Communication During The September 11 Attacks - General Public

General Public

After the attack, the cell phone network of New York City was rapidly overloaded as traffic doubled over normal levels. Cell phone traffic also overloaded across the East Coast, leading to crashes of the cell phone network. Since three of the major broadcast networks had their transmission towers atop the North Tower (One World Trade Center), coverage was limited after the collapse of the tower. The satellite feed of one station, WPIX, froze on the last image received from the WTC mast; the image (a remote-camera shot of the burning towers), viewable across North America (as WPIX is available on cable TV in many areas), remained on the screen for much of the day until WPIX was able to set up alternate transmission facilities. It shows the WTC at the moment power cut off to the WPIX transmitter, prior to the towers' collapse.

During the September 11, 2001 attacks, WCBS-TV channel 2 and WXTV-TV channel 41 stayed on the air. Unlike most other major New York television stations, WCBS-TV maintained a full-powered backup transmitter at the Empire State Building after moving its main transmitter to the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The station was also simulcasted nationally on Viacom (which at the time owned CBS) cable network VH1 that day. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the station lent transmission time to the other stations who had lost their transmitters until they found suitable backup equipment and locations.

The Emergency Alert System was never activated in the terrorist attacks, as the extensive media coverage made it unnecessary.

AT&T eliminated any costs for domestic calls originating from the New York City area (phones using area codes 212/718/917/646/347) in days following 9/11.