Recalled back to Washington
Text messages from a student were what prompted Scott Bernard to suspend class and find a TV.
Bernard, executive professor at the School of Information Studies and a retired military officer, was one of two instructors teaching about 40 graduate-level students in an executive education program at the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel and Conference Center on the morning of Sept. 11.
When Bernard and the students moved to a space outside of the room, a TV screen showed both of the twin towers badly damaged, with orange flames and thick black smoke swirling up to the sky. They had a feeling that this was not an accident, Bernard said.
American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia at 9:37 a.m. and United Airlines Flight 93 smashed onto the field of Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. The south tower collapsed four minutes earlier at 9:59 a.m. At 10:28 a.m., the north tower crumbled into dust.
“We watched the towers fall,” Bernard said. “And that’s when, along with the rest of the world, we went into a deep shock.”
By noon, the iSchool administration made the decision to suspend the class.
The students enrolled in the program were people in the workforce who came to SU to attend a class only for a few days. They came from across the country and a few from abroad, and all flights in the United States were grounded.
Bernard got a new task: How do these students get home?
“We started asking each person, ‘What city did you come from?’ and ‘Did you fly or did you drive?’” Bernard recalled. “And once we figured that out, we got that all listed up on a board and we said to them ‘We’d like to organize a carpool and students were all for it.’”
By early afternoon, students had arranged carpools going all directions: the eastern seaboard, Florida, Texas, Oregon and California.
One of the students in Bernard’s class was Mark Pollitt, who was one of managers at the FBI computer forensic lab in its headquarters in Washington, D.C. Bernard, who was working at a consulting firm in downtown D.C. and living in Falls Church, Virginia, offered Pollitt a ride as soon as he finished taking care of the students. Pollitt accepted the offer, with one condition.
“He said ‘let me drive’ and I said, ‘Why Mark?’” Bernard recalled. “He said, ‘Because we are gonna go fast.’”
Pollitt, an FBI agent who knew how to drive fast, drove Bernard’s 1998 Dodge Caravan well over the speed limit.
“I don’t think that van has ever gone so fast as the day he drove it,” he said.
After Pollitt drove straight to his home in northern Maryland, Bernard made it home in Falls Church where he reunited with his wife by 9 p.m.
We watched the towers fall. And that’s when, along with the rest of the world, we went into a deep shock.Scott Bernard, executive professor in the School of Information Studies
Bernard and his wife, a former navy officer who had left assignment at the Pentagon in 2000, had lost about a half-dozen people whom they knew from work in the attack.
Bernard said when he drove by the Pentagon on Interstate 395 the following day to get to work at a consulting firm called Booz Allen Hamilton, he saw the building was still smoking.
“And, again, it was very, very shocking,” Bernard said.
“It was almost more cathartic that way.”
Keith Kobland was out on an assignment for Channel 5 News, sitting his car and listening to ESPN Radio on the morning of Sept. 11.
“(Radio host) Mike Greenberg all of a sudden mentioned they were following a story in New York City, where a plane had hit the tower,” said Kobland, now a media manager for SU. “Both me and the photographer kind of looked at each other and thought: ‘Wow.’”
Kobland and the photographer, Jim Hamilton, who is now a videographer for SU Athletics, soon returned to the newsroom, where they and others from the station watched as the second plane hit.
Local election primaries were being held that day, but as the news continued to develop, they were postponed until a later date.
“That’s when we realized, ‘OK, this is something serious and significant,” Kobland said.
From there, the channel went into continuous coverage of the attacks, alternating between the local station and the national CBS network. That meant no “The Price Is Right” and no soap operas, just the news.
Kobland and others from the station covered candlelight vigils, man-on-the-street interviews and more to tell the story from a central New York angle.
“You get caught up in a story, and at the time you’re not really thinking in the moment about the larger ramifications,” he said. “All you’re thinking is, ‘OK, we have to get over to James Street to get these interviews.’”
Kobland was sent home from the station that night, but he returned the next day and the non-stop coverage continued for about two full days.
“You just go into that work mode,” he said. “And it was almost more cathartic that way.”
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Universal tragedy
At the British Museum in London, Margaret Hermann heard an announcement: If you are an American, you should go to the nearest pub. Something terrible has happened to your country.
As she went into one of the pubs, TV screens were dominated by the coverage from the U.S., until then-Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke on TV.
Blair said she had been introduced to the event in a different way from those in the U.S.
“When I got back to the United States, what I learned is that this is an attack on America, that we are at war on terrorism,” said Hermann, a political science professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
Hermann was in London to attend a political science conference outside of London. Even though she was scheduled to leave the country on Sept. 12, all flight services to the U.S. were suspended and it took almost a week for her to return to the country.
Hermann said she received outpouring support from British citizens who were eager to help stranded Americans.
The hotel she was originally planning to stay for one night made accommodation so that she could stay as long as she needed. People on the street, noticing her American accent, would come to her and expressed their sympathy and asked her what they could do to help her.
“I can’t say enough about how kind the British citizens really were,” Hermann said. “… Because this was something they had not expected either. And they lost people. So they were grieving as well.”
