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September 11, 2001 By Sara Silver NEW YORK – Many people reached for their phones after the attack on the World Trade Center towers to see if loved ones were safe, but many calls couldn’t get through. The toppled twin towers, which symbolized New York’s financial prowess, also housed equipment and antennas that transmitted millions of calls each day. The damage and an unprecedented volume of traffic overwhelmed an already strained communications system, cutting off much of a metropolis dependent like any modern city on telecommunications. Callers from as far away as Maine and Atlanta tried for more than an hour before getting through. "I dial 10 times and I’m lucky if two calls go through," said Chris Harreus, a union shop steward with the Communications Workers of America doing construction in the Newsweek building on 57th Street, more than four miles north of the World Trade Towers. "Service is locking up on cell phones and pay phones." Knocked out were facilities of carriers including Verizon, although it said there was no major disruption of its network. Sprint said the loss of leased landline equipment under one of the buildings was blocking 75,000 long distance calls. "It’s pandemonium," said Keisha Smithwick, who works at WestCom, a company that maintains dedicated phone lines for financial trading. She was sent home after the attack that destroyed the towers, where most of her company’s clients were located. |
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Copyright © 2001 the Cortez
Journal. All rights reserved. |
