VITAC employees joined a nation glued to their television sets on September 11, 2001. We also captioned much of what was on the air. On this tenth anniversary, we asked current and former employees to answer the question “Where were you on 9/11?”

Joe Karlovits

Founder, Former President, Canonsburg, PA

Where were you when you heard the news about 9/11?
On the way to work. Arrived at VITAC just as we started coverage. At that time they didn't know it was a jetliner. They were speculating that it was a private plane.

What was your initial response?
As the network coverage continued, it was determined that it was a jetliner that hit the first tower and then they obtained video of the 1st jetliner hitting tower 1. As the coverage continued, the second plane hit tower 2. Everybody was shocked, including the network anchors. It was very upsetting to see New York's trademark towers burning. Then we heard about an airliner hitting the Pentagon. We knew that America was being attacked. The networks received confirmation of which airlines' planes were involved and where they were flying out of. Adrian Jonas, one of our captioners who was on the air, screamed and became distraught because her brother was flying on that airline out of Boston Logan. She had to be relieved of her duties. Thankfully he was not on that flight.

Are there any events from that day or the following months that stand out in your mind?
When the first tower collapsed, I felt sick. I'll never forget it. My thoughts were about the thousands of people in the tower and the first responders who were trying to get them out. You knew that thousands of Americans just lost their lives. The networks were beginning to show pictures of people jumping from tower 2. It was just frightening to think of what these Americans were going through and how helpless they must have felt. Armand Nicholi, a VP at WordWave, was working at VITAC that week and staying at a local hotel. He was so upset over these events, that he asked if he could stay at our house that evening. He didn't want to be alone because this tragedy affected him so deeply.

As the events unfolded, how did you direct VITAC throughout the uncertainty?
As the coverage progressed, we were informed that we were the only captioning company who had a direct feed into the various networks. NCI and the Caption Center were supposed to pick up programming during the morning, but couldn't get through to CBS and ABC. Since VITAC was the only company that somehow stayed connected to all three networks, we were able to have NCI and the Caption Center dial through VITAC so they could pick up their contractual coverage of the days events. All of the networks went to 24-hour coverage of this tragedy, and it was a challenge to get this accomplished, but we did. The captioners actually felt it was a civic duty to provide access to this historical event. What a great staff!

How did VITAC as company respond to 9/11?
As I mentioned above, through the brilliance of our engineering staff, we were able to keep a hot connection into New York so that all of the captioning companies could provide coverage of the 9/11 events. Because almost all telephone communications into New York were shut down, I still, to this day, don't understand why our com lines into New York held. Thank God they did or the major networks would not have had captioned coverage.

What was VITAC's role during 9/11 and the following months?
Around the clock coverage continued for 2 days, and then the networks started drawing down. Not only was our staff exhausted, all of the network anchors were too. I was proud of what we accomplished for our deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. This was a historical tragedy, and VITAC was at the forefront of making it accessible to millions of people.

Jeff Hutchins

Founder, Former Executive VP, Planning & Development, Canonsburg, PA

At the beginning of September 2001, I was winding down my years with VITAC and aiming towards a January 31 retirement in 2002. I was still the Executive Vice President for Planning & Development, as I had been before LegaLink purchased VITAC in 2000. In that role, I analyzed existing and potential markets and clients for VITAC, and oversaw our marketing.

Normally, I arrived at VITAC's Canonsburg office at 9:00 a.m. As I drove to work on 9/11, I listened to NPR's "Morning Edition," as usual. When I was about five minutes away from VITAC, NPR announced that a plane had reportedly hit the World Trade Center. There were no other details. I assumed it was a small, private aircraft, or maybe one of the myriad helicopters that fill the New York City skies. I parked in the lot beside the Online Captioning studios and entered via the side stairwell. As I came on the floor, I immediately faced the monitors outside the studios where we then captioned CNN Headline News. It was 9:01 or 9:02, and the top story was the first plane that hit the north tower. It was a horrifying spectacle as I realized it was not a small plane after all, judging from the size of the damage. Still, I thought it was no more than an odd and tragic story, and I did not yet comprehend its magnitude. That all changed at 9:03, as we watched the second plane, United 175, hit the south tower.

