As this 9/11 comes to a close… my memory of 16 years ago is still fresh in my mind.
I was on air in Connecticut just 2 hours north of NYC. The station I managed was a brokered Hip/Hop R&B station but the broker was not paying his bills, so I was on the air that morning. At the top of the 9am hour, our news service anchor Stephanie from Metro News and Traffic, gave a news report of the towers being struck minutes before but that there were few details. Her newscast ended and we continued programming with music, but within a couple minutes she called our studio back to say the other tower was hit. I put her back on-air right away and she gave the details as they were coming in. We had a volunteer that was in Brooklyn who called in and talked about what he was able to see. My sister and mom lived out on Long Island, so I was also in communication with them…. fortunate to get through the phones.
That event was the catalyst to making the station a News/Talk station. We got permission from Metro to carry the Fox News feed they had for a short while. We were one of the first stations to carry Fox News Radio. We were home to many of the Conservative talkers of the day: Dr. Laura, Neil Boortz, Judicial Watch, Michael Reagan, Rusty Humphries… and I also did a daily 2 hour talk show from 1p-3p.
We will always remember the sadness, being scared, and uncertain of the future. We will always remember the first responders that sacrificed their lives to try to help save other’s lives. And we will always remember the innocent lives lost on the planes and in the buildings. We will also remember how we came together as a Country and did not let our differences divide us. It’s very sad that it takes such an act of terror, or a major natural disaster to bring us together like that.
