DEDICATION
At press time, it is just four weeks since the simultaneous terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and the attack that was thwarted in the skies of Pennsylvania by selfless common citizens.
It is still impossible to comprehensively report on the human cost of these atrocities—these wholesale mass murders. MRT’s editors decided to focus on the repercussions in the telecommunications community and on public safety communications effects in particular.
We have combined our story by freelance telecommunications writer James Careless with contributions from the MRT staff to create this overview. The communications complications of an urban disaster led us to concentrate most of this report on the World Trade Center attack. This is not intended to diminish the tragedies in Pennsylvania and Washington.
Sept. 11 was National 9-1-1 Day, and hundreds of public servants gave what Abraham Lincoln called “the last full measure of devotion.” Many valiant police, fire and emergency medical teams’ signals from ground zero went silent on Sept. 11. This report is dedicated to them and to the PSAP operators and dispatchers who supported them.