Japan Daily
Greg McCune
Wednesday, September 12, 2001 at 09:30 JST
A car navigates an abandoned downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday. Most offices in downtown Los Angeles and other U.S. cities were closed. REUTERS NEWS PHOTO
CHICAGO — Americans fled office towers, jammed public transport, fetched their children from schools and shuttered themselves in their homes on Tuesday as the country virtually closed down after the worst attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor.
All commercial air traffic was halted. Some ports were on high alert. Commuter trains and traffic were snarled in major cities.
Security at borders with Canada and Mexico was tightened. And President George W Bush landed at a military base in Nebraska, about as close to the center of the country as he could get. The White House said Bush would return to Washington later on Tuesday to address the nation on television.
Landmarks from the U.N. headquarters in New York, to the Sears Tower in Chicago, Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and Disney theme parks in Florida were temporarily closed.
Federal buildings throughout Washington, including the Treasury Department, Congress and the Supreme Court were closed and the government gave the green light for its facilities around the country to shut down temporarily.
Schools, federal courthouses and office buildings in many parts of the country were ordered closed and hundreds of trials and grand jury hearings were halted, at least until Wednesday.
Financial trading in New York on Wall Street, and major financial exchanges in Chicago closed and business virtually ground to a halt at many major corporations. Airports were eerily quiet as commercial planes were grounded nationwide and buildings evacuated.
Americans were shocked and angered by the horrible scenes unfolding on television as hijacked planes smashed into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York. A fourth plane crashed near Pittsburgh.
"This is war," said Jeff Axt, the 39-year old president of the Biz-R chain of retail and shoe stores in Royal Oak, Michigan. "I'm enraged as if it were my own immediate family."
President Bush delivered a statement saying the United States had taken all appropriate steps to protect the American people and would hunt down and punish those responsible for the attacks.
In Chicago, office buildings and businesses and stock and commodity exchanges were ordered evacuated soon after the attacks. One of the first to be emptied out was the Sears Tower looming over Chicago's downtown financial district, the tallest U.S. building. People rushed out of the building into the street even though no official order to evacuate had been given.
Major downtown offices in Los Angeles were also evacuated including the Citibank Tower, the Arco Tower and the Bank of America building.
In the Florida capital, Tallahassee, state officials said the state university system and community colleges had closed. Some public schools also closed.
Even the theme parks operated by Walt Disney Co in the Orlando area, attractions that draw millions of tourists a year to central Florida, were shut down for the day as a veil of heightened security fell over the country.
Major businesses in the Atlanta area, including Coca-Cola Co, CNN Center and BellSouth Corp, were closed to all but essential personnel.
The Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit, headquarters of General Motors Corp, the world's largest automaker, was voluntarily evacuated.
The largest shopping mall in the United States, Mall of America near Minneapolis, Minnesota was emptied.
"The safety of our guests, tenants and employees is our top priority," said Maureen Bausch, vice president of marketing and business development for Mall of America. "While we have not received any threats, we believe this is a prudent precaution."
Greyhound lines, the largest U.S. bus line, suspended operations in large parts of the country.
Longshoremen at the Los Angeles port did not report for their early work shift and that port and one at nearby Long Beach, California were operating on heightened security.
Bomb threats were received at sites around the country. Chicago emergency officials said threats had been received by telephone at the Sears Tower and the John Hancock building but nothing came of them.
Florida law enforcement officials said there had been two bomb threats reported in the state earlier in the day. They were received at Florida Atlantic University near Boca Raton and at a state office building in Orlando, but officials said there was no indication they were related to the attacks in New York and in Washington.
A Delta airlines plane was diverted to Cleveland and searched because FBI officials said it fit the profile of the planes which had been hijacked earlier. No bomb was found.
A U.S. Customs official in Detroit said the city's Ambassador Bridge, a major border crossing to Canada, was temporarily closed after the morning attacks as was a tunnel connecting Detroit with the Canadian city of Windsor.
Gov Jeb Bush of Florida, the president's brother, urged Americans to fly their U.S. flags, donate blood and pray.
"The aim of a terrorist is clear — to hurt and humble America," the president's younger brother said in a speech broadcast live statewide. "They may have indeed hurt us but they will never humble us." (Reuters News)
September 11, 2001
Posted: 11:19 PM EDT (0319 GMT)
CNN
These images taken from amateur video show the second airliner crashing into the World Trade Center
NEW YORK (CNN) -- As law enforcement are executing search warrants in Florida late Tuesday based on passenger lists from the hijacked planes that were used in terrorist attacks, New York rescue crews are searching for survivors in buildings near the destroyed towers of the World Trade Center.
"We do know that there are people in the building that are alive, and we are making every effort to get to them," New York Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik said late Tuesday night.
An inferno errupted when two jetliners crashed into the Trade Center's twin towers and the buildings, where up to 40,000 people may have been working, soon collapsed.
Another plane crashed into the Pentagon, where up to 800 personnel remain missing.
Information gleaned from the hijacked planes' passenger lists have led to search warrants that the FBI is in the process of or will soon be executing search warrants in more than one location in South Florida, including homes and post office boxes, a law enforcement source told CNN.
"We're looking at South Florida ties to some of the people we're looking at," the source said.
Also, in northern Florida, a search will be done on a location in Daytona.