All the captioners in the area instantly understood that one plane could be an accident, but two planes meant a coordinated, terrorist attack. There was hubbub and grief in the online area, but no panic or chaos. Everyone had a job to do, and they continued to do it despite each person's powerful emotional reaction to the events unfolding. We knew right away that there would be many hours of live coverage ahead, and that we would need all hands on deck. Within minutes, supervisors were on the phone trying to locate realtime captioners who were not on duty. Some of us had been through the days-long coverage of the start of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, and the lessons learned then were useful in planning a strategy for uninterrupted live captioning. Our disaster plan quickly unfolded.

There were some aspects of that plan we could not have anticipated. The scope and location of the World Trade Center calamity meant that telephone communications to New York City were unreliable at best. It was almost impossible to complete a phone call to New York successfully for the next 24 hours at least. Some telephone infrastructure was destroyed in the disaster, and the undamaged lines were overloaded as people across the country tried to reach friends and loved ones in NYC. Remember, cell phones were not as ubiquitous then as they have become.

Normally at 9:00, the networks' morning shows end and we disconnect the modems. On 9/11, we knew we had to keep the connections intact or risk being unable to reconnect. Other captioning companies, notably NCI and WGBH, would normally take over emergency-news captioning later in the day and establish their own connection to the networks. So we called them around 9:15 or 9:20 and told them we planned to keep our modem connections intact. They could still take over realtime captioning at their appointed times, but they should call the VITAC modem in Canonsburg, and we would route their data to New York. When we built the Canonsburg facility, we planned for this possibility and had designed a simple data patching system that would let us receive data on one modem and transmit it out another. That was another lesson learned from the Persian Gulf War, though we expected it would be used for VITAC's own captioners calling in from home and being patched to a network. Our foresight served us well over the next 96 hours.

When the second plane crashed, only Online employees were watching. President Joe Karlovits and people in Offline and administration jobs were unaware of the disaster. I ran to that area and informed them of what was going on. We had a big TV in the second-floor conference room, and another outside the room. We put news coverage on both sets and quickly drew a crowd of VITAC employees. All normal work ceased. We all watched in horror and silence until the two towers collapsed. At that point, people were too upset to return to their normal duties. We let people leave early if they wanted. The rest of us tried to console each other and come to grips with the unbelievable spectacle we had watched unfold together.

Bob Beyer

General Manager, Washington, DC

Our best recollection is that the first alert was when a captioner’s wife called the office. Other family members called with details about the second tower, the Pentagon, and other possible planes as the reports came on TV. After the Pentagon was hit, the news reported that there could be another plane headed towards DC, and people started to evacuate. I told the employees to go home, and that if any of them were concerned about taking metro through DC, they were welcome to come out to Tysons or Sterling with me. Ryan and I sent shows to Pillar and then I drove him home. Wilson Blvd. was choked with cars, and Ryan recalls that the weather was nice, so everyone had their car windows open and we could hear the radio reports all around us as we sat in traffic. We could hear sirens and see the smoke rising above the Pentagon, although we couldn’t see the actual building, which was about two miles away.

Daniel Jusinksi

Senior Offline Captioner, Pittsburgh, PA  

I grew up in northern New Jersey, about 25 miles from lower Manhattan. The majority of people in my hometown work in the city, and many worked in or around the twin towers at the time of the attack. I was in high school in 2001, and throughout the day on September 11th, news of the attacks began to filter in. I say “filter in” because the school administration had initially decided not to turn on any TVs or radios for fear of panic - but they couldn’t keep the news out, and everyone knew by midday. The secretaries were on the phones all morning with the office doors locked, trying to find whatever information they could about residents of the town, and many students wanted answers. My school’s main office has full-panel windows that separate it from the adjoining hallway. By noon, the office staff had improvised a notification system, covering the windows in what had to have been about 300 post-it notes with messages in marker – “(Student’s name) – Dad OK,” “(Student’s name) – Sister OK,” and so on. A large handful of these notes, rather than “Mother OK,” read “Call home” or “See principal.” The hallway was crowded and I didn’t look very closely, having already found out that my own family was safe. 11 people from my town died, and more were injured.

On my way home from school, I pulled over on a hill that overlooks one of the main cemeteries in town. I was always told that on a clear day, you could stand at the top of this hill and see the New York skyline in the distance. I had never been able to. But the column of smoke was clearly visible, even six hours after the towers fell.

But my family likes to look forward. Last year, my dad retired from teaching and had his retirement party on his first available Saturday – by coincidence, September 11, 2010. Throughout the day we mentioned the date and told a few stories - we have a friend who is a fire chief, and his were the most intense – but it felt good to have some enjoyable memories on an otherwise somber date.

