HFR 9/11: WTOP reporters, anchors remember covering 9/11: ‘An unforgettable, terrible day’ – WTOP News

Most people will never forget where they were and what they were doing on Sept. 11, 2001 — including WTOP anchors and reporters tasked with covering the deadliest terrorist attack ever carried out on U.S. soil.

The beautifully sunny, cool weather of that Tuesday morning provided no clues that four passengers flights had been hijacked — two from Boston Logan International Airport, one from Washington Dulles International Airport and one from Newark International Airport. Two planes slammed into the World Trade Center towers, one flew into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back — killing a total of 2,977 victims, not including the 19 hijackers.

Now, 25 years later, here are recollections from some of WTOP’s reporters and anchors.

Dave Johnson: From giddy to aghast

“It’s impossible to describe the emotional swing of that day, September 11th — I woke up at 3:30 in the morning, giddy,” said Johnson, who was WTOP’s Sports Director in 2001. “I was going to be reporting the lead story that morning — Michael Jordan coming back to play for the Washington Wizards.”

Johnson’s reports were the lead story that morning, in the morning show anchored by Mike Moss and Richard Day.

“We were interviewing former players like Phil Chenier, we were so excited,” Johnson said. “And then, shortly before 9 we saw the video — something I could not comprehend.”

American Airlines Flight 11, from Boston bound for Los Angeles, struck the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m.

As WTOP’s coverage quickly shifted from the happy news of a basketball legend returning to the nation’s capital, Johnson knew his sports reports were done for the day.

“I was on the air when the Gulf War started,” Johnson recalled. “That was in a faraway land, but now the incomprehensible — America was under attack.”

Neal Augenstein: Heavy, heavy smoke

When the second plane — United Airlines Flight 175 — was steered into the World Trade Center’s south tower at 9:03 a.m., news director Mike McMearty dispatched me to Ronald Reagan National Airport, knowing that air travel would be severely affected.

As soon as I arrived at the airport, on the upper departure level, I looked over the trees, and saw dark smoke. Standing nearby was an airport employee, communicating on a two-way radio. He told me a plane had crashed into the Pentagon.

I got back into my work vehicle, and started driving toward the Pentagon, while trying to call the WTOP newsroom. Unfortunately, we had a brand new telephone system in the newsroom, which resulted in numerous dropped calls during that day.

After a four or five minute drive, I entered Interstate 395 South, approaching Crystal City, and had a clear view of the Pentagon, and was able to reach the newsroom.

Anchor Mike Moss alerted the WTOP audience, “We have some indication of fire and smoke at the Pentagon — WTOP’s Neal Augenstein, can you tell us what you see at the Pentagon?”

With the sirens of emergency vehicles screaming by, complicated by the new phone system, I asked Moss if he could hear me. When he and Richard Day assured me they could, I reported, “I’m standing here on, what is this, 395? Right by the Boundary Channel Drive exit, looking across to the Pentagon, seeing heavy, heavy smoke.”

After that report, I drove closer to the Pentagon. The police scanner I was listening to said there was a fourth hijacked plane that appeared to be heading toward Washington. Not surprisingly, I was unable to get a call through to the newsroom.

I turned on my audio recorder, in the event that another plane crashed into the Pentagon.

At the time I had a tiny Motorola pager clipped to my belt. With my thumbs, I typed: “Unconfirmed report. Arlington police say FAA warning another hijacked plane fifteen miles from Pentagon and heading toward.” I hit enter, and hoped the message would transmit.

Bruce Alan: Everyone was worried

WTOP anchor, Bruce Alan was in the newsroom when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. With family living and working in New York City, he was concerned for their safety, while scrambling to gather information.

“Early reports were that a small plane crashed into the building, so I called a friend who lives right across from where the World Trade Center was. He looks out and it slowly dawned on him that this was way more serious than that,” Alan said.

Alan’s sister worked in lower Manhattan.

“She ended up walking from the office on Wall Street up the FDR Drive, which had been closed, up to about 54th Street where my parents’ apartment was,” he said. “She was OK — covered with dust, but she was fine — and my parents were OK, too.”

In the D.C. area, several school systems dismissed students early.

“Everybody was worried about the kids in school,” Alan recalled. “It was a crazy day.”

Brennan Haselton: Dispelling misinformation

Intending to get to the Pentagon from the WTOP newsroom, which at the time was located near the Washington Cathedral, reporter Brennan Haselton “couldn’t get across the river.”

“There had been a report that a building in Rosslyn was on fire,” Haselton recalled. “I was able to confirm to the station that was not the case.”

“From there I went to the State Department, where there had been a report of a bombing, and that wasn’t true,” he said. “I stopped around the White House, where there were fighter jets, flying very low.”

