Where were you 14 years ago tomorrow? I was on the air.
A camera crew was in the 680 newsroom that morning. It was pure coincidence, of course. No one knew what would unfold later on. The Rogers TV crew was there to document a day in the life of the 680 News team. I was still on CHFI at that time, the morning newscaster with Don and Erin but working with the 680 team. I’d write for the 680 morning show, answer the phone and do whatever else needed doing, assemble my own newscasts and sprint down the hall to deliver them in the CHFI studio. It feels like a blip in my memory but I had that role for about three-and-a-half years.
Once events began to unfold, it was clear this would be a day unlike any other. Everyone stopped watching the clock. Shifts didn’t matter. The 680 morning team led by Paul Cook and Marlane Oliver were staying on the air and so was I, going into the CHFI studio at 10 or 15 minute intervals to provide updates. It was all hands on deck. Vacation? Forget about it. Carl Hantske and Kevin Misener were to get to New York City ASAP. News Director Stephanie Smyth’s sister, who lived in Manhattan, provided regular updates on the air. We were all as concerned as anybody listening to us, but we had a job to do and I remember thinking later that I was glad to have been busy, rather than sitting at home alone and worried.
It was a challenge for everyone to stick to the facts and not speculate, and it was unbelievably chaotic to attempt to cover it well. Information came out in bits and pieces and sometimes it was incorrect. At one point, CNN reported that there were five hijacked planes. All the while, first responders ran into those twin towers and we all know how that turned out. It was a living, breathing nightmare for everyone as it unfolded in front of us. One plane, then two, and so on.
It felt like the world stood still.
I remember having a fleeting thought: all of those times older relatives said, “you don’t know what if felt like to be in a war”, well, now we knew. This was our Pearl Harbor. It was an act of war.
Months later, CBC produced a program about 9/11 and used some of the Rogers footage shot that morning at 680 News. I didn’t even know I was being taped but they captured my look of horror, and then a brief recoil, as the second plane collided into the WTC. A moment later, I was out of my seat and heading down the hall to CHFI. That’s what it was like. There was no time to linger on how I felt about the attacks. I had a job to do.
I remember exactly where I was. Each morning back then I would head over to the club for my workout and I had just stepped out of the washroom seconds after the first plane hit and stood there watching as the second plane reached its target. I then went about with my workout but I was very distracted and more often than not, couldn’t recall what I was doing at the moment. For my thoughts were elsewhere.
I wonder how many realize that lives are still being lost to that tragedy. A friend of mine was a Toronto firefighter who went down to assist and returned with respiratory issues that will eventually kill him – just as they have killed countless other selfless souls who rushed in to help in the wake of those horrific crimes.
That’s a good point. The so-called Ash Lady who was in the famous photograph in the aftermath, just died of cancer. The after effects will go on for a long time.
I was pregnant with my first child. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he would be born into a different world than the one that existed up to that point. I was so sad for him.