Since the beginning of last week I've been trying to get my life back to normal. As some of you know, I was at Newark airport when the tragedies occurred, and I could see the World Trade Center towers as they burned and fell. The images of that day will haunt me for the rest of my life - as well the frightening feeling of standing in the middle of an airport and suddenly realizing that all communications were cut off. Within minutes of the attack on the second tower, all phones in the airport were silenced. Cell phones and public phones didn't have as much as a dial tone, and the closed-circuit airport monitors went to a static test screen.

Like the hundreds of people around me, I tried calling family and friends just about every ten seconds - not only to tell them that we were all right, but also to hear more about what might be happening. Finally, walking through the airport, we found a bar that still picked up CNN on its satellite. We watched in disbelief as they replayed what we had just seen with our own eyes - a burning tower, and a plane flown directly, horrifyingly into a second tower.

The reception was poor, apparently because CNN had to rely on older technology. When one of the towers was hit, their transmitters atop the towers were destroyed. Cell phone towers were also destroyed, as were some landlines underneath the towers - having succumbed to what Verizon described as the force of "several earthquakes." In the aftermath of all of this mayhem, people in the city struggled to contact their loved ones and let them know they were okay. Many relied on their cell phones, and some had limited success - however, the panic set in, and the entire city tried to contact their friends and family, it was necessary for people to rely on other modes of communication as well.

Most people, it seems, turned to the Internet - and e-mail. My mother, unable to reach me by phone for the entire day, was finally able to get a message to me via e-mail - and also receive a message from me assuring her that I was fine. In the city, many people sent out collective messages - to several friends and acquaintances - asking them to check in via e-mail, and let them know how they and their loved ones were doing. Meanwhile, at ground zero, where communications were a necessity and could not depend on the unpredictable reception of cell phones, emergency crews turned to the services of amateur radio operators.

Though you may not have heard much about it through conventional news outlets - Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) organizations were able to set up emergency nets in lower Manhattan. With the help of amateurs, the emergency crews in lower Manhattan have been able to assist government traffic as well as help hospitals in their efforts to maintain the necessary levels of blood supply.

In light of this tragedy, please consider visiting one of the following web sites and offering a contribution of some kind that might help the families of those who were lost or injured:

Red Cross Donations
Helping.org - has a listing of organizations
The United Way

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If you are interested in using C. Crane's articles on your own Web site, please let me know. I'd be happy to take a look at your Web site and see what we can do. Good-bye for now, Carlos. About the author