I think the "small plane" report came about because the WTC towers were so incredibly huge, even a passenger jet actually looked like a small plane next to them.
I am reading the 9/11 Natter thread right now. Steph L. was notably profane. So many people I miss, and so many people I am surprised to realize we didn't know yet (I was still lurking, myself). Here is my favorite "we rule" so far:
Matt The Bruins fan:
Have I said lately how much I love all the Buffistas? Other web forums I've just checked are full of people arguing, casting recriminations, and calling for us to nuke "them" without a clear idea of who's actually responsible. By contrast, the people here are all inquiring after each other's safety, offering moral support, and hoping for measured and compassionate conduct by the authorities. If Buffistas ruled the world...
but I'm curions how the "small plane" report got out. Why was that mistake made?
Someone who didn't see it who had an outlet to the rest of the world and really, who would believe a freaking jet hit a building?! I dunno, it makes sense to me. I was in my car and heard that
something
had happened from a normally jackassery dj at a now defunct rock station. He said something along the lines of
I'm not kidding, this is serious, jesus. A plane just hit...
etc. Not exactly a sterling source, but that was all I had access to at the moment. Who knows where he got his info. But he had some airwaves, so...
mean, I know that in events such as this, rumors, incorrect reports, rumors that get turned into incorrect reports, etc. are inevitable (there were a bazillion wrong rumors when Pearl Harbor was attacked) so maybe that's just the way things are in chaotic events...
The coverage of the Pentagon was a case in point. The first reports were that the National Mall was on fire. Now, the National Mall is a big long field of grass, with a few trees and some concrete monuments. It is not really fire-worthy, in the scheme of things, so I was skeptical from the first.
And pretty soon all of the newsies came up with the same thought, and heard from their coworkers who had been stuck in traffic (there's a big interchange right there) when the plane came screaming in, low, and traffic cameras and all the Pentagon correspondents found working phones and people forgot they had ever reported that the Mall was on fire.
It turned out that the first camera to broadcast the smoke from the Pentagon were the cameras from C-Span that are fixed to give a view of the Mall from the Old Exec Office Buildings, which are north of the Mall. So the view was looking southerly, and the smoke billowing up from beyond the horizon, where the Pentagon was in fact a couple miles distant, on the other side of the river. But people said, Mall + smoke = Mall on fire.
It's that kind of instant supposition that can be great for problem-solving, but, leaping to a conclusion is not always the right thing to do.
Steph L. was notably profane.
Not even terrorism changes THAT....
And I feel so selfish, given how many people lost loved ones in the towers and Pentagon, to say this, but I mean it: I'm so utterly, utterly GRATEFUL that we didn't lose a single Buffista.
I don't think there's any other way to process things like that. I'm grateful that none of my family and close friends were hurt in the latest war here, even though I know people who were killed and hurt and lost their homes. I don't think there's any other way to deal with such a horrible reality. I mean, I think it's perfectly OK to be grateful for such things.
The aftermath of that day was the basis for our becoming a community
It's strange. I remember how I thought that an actual community was rising from the TT "Buffy" and "Angel" threads, when TT went pay, and Buffistas just refused to play if some people couldn't get inside the sandbox. The move to WX seemed like a really big thing for me, at the time. I couldn't even imagine how things would speed up, transform and evolve, after 9/11.
I remember staying in front of the computer all night, pretending to work (and not fooling even myself), waiting for e-mails from family and friends in NYC, confirming that they're OK, so that I can start calling other family and friends here and reassure them. You guys kept trying to convince me to go get some sleep, but until I got an answer to all the e-mails that I've sent, I couldn't.
In another fine use of company resources, I've figured out who I'll vote for tomorrow. Mostly. I think this is one of the first times I'll be actually casting a vote for purely strategic reasons.
The first reports were that the National Mall was on fire.
And not just the Mall. By the time the federal government shut down at 10:00 that day, the local NPR station had reported explosions at the Washington Monument and the Old Executive Office Building (right next to the White House), plus a plane circling over the Capitol.
And those are just the stories I remember.
There were also reports that a bomb had gone off outside the State Department, IIRC.
And someone had posted what at first just sounded like a newsworthy fuckup of a small-craft flight.
Well, in Boston there's a convention center called the World Trade Center (among other things, there's an annual wine expo there), so when someone came in a said a plane had hit the WTC (as opposed to saying the Twin Towers or such), I thought they were talking about Boston. Then things started to get appallingly clear (if still confused on details). The fact that my office was then in the shadow of the Hancock Tower did not inspire great confidence, since no one knew if a whole bunch of other cities were being targeted as well.