He made his way to Capitol Hill, interviewing people streaming from the area.

“And what I remember most about being on the Hill was the police officers on the roof of the Supreme Court with binoculars, as they had not confirmed that all planes that had been hijacked were accounted for,” Haselton said.

On his way back to the station, the pastor of a church on Massachusetts Avenue “had put out a sign that said, ‘Open for prayer,’” he recalled. “I went in and talked with him, and it was very emotional for him — it was quite the coda of an unforgettable, terrible day.”

Amy Morris: They just wanted to call home

By midmorning, reporter Amy Morris headed to the White House, the National Mall, and the streets of downtown D.C.

“I was trying to talk to anybody who could spare a moment to tell me about what they were experiencing,” Morris, now an anchor with Bloomberg News, recalled.

By 1:30 p.m., D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams declared a state of emergency.

“Everyone was being evacuated from the city. These folks were trying to get out on foot, hopping in cars with strangers, grabbing rides with friends whenever they could,” Morris said.

In a time before smartphones, cellphone signals and landlines were jammed.

“I found a payphone on the National Mall — it had 40 people deep,” Morris said. “They just wanted to call home and let their families know that they were safe.”

After the evacuation, Morris walked north, toward the station, in silence.

“You could hear the electric buzz in the street lights and traffic lights. I was standing on a corner waiting for the light to turn from red to green, and you could hear it, the buzzing of the electricity. That’s how quiet downtown D.C. was.”

Chas Henry: I can’t remember what happened that day

Before he left for the WTOP newsroom that morning, anchor and reporter Chas Henry knew the first tower of the World Trade Center had been hit.

As he drove in, Henry, a combat-decorated veteran of the 1991 Gulf War for his service in the U.S. Marine Corps, had his binder of military contacts spread on the passenger seat, as he tried to set up interviews.

“I passed the Pentagon on Route 27, it was to my right, probably 10 minutes before the aircraft impacted there,” Henry said.

Despite his military training and radio experience, “Apparently, I had worked in shock through that first day, because I have no recollections of what we did that day,” Henry said. “Friends tell me they heard me on the radio, but I can’t remember.”

The events changed Henry’s career. He had recently been hired to co-anchor middays with Bruce Alan, and periodically report on military issues.

“From that point on, virtually for the remainder of my career, I reported on national security affairs,” Henry said. “And, I’m still at a loss, though, on this pivotal moment in our national history and in my life, as to why I can’t remember what happened that day.”

Shawn Anderson: Wanted to create a sense of normalcy

When WTOP afternoon anchor Shawn Anderson took air at noon with his then-co-anchor Diane Kepley, the scope of the terror was still being absorbed.

“We didn’t know where President Bush was at the time — he’d been in Sarasota, Florida, reading to elementary school kids,” Anderson said. “They whisked him out of there pretty quickly, but didn’t tell us immediately where he had gone.”

The crash of United Airlines Flight 93 into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, “really got to me, because Shanksville is this tiny town in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, and it’s 40 miles away from my hometown of Mount Pleasant,” he said.

After a state of emergency had been declared in the District, Anderson lobbied hard to break-away from network coverage, and return to WTOP’s traffic and weather format.

“What I wanted to do was create a sense of normalcy, at least one sense of normalcy for everybody who was trying to get out of the city,” Anderson said.

During a lull of information about the plane crashes, Anderson thought it was important to allow traffic reporter Bob Marbourg to provide extra information to confused, worried travelers.

“What we had was Bob giving us assurances that if you stuck with it, you would eventually get out of the city, OK,” Anderson said.

At the end of his shift, “I got onto the Beltway and I was around the Mormon Temple, and I broke down in tears — I was sobbing,” Anderson said. “Just the enormity of what had happened, knowing how many people had died, knowing that maybe I knew somebody who was in the wreckage of that day.”

Judlyne Lilly: A story without end

Longtime WTOP anchor Judlyne Lilly had the day off, on Tuesday, September 11. When she saw that the Pentagon had been hit, “I jumped out of my chair and called the station, offering any assistance I could offer — I was told I was needed to anchor that night, to give the staff some relief.”

Lilly says she glad to contribute to the team effort, “knowing that this was a story without end.”

She was right. Unlike a typical news day, events connected to September 11 stretched on for the WTOP news team and its listeners.

“Just as we, and everyone else, was about to catch our breath, there were the anthrax attacks — two D.C. postal workers were killed, among others,” said Lilly. A total of five people died and 17 were sickened from anthrax infections in mailings sent through the U.S. Postal Service, in September and October.

“Then there was the Shoe Bomber,” in December 2001, when Richard Reid tried to detonate homemade bombs hidden in his shoes on a flight from Paris to Miami, said Lilly. “And the next year, we had to report on the D.C. snipers.”

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