The White House announced late Tuesday that the nation's first-ever groundstop would be lifted Wednesday and planes should be flying by noon.
Recovery efforts
New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said bulldozers have been brought in to help clear the rubble away to make rescue efforts easier.
"Ongoing fires and damaged buildings could hamper rescue efforts, but those efforts were continuing overnight," said the mayor.
Almost 300 emergency personnel in New York -- 78 missing police officers and 200 firefighters -- are presumed dead along with the 266 people on the four hijacked airplanes.
Presumed dead are the New York Fire Department's deputy chief and first deputy commissioner -- and Ray Downey, who led NYFD team that helped out after the bombing in Oklahoma City.
President Bush suggested late Tuesday how high the death toll may rise when he said "thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror."
He also issued a warning to any nation that may be giving refuge to those responsible for the terrorist attacks on the United States.
"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them," the president said from the Oval Office of the White House as he promised retaliation.
U.S. intelligence officials told CNN, "There are good indications that persons linked to Osama bin Laden may be responsible for these attacks."
Afghanistan, believed to be the home of bin Laden, denied he was connected to the attacks.
Asked if bin Laden was a suspect, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "It's not the time for discussions like that."
Other U.S. officials said that while the focus is on bin Laden, they have not ruled out other suspects.
They also said they believe more threats exist. Pentagon sources told CNN that all U.S. military sites around the world have gone to ThreatCon Delta, which means that a terrorist attack has occurred or an attack at a specific location is likely.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said there were "no specific warnings" before the attacks.
Knives and box cutters
Although officials said the attacks appeared to have been well planned and executed, a passenger on the plane that hit the Pentagon said in cell phone call to her husband that the terrorists were armed with knives and box cutters.
The passenger was Barbara Olson, a CNN commentator and wife of Solicitor General Theodore Olson.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has briefed members of Congress, telling them that the hijackers on the planes were working in groups of three to five members.
"We will expend every effort and devote all the necessary resources to bring the people responsible for these acts -- these crimes -- to justice," Ashcroft said.
American Airlines Flight 11, carrying 81 passengers and 11 crew members en route from Boston to Los Angeles, slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan shortly before 9 a.m.
About 15 minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175, also en route from Boston to Los Angeles, with 56 passengers and nine crew members aboard, crashed into the south tower. The building exploded into flames and collapsed.
Hours later, fire caused another building, 7 World Trade Center, to collapse. It had been burning since shortly after the planes stuck the Twin Towers. Other nearby buildings are ablaze in the area.
A Boeing 757 jet plowed into the Pentagon at 9:45 a.m. Witnesses said the plane hit what is known as the "Army Corridor."
FBI sources said the aircraft was an American Airlines flight that had been hijacked after taking off from Washington Dulles International Airport bound for Los Angeles.
A fourth aircraft, United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, New Jersey, headed for San Francisco, crashed in a wooded area near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Police said there were no survivors. There were 38 passengers, five flight attendants and two pilots.
"The plane is thoroughly disintegrated," Jim Marker of Somerset County's 911 Emergency Management Center told CNN. "There are no remains, no survivors.
Senior FBI sources said, "There is no doubt the planes [all four] were hijacked."
Intelligence sources told CNN there were indications of attempts to divert the United flight from Newark to crash at Camp David, Maryland, the presidential retreat. It is unclear how that plan may have been thwarted.
U.S. military officials said none of the planes were shot down by U.S. aircraft.
They did not know that specific plane was involved. Callers from two of the other hijack planes called on cell phones to say their planes had been hijacked. Hijackers may have flown planes
James Kallstrom, the retired FBI agent who led the investigation into the explosive crash of TWA 800 in July 1996 that killed 230 people, said he believed the hijackers must have flown the planes into the buildings themselves.
"I can't imagine any American pilot crashing an airplane into one of these buildings, even with a gun to the head. They wouldn't do that," said Kallstrom.
"You've got people that not only are willing to give up their lives for a horrendously, in my view, stupid, cowardly act, but they are sophisticated enough to fly a modern jet plane."
The U.S. military went on full alert. Two aircraft carriers left the Naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, in response to the attacks to provide upgraded air defense for New York and Washington.
Officials in Washington said a "Continuation of Government" plan had been activated. The activation involves a fortified facility at Mount Weather, Virginia. There was no word whether any of the U.S. leadership or ranking military officers had been taken to the facility.
The city of Washington declared a state of emergency.
"The Pentagon is functioning. It will be in business tomorrow," Rumsfeld said.
Members of Congress were quick to blame bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire blamed for bombings at two U.S. embassies in Africa. He is believed to be based in Afghanistan.
"This looks like the signature of Osama bin Laden," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who said he had been briefed by officials at the highest levels of government.
Hatch added: "We're going to find out who did this and we're going after the bastards."
"This is obviously an act of war that has been committed on the United States," said Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona.
In Kabul, Afghanistan Foreign Minister Wakeel Ahmed Mutawakkel said, "We in Afghanistan do not allow Osama bin Laden to use Afghan territory to launch any attack on any government around the world."
He said the Afghan government had taken away bin Laden's communication devices, "and he has not been in touch with anyone outside Afghanistan."
Mutawakkel said the Taliban will conduct its own investigation. "We will determine what really happened. We denounce this terrorist attack, whoever is behind it."