Tim Taylor

VP, Engineering and Facility Operations

That is a day I will never forget. While driving to the office in Pittsburgh, I heard on the radio that a plane had hit one of the WTC buildings. At that point, I thought it was a freak aviation accident – perhaps a plane was having problems. I got into the office and headed into the engineering shop. At that very moment, I saw the second plane hit the other WTC tower. At this point I knew it was intentional and not an accident.

Of course, all of the networks started covering this full time. We were already dialed into the networks, and while we were not scheduled to caption the networks full time, we did not want to disconnect any modem connections to the network encoders for fear of not being to dial back in. What we did was contact the other caption providers (I believe they were NCI and WGBH). We quickly put together a system where NCI or WGBH could dial into use and we would patch the data over to the modems connected to the networks. We did this (I believe) for several days. After a few days, the dust settled (literally and figuratively), and we went back to normal coverage where the other captioning agencies dialed directly into the networks. During this time, we kept round the clock eyes on our make shift modem setups to make sure that we did not miss any air. And, to the best of my knowledge, there was not any loss of captions.

I was very proud that we were able to ensure the continuity of captioning for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community that day. I could only imagine what would have gone through their minds if they could not read what was transpiring.

Jane Proud

Realtime Captioner

I was working the night shift, and so I was not at work the morning of the 9/11 attacks. While out walking my dog, a neighbor stopped and told me a plane had hit the World Trade Center. By the time I got home and turned on the TV, the first tower had already collapsed. It was almost unbelievable.

Then the local Pittsburgh NBC affiliate broke in to the national news feed. When does that ever happen? It was to report that a plane had turned around over Cleveland and was not responding to air traffic controllers. That turned out to be Flight 93, the plane that eventually would go down near Shanksville, PA.

As all VITAC captioners did back then, whenever there was breaking news, I called the office to see if I was needed, but I was told to wait and rest up until my shift started, that they'd need people to relieve those already on air.  And it was presumed that we'd be captioning live all night.

Everyone was busy. Coordinators would arrange the switches of different networks and shows and feed them into the control rooms. We'd try to give someone a break when they needed one. I honestly don't remember how long I wrote or how many hours I spent at work until the next team came in to take over. The days afterward were a blur. But it doesn't really matter. What I do remember is the shock and emotion of what I was seeing and knowing that people were relying on our captions.

Cindy Hinds

Realtime Captioner

I was sorting out timesheets from my home in Stafford, VA when the first plane went in, captioning The Weather Channel by the time the second plane went into the second tower, then stayed on the air as long as we could to keep the phone lines open. We traded off over the next week and once we were confident we could get through. I remember, just like the song, watching "I Love Lucy" on my breaks between while we amassed lists of proper names and places. It was awful. I never cried, though, because I was so focused on the work, until…

It was the first NASCAR race back and I was captioning the opening to it. They zeroed in on a HUGE mechanic while the planes flew in the missing man formation. He was breaking down and the announcer said that he had a brother who was a firefighter in NYC and he hadn't been found yet. That's when I lost it. Two weeks' worth of shock had to be taken care of in the two-minute commercial before the race began.

Joanne Riley

Remote Captioner

Ten years ago I was working here in the Midwest at a major toy store, you know the one, and a few co-workers and myself were sitting in my car waiting for the opening manager to arrive. On the radio news, I heard them say a plane had hit the first tower, and we got silent to listen to more. We had all been busy getting ready for the day and didn't know about it. Before smart phones, we could only speculate.

We then heard the report of a second plane hitting the other tower and we all agreed it was a planned event and sat mostly silent listening to the reporter. Once the store opened and we moved inside, it was quite obvious the mood was somber. We decided that the day would not be somber, however, and with 15 minutes to go before the store opened, our team came together. We gathered up candy to be handed out all day, blew up balloons and brightened up the store, wore costumes and funny hats. We opened toys and games and invited customers to join in. We sometimes simply talked about the events and exchanged news. Our sales were down that day as traffic was limited, but spirits ran a little higher for us and our customers.

Only after I got home did I find out my stepson was supposed to be in New York at a building right across the street from the catastrophe but the meeting was called off at the last minute the day before.

