only one in the airspace around New York City on that day. We could still see the pall of smoke from the towers still burning in lower Manhattan.

We landed at the Westchester County airport north of New York. I will never forget the sight of all the grounded commercial jets parked everywhere (No air travel was permitted) and dozens of airline pilots sleeping on the floors, waiting for the air space to be reopened.

In the city, I was struck by the spirit of New Yorkers all trying to help each other. A week or so later, I flew again to New York and Connecticut to visit a friend. As I took the train to her home in Connecticut, I was one of the few people on that train not dressed in black. Nearly all the people on Metro North that day were returning from funerals in the city for those lost in the attack. For the entire ride up the coast, everyone on that train was in tears. Ross Cavitt

I was driving down I-75 heading to the WSB newsroom listening to reports of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center building. By the time I made it in, the dozens of monitors in our newsroom were showing the smoking tower and we were scouring the wires trying to figure out what happened.

I remember standing on the assignment desk and staring at the bank of monitors lining the producer pod when the second plane hit. There was an audible gasp in the newsroom then silence as the scene played out, and the network commentators tried to make sense of it.

Our late assignment editor Andy Artis was standing next to me and the phones started lighting up in front of us. I remember leaning over to him and saying something to the effect; "I have no idea where to send them, but we need to get crews out there covering this."

Minutes later I was running toward the garage, planning to grab a live truck and head to Hartsfield Airport. After all, we have the world's busiest airport and it became apparent this event would have huge implications there.

But before I could pull out, I was told to head home and pack for a trip to New York. As I packed at home, word came that all air traffic was grounded. We were sent to Fulton County airport, hoping that a corporate jet would get permission to fly to the northeast. Hours dragged on as we watched the network coverage. It was incredibly frustrating as a reporter to have the instinct to cover such a big story but having little ability to do so.

Finally a Fulton County SWAT team came to sweep the airport. We followed them around shooting video - by then the airport was essentially deserted. When it became clear we weren't flying anywhere anytime soon, my photographer and I went to the Amtrak station and cruised the highways documenting the effects of the event on transportation across the metro.

Later that night we went to Fort Stewart near Hinesville, Georgia to cover the military response to 9/11. A military base that had been so open to us and other civilians was suddenly locked down, creating massive traffic backups and confusion, even among the soldiers there. It was an stark vision of how life was about to drastically change for all of us. Mike Petchenik

On the morning of the 9/11, my clock radio alarm jolted me out of bed to the sound of news reports about the initial attack on New York. I distinctly remember racing to my television, where I remained glued to the coverage for several hours.

I was just a cub reporter, a few months into my first job in Augusta, working the night shift. My days didn't start until 2:30, but on that day, I went in early because I knew it was going to be busy. By the time I arrived to work, our small newsroom was buzzing with activity. Hundreds of miles away, there were still angles to cover and reaction to gather.

One of my first assignments was to tape a phone interview with a newspaper reporter at one our sister properties in Shanksville, PA. The reporter had been among the first journalists to arrive at the scene where Flight 93 had gone down. I still remember the shell-shocked accounts from a reporter who witnessed the destruction first-hand.

Later that day, I was sent to Augusta's main blood bank, where hundreds of people had turned out to donate blood to the survivors of the attacks. I remember being moved by the overwhelming show of support and patriotic spirit of the people waiting to give. I interviewed a woman who was terrified of needles and had never given blood before, but on that day, she felt compelled to do something, to help in some way. The whole city, like the rest of the country, had come together to mourn.

In the days ahead, we would learn a New York firefighter killed in action had a sister living in Augusta. Paul Tegtmeier was a member of Ladder Company 41 in the Bronx, and among the first to respond. I interviewed his sister, Joanne Kennelly, several times during my tenure in Augusta. She put a face to the pain that so many families across the country were feeling. I was always struck by her composure, strength, and resolve.

I've seen a lot in my career since that fateful day, but 9/11 will stand out, both personally and professionally, for the rest of my life.

Tom Regan My recollections of 9/11 are shared by many. Perhaps the best word to describe my reaction to seeing the attacks unfold in New York and Washington was surreal. I can recall Harstfield Jackson Airport resembling a ghost town after the airport was closed and flights canceled. I was also dispatched to the Georgia Emergency Management Agency where state officials were monitoring developments across the country and tracking any signs that Atlanta might be targeted for an attack.

It was a day in history that marked a turning point in our country that I'll never forget. Everyone was on guard and anxious. But most of all, thoughts and prayers were directed to the survivors of those who died on 9/11.

Jeff Dore The first plane had crashed into the first tower before I walked into the WSB-TV newsroom. All the eyes in the room fixed on all the TV monitors drew me to the pictures of the World Trade Center on fire. Managers began assembling in the conference room. Reporters began thinking of stories to do in Atlanta about aircraft safety, disasters in high rise buildings, people to interview and so on.

And then the second plane hit the second tower and we all knew those stories meant nothing. This was now an attack on all of us. And in that moment when the first tower collapsed, I said that most elemental of all prayers, the one people said all over the world almost in unison at that moment, "Oh, my God."

We had crews on the way almost immediately to get on a private plane to New York City. They waited hours before confirming no one was flying anywhere in America that day. I got in an SUV with photojournalist Tracy Reeves and we drove to Washington, DC. That's a long, long drive and we got there after dark.

The highway took us past the Pentagon, and I will never forget the scene; Before us, floodlights washed over the frantic scene of charred walls and rubble at the Pentagon. Directly beyond that, in the distance, floodlights lit up the Washington Monument, still standing, gleaming like a beacon. The juxtaposition was so stunning, it was a powerful symbol that we were attacked but not defeated.

The next day we went to the office of our U.S. Senator, Zell Miller. The old marine delivered one of the most powerful quotes I've ever gotten on camera. He said, "We must track down the people who did this," and he leaned forward, spearing me with intensity, "and kill them." It was simple, honest and direct, like Zell himself.