Sayward Elliot

Former Realtime Captioner Scheduler

If you didn't know this, before I went into ministry, I worked in broadcast communications (a still burning passion of mine). Upon graduating college, getting married, and beginning real life, a company took a big risk and hired me. Actually a wonderful woman, Kathy DiLorenzo, took a risk and hired me. I went through only one interview. It was longer, but it was only one. It was my only job interview. I found it in the newspaper. And, it was the best fit for me. I was the schedule administrator of about 60 closed captioners (excellent court reporters) both employees and independent contractors. My first day on the job (which I still didn't really understand what I was hired to do) I worked along side of the girl I was replacing, Heather. I was thrown so much information my first day, my head was spinning. Little did I know my head wouldn't stop spinning until about 5 weeks after I left my job…a year and a half later.

Closed captioning is hard. There isn't a machine that is figuring out what Anderson Cooper is saying, on CNN, there's a person, sitting in a room with head phones on, writing what he is saying. And that's true for whatever you're watching. “Monday Night Football,” The “Today” Show, any news. If it's live, or even pre-recorded and fed on a live line, someone is writing at that instant. To say the least, you have to be really good to do what they do. A closed captioner goes to school for court reporting, but then goes on to train for about another year to year and half, to get their error level way, way down. (I think I backspaced about twelve times just writing that last sentence.)

I was on my way to work on 9.11 when all the sadness began. I got to work at 8:30am and didn't leave until 7pm the next day. Yes, we get frustrated with the media at times, but thankfully they were on duty, and stayed on duty, to let the world know what was going on. But what about all the people who were deaf, couldn't hear what was going on. Thank the Lord for VITAC. I had people working around the clock, writing as CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS covered non-stop. Think of typing, nonstop, for two hours. Your hands would hurt, your fingers would hurt. Your wrists would hurt. Sure, Katie Couric was tired, but my writers were exhausted. I was so proud of them. My independent contractors were calling me, offering their services to help. They all came together. I was so proud to be "running that show.” So proud to have the relationships with those folks that they would be willing to give up two hour time slots to write and write and write.

I was very tired the next day. I was glued to the TV the next day. But, I was also proud to be part of an organization which was so dedicated to the purpose of closed captioning. Not only was it a family run-business, everyone in there was and still is a family. It was a hard job to leave, and I still turn my captions on to see if it's VITAC that's on the other line.

So, next time you mute your TV and your little words pop up, take a moment to thank the Lord for the person sitting in a little room. Writing and writing, taking the time to let you know what's going on.

Gale Muehlbauer

Realtime Captioner, San Franscico, CA

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was living in Northern California and working for VITAC. I was sleeping in, having captioned the late local news the night before. My family usually tiptoed around the house to let me sleep, but I awoke around 7:30 a.m. to the sound of the TV in the living room very loud, and my husband’s voice on the phone. I immediately knew something was wrong and jumped out of bed and ran into the living room to see the pictures on the news of the Twin Towers, which had just collapsed, and my husband’s worried face. He told me what happened, and my first question was – “Where is Chris?!”

My sister’s husband is a Port Authority police officer and often assigned to the area in and around the Towers. He was on the phone with my sister, who was telling her that Chris had been on the night shift, at a train station five minutes away from the Towers, and had decided to go home that morning about 45 minutes before it happened. He normally would stay for a double shift, but decided at the last minute to leave at the end of his shift. Many of the officers on duty that day on the following shift were lost. They were the first responders. He immediately called in to work and was assigned to Newark Airport that first day, since he was only a few minutes away. If he hadn’t been on his way home, he would have been sent to the Towers for certain, along with the other men on that shift who didn’t make it.

The very next thing I did that morning was run into the office and turn on my captioning equipment. Then, I picked up the phone and called the schedulers to let them know when and for how long I would be able to work that day and for the immediate future. This was our usual M.O., but I knew this was an “all-hands-on-deck” situation, and getting an idea of how many people they could get on the air ASAP was vital to cover the work that was going to need to be covered day and night for the next five days (all with no commercial breaks).

It had been my experience, in Northern California (home of many a natural disaster) working as a remote captioner for a small company, and later, working for VITAC, that during a crisis, when long stints of special news reports were called for, you would have writing sessions upwards of four hours or so at a time. It quickly became clear that this situation was far more emotionally draining, and a schedule of two-hour writing blocks for each captioner was instituted. I can only imagine the amount of work it took to put something like that together! Many of us had personal connections to what was happening on the East Coast, and we just couldn’t handle writing more than that.

We worked all hours of the day and night. I remember not leaving the house for three days, and walking through the grocery store in a fog. People acted as if everything was normal. I wanted to grab people and shake them and scream, “How can you act like nothing has happened?!!” It was the most surreal feeling I’ve ever experienced. It was like being in an episode of, “The Twilight Zone.”

It meant a great deal to be able to work at such a vital and worthwhile endeavor, captioning nonstop the events of that day and the days to follow. For me personally, since my brother-in-law worked at Ground Zero for months digging in the rubble looking for remains, attending funeral after funeral, working made me feel closer to him. I also had a friend in NYC who is deaf, and she told me afterwards that her TV was on nonstop with the captions on, and she hung on every word. It really brought home how important our job is to people with hearing impairments that are hit with a catastrophe, in order to help them cope with what’s happening and to take actions for their safety. It rankles me when people say, “Oh, all you do is watch TV all day.” What we do is so much more! Just ask anyone who’s deaf.

Carol Epperley

Realtime Captioner

It was a beautiful September morning, September 11, 2011. I had just dropped my daughter off at school, treated myself to coffee and a croissant at the local bakery, Sugarbakers and headed into my office. At the time I owned Oak Grove Reporting in Leesburg, Virginia, about an hour west of Washington, D.C., 45 minutes if I’m the one doing the driving.

My staff of four reporters had already arrived at their assignments or were en route. Our work was 99% in Leesburg, and rarely did we go into Washington, D.C. for our assignments. Later I felt blessed that our work on this day was all local.

I was doing miscellaneous office work; reading the mail, paying bills, probably starting to work on payroll. That part I don’t remember, but I do remember the radio was on, so I must not have had to work on anything that needed deep concentration.

Then the local reporter on the news announced that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Tower. At that moment I wasn’t too concerned, knowing they probably would have all the details on the evening news and hypotheses about what was wrong with the plane or pilot. However, it seemed only minutes later the reporter came back and said another plane had crashed into the World Trade Tower.

That’s when my ears picked up. He was talking to his co-anchor and casually mentioned what could be wrong; there was no fog in New York City, how could two planes crash into the Towers like that? This is moments before the third plane hit the Pentagon. Then the report came out that a plane struck the Pentagon and it looked like we were under attack.

My husband at the time was working for Unisys Corporation who had contracted him out to work at the General Services Administration in Washington, D.C. Only a few miles from the Pentagon and blocks from the White House and Capitol.

I tried to get my husband on the phone. No luck. I couldn’t reach him through a land line or cell phone.

When I heard that the Pentagon was attacked, I closed up the office and raced down the stairs to my car. Thankfully, my daughter’s school was only a half a mile away and I went straight there to pick her up.

Now my daughter at the time was 11 and was in the autism class. She didn’t like school to begin with and although glad that for her, her school day just ended, she couldn’t understand why I was taking her out and also why every other parent was there pulling their children out. How do you explain to a special needs child that their country is being attacked, but you don’t know by who or why, but we just need to get home, and get home NOW.

I got home and tried to explain to my daughter we were now in a war. I let her watch the TV for a while, but it was all confusing to her. Eventually I was able to let her know we were safe and everything would be fine once dad got home.

I still couldn’t reach my husband through the phones, but somehow I was able to connect to the Internet and keep my e-mail up in case he was able to e-mail me a message. It was two hours later that he finally was able to call home via a satellite phone that his supervisor at GSA had to let him call home for a minute to let me know he was going to try to get home and that he was safe. It was four more hours before he walked through the door. He usually took the bus into D.C., but on this day one of his co-workers had driven in and loaded up the car with folks heading to the western suburbs of Virginia.

We were fortunate. Our family was safe. No harm had come to us. A friend of mine who I knew worked at the Pentagon, and I tried to call a few days later. I had to leave a voice mail. Again, I was very fortunate to have her return the call. It just so happened that that week she was in California at a conference, and although her office suffered some damage and she had to move to a new office temporarily, she herself was fine.

And so this is a day of remembrance and prayer in our family as well as a day of giving thanks. Unlike so many other families over the past ten years, our family has changed little, only growing older. But hopefully now wiser and more aware and observant of our surroundings and taking a little bit less for granted the things we have and the people we have in our lives.

Marty Block

Founder, Former Executive VP, Finance, Canonsburg, PA

On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I had a 9:00 a.m. appointment with my doctor, whose offices were in the Passavant Hospital Medical Offices Building, in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, so I had scheduled the day home, not at VITAC.

When I arrived in the waiting room everyone was gathered watching events unfold on the television, including the doctor. At that point the American Airlines Flight had crashed into the World Trade Center, North Tower. Nobody was certain of what type of plane, whether it was a private plane or commercial plane. Shortly thereafter we watched a commercial plane, United Airlines Flight 175, fly directly into the second building of the World Trade Center. We continued to watch events unfold in the doctor’s offices. About a half hour later there report came in that United Airlines Flight 77 had flown into the side of the Pentagon.

I left the doctor’s offices (without the examination) and once outside I tried to call my son, Richard, whom I knew was attending a meeting in the Sheraton Hotel, in Arlington, Virginia, adjacent to the Pentagon, but did not receive an answer. I called my older son, Victor, who was working from his home. He told me the skies over the Washington, DC Area were filled with jet fighters. I called my spouse, Hilde, who had her own doctor’s appointment, and she said she watched events unfold in her doctor’s offices. By the time I arrived home and put the television on, the South Tower had begun to collapse and United Airlines Flight 93 had crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. I finally reached my son, Richard, who was fine. He indicated his meeting broke up early and he drove home through the local streets.

Missy Bernstein

Realtime Captioner

This was the entry from my personal journal, which I've been keeping for years and years, especially filled with memorable moments and historic events. It's a little long but it's the story. I was married and living in Atlanta, Georgia, with my husband, Guy Bernstein, and our two daughters, ages 13 and 14 at the time, and working as a captioner. This also includes a poem that my 13-year-old daughter wrote the night of 9/11. See it through the eyes of a 13 year old. In retrospect, even more telling than I originally thought.

9/11/2001

Today made history. Here's what happened. It was a beautiful Atlanta morning. The sky was crystal clear and really blue. I had my normal "Good Morning America" on as I sipped coffee and dried dishes. I think it was around ten minutes till nine when the broadcast was interrupted with a special bulletin. Of course, I dried my hands and looked up at the TV. I could not believe what I was even seeing. I am getting the goose bumps as I make the entry in my journal. I look up in astonishment as I saw one of the towers at the World Trade Center with smoke coming through the MIDDLE of it! I yelled for Guy to come downstairs as he was heading out the door. We both stood there in silence, mouths hanging opened. My heart started pounding and immediately, the floodgates opened. You know, the silent tears that stream down your face with no words? And then, with no apparent warning, the second building was hit! We couldn't speak! To see it unfold live like that was extraordinary and surreal.

I can sum up the way I felt in a couple of sentences. You can hear what people are saying, but you can't talk. You feel like you can't breathe, but you are. You feel like your shaking legs are going to give out and you're going to collapse, but you just sit down? Guy started to tremble, visibly. After what seemed like a really long pause, I just blurted out "How can people hate us so much?" That was my first reaction. As we stood there in complete silence and watched everything unfold, there were no words.

How this affected my 13-year-old eighth grade daughter:

And then the phone rang. It was Britt's school. I was the "pick-up mom" on "the list" that my carpool had for emergencies. Since Woodward's campus was near the Atlanta airport, they were shutting down the airport and the school as well, in fear of "retaliation!" I was on it. Without thinking, I'm in "mom mode" on my way to pick up five eighth-graders. I stopped for some snacks and when I went into the convenience store, the TV was on and the store seemed silent as everyone went about their business, in a daze. I had no idea what I was about to face.

I got to Woodward and drove to the middle school campus and sat in the carpool line. What I saw were a lot of middle-school aged kids, walking around on their cell phones, making arrangements to either get picked up or tell their parents where they were and listen for instructions as to where they should go. Their school emergency pick-up plan put into action at its very best. Everything going off without a hitch. It didn't occur to me that one of the little girls about to get into my car, her parents were divorced, and she lived with her father in Atlanta. Her mother worked in the towers! I didn't even have a chance to absorb that thought before the kids piled into my wagon.

They really had no idea what was going on. Just that there had been an explosion in NYC and they were shutting down the airports. I didn't want to give too many details so I stuck with a very vague rendition of the facts as I knew them. Their parents could take care of the rest. The car was eerily silent. They all KNEW that for school to shut down like that in the middle of the day, it HAD to be something big! I dropped the girls off one by one, and Britt and I headed home. The minute the last kid got out, B was like -- Mom, what's going on? What REALLY happened? What are you not telling me?

I didn't want to scare here either, since Woodward Academy is literally within miles of the Atlanta airport, the largest airport in the country and a clear terror threat. That's why they shut down the school because of the airport.

We spent the next couple of hours watching all the reports and then we turned the TV off for a while and then the dialogue began. Our family definitely bonded that night in an inexplicable way as we talked and talked and talked into the early-morning hours.

Brittany did not have school the following day "in an abundance of caution," the news said, and Brittany spent the cancelled school day holed up in her room doing homework and on her computer, clearly in "work mode." I never look over her shoulder. Her door's opened. Right before dinner, Brittany handed me something she wrote. It was what she was working on all day long. Unbelievable! I realize that this poem, if you can call it that, was the culmination of her processing her feelings about the events that happened the day before. Very healthy, actually. It is called "At Thirteen," which I think I should share with the world. It's so telling and real -- 9/11 from the perspective of a 13-year-old girl. As I read it, I got a knot in my throat as tears rolled down my face, once again. I bet there are a lot of young teens that felt the same say. Mom always says, "Out of the mouths of babes!" She is so right.

** This poem was later published in "The Jewish Times," a local Atlanta publication, the Woodward Academy Newsletter as well as our synagogue newspaper.

Kim R.

Realtime Captioner

I was working in the marketing department at a biotech firm in Seattle on 9/11. I had seen the coverage of the towers being hit as I was getting ready for work, so I knew something big was happening that day. Everyone on the bus ride into work was listening to portable radios with looks of shock and horror on their faces. When I got to work, the TV in the training room was tuned into the national news, and everyone was crowded around watching the coverage.

When I opened my computer, I discovered that my cubicle-mate, who had been out getting ready to have a baby, actually had her baby just that morning. Her daughter, Autumn, was born on the morning of September 11, 2001. Her family was scheduled to fly into Seattle from New York City that very morning. Luckily, none of her family was on any of the affected flights, however, with the grounding of all the planes, neither of her parents were able to be there for a couple weeks. My husband and I were married on August 25th, 2001, and were scheduled to be leaving for Hawaii on September 12th. Obviously, that didn't happen. We ended up having to postpone our honeymoon a couple months, once the planes were able to fly again.

This week, I seem to be having to write a lot of anniversary coverage. I've spent more time weeping and crying as I write more this week than in a very long time. There are so many stories about the families left behind and the heroic deeds of the day. It's all so touching and moving and heartbreaking all at the same time.

Sheri Smargon

Realtime Captioner

I was woken up by a phone call from my mom, asking if I was watching the news. I wasn't, since I was sleeping, but she told me that a plane crashed into the World Trade. I told her she must be wrong, that didn't make any sense. As she was trying to explain what was going on, the captioning company I was working for at that time called me. I told my mom I'd call her back and answered my office's call. They asked me if I could hop on a national news station right away because there was a plane crash in New York. I said yes, went to my office, turned everything on and connected my modem. I remember I couldn't get an audio line, so I was using the television's audio feed.

Much to my horror, I saw what everyone was so upset about. I started to write the minute I was connected and I stayed there, writing, transfixed to the television for over eight and a half hours. At some point during my coverage, I had to turn my chair around so that I couldn't see the screen. I was crying, shaking, trying to remember to write, instead of staring at the screen with my mouth hanging open. I started writing shortly after 9 am. I stopped somewhere before 6. Even though I was no longer on the air, I just sat in my chair. I couldn't move.

To this day, I find it very, very hard to watch coverage of the attacks. I have never watched any of the movies, any of the documentaries relating to that day. I actually have the news coverage from that day taped on VHS somewhere in a box in my closet. I've never watched it. This Sunday, however, on the tenth anniversary, I am going to sit back with a box or two of Kleenex and watch everything and hope that everyone affected, directly or indirectly, can continue to move on.

Joyce Matteson

I can still remember walking into the office that morning direct from the doctor's and wondering why everyone was standing around the TV by the reception desk. That was when Laura Doty told me the twin towers had been hit by a plane. We watched mesmorized. Didn't want to watch but couldn't stop. Some of us crying. while others were too stunned to even talk. What a great piece of rememberence.

Damien Morris

Former Captioning Coordinator

It happened at the very beginning of that particular workday for me. I was at the CNN Headline News desk waiting to start my shift when Jake came down and I misheard him say that a plane had hit the Empire State Building.

At that point in time, I had worked at Vitac for a couple years and had thus seen many, many stories about plane crashes, and at the time, I thought that this was just "another" one. I even remember saying to Collin, "Well, I guess we're gonna have to change our rundown."

When the HN coverage switched to the Twin Towers, I was a little less cavalier, especially when I heard their announcer reacting to seeing the second plane hit.

After that, I remember the conference call and the mode we went into and focused on that. To this day, when I tell people where I was on 9/11, I say that I was exactly where I needed to be. The nature of our job gave me something to think about other than, "Oh my goodness, we've been attacked!"

Laura Doty

Former Marketing Supervisor

There are kids in school now who have no idea what actually happened that day and we all must never forget! I remember sort of hearing something on the radio about a plane crash when driving into work but didn't think much of it. Then after I got to work, I remember responding in disbelief to the full news. I worked in marketing at VITAC at the time and many of us on the administration side didn't get much done that day as we were glued to the TV in the lobby. And then when Flight 93 went down, we were concerned for people we knew in the area. That day I responded in stunned silence, today it is moving to hear all the stories of a Nation that stands together. I give a big kudos to those in the live captioning production area who more or less kept their composure and worked tirelessly in the days, weeks following so that millions of Americans could have access to the same news.

Mark Paluso

Manager of Realtime Coordinators, Canonsburg, PA

It was a terrible day in the world, but that day and several to follow were some of the proudest days of my career here at VITAC. Every member of VITAC, from the owners, to the Managers, to the Captioners, Schedulers, Coordinators, Engineers and Systems people worked together in every way possible and necessary to make sure that we were on the air with captions for as many networks and stations as possible. Some of them were not even VITAC clients. And we also worked with all of the other captioning companies to stay on air with such vital information. Competition melted away, and whoever could get through to encoders and stay connected did so regardless of coverage times and contracts. It was one of the pivotal moments for me that solidified concretely that I had made the right choice in taking a job at this company and stay for so many years.

Lesley Croston

Former Production Coordinator Supervisor

I was at VITAC the morning of 9/11/01.

It started as a normal morning and the online department was in full swing with our news and entertainment programming. The production coordinators and supervisors had all been busy working since we had already started our daily shifts hours before. We heard the first reports of the plane crash and began watching all the network televisions in the supervisors' area, trying to piece together what was happening before our eyes. We gathered together in shock as we saw the second tower being crashed into and then reports of a crash at the Pentagon.

All the while, we are continuing to caption our shows and trying to reach out to our master control contacts at the networks to prepare for emergency coverage. We discovered that it was difficult to get through and lines were obviously down to try to reach New York. We worked with our VITAC management, scheduling and engineering teams to maintain our modem connections for the lines that we had already established, providing captions to the nation. Many coordinators and realtime captioners who were off shift, were calling and emailing, volunteering to help in any way needed. In the next days and weeks ahead there was great coordination between VITAC and other caption providers to provide continued captioning for our viewers. There was lots of great teamwork all around at VITAC as we got through those days together.

Eric Hegerle

System Analyst II, Canonsburg, PA  

I was not at VITAC 10 years ago, I worked at AAA, and was at work as it occurred. Within minutes the phone lines were tied up. We could not get in touch with anyone. But where I was employed had little bearing on me that day, it was where I volunteered.

At the time I was an active volunteer member of the Salvation Army of Western Pennsylvania Disaster Services as their Communications officer. Once flight 93 went down in Shanksville, PA, I was deployed by them to the Allegheny County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to represent the Salvation Army. I spent the next 12 plus hours there. One of the things that stands out, aside from the obvious, occurred sometime late afternoon or evening, I can't be sure as the day became one big blur. As agencies from the entire county, military, and Federal government were all in one room, it was loud. A news story showing bombs being set off in Afghanistan came on, and the Chief of Alleghany County's EMA yelled. "Look! We're getting them back" or something like that. A huge cheer went up! Needless to say, that is not what it was at all, rather stock footage of some other battle. You would be amazed at the things that went on that day that never made the news. FBI agents were in and out of the EOC. They were investigating report after report of suspicious activity. Instant paranoia and fear had set in nationwide. Driving the 6 or so miles home, I did not pass a single car, even going through downtown Pittsburgh. Surreal does not begin to describe that drive. In the days that followed I was interviewed several times by different media agencies about the Salvation Army’s role at all 3 locations, Pennsylvania, New York and the Pentagon.

Where I lived at the time, way up on a hill in Pittsburgh's Beechview neighborhood, I could see every plane that went in and out of Greater Pittsburgh Airport. All was silent, the sky was empty. Not a single plane that wasn't battleship grey was in the air. In the coming weeks, when one did fly over I was startled, and ran outside to make sure it was military. On the 12th is when it really set in as I had a little time to really think about the day before. We were attacked. My youngest, Kayleigh, was just 6 months old, and this is the world ahead of her? Boy I hope not!

NEVER forget, never surrender! God Bless the